Overview

 

My wife and I took a trip to Disney World from August 16th through August 23rd, 2009. I bought the Disney Deluxe Dining Plan for our 7 night vacation and took notes on every meal purchased with the plan. My goal was to analyze how much actual value the dining plan provided along with a look at actual food some of the highest rated restaurants Disney World has to offer.

Going into this trip I was armed with information from Mouse Savers and the Unofficial Guide to Walt Disney World. I felt both were invaluable for making this vacation a success.

Here's an overview for how this all works.

For me, a major part of this vacation was going to be trying out all the different restaurants Disney World had to offer. The Deluxe Dining Plan provided the credits I needed to try out all the restaurants I wanted, and also provided appetizers - an important part of a meal for me.

Going into this, I had read that the dining plan could provide savings up to 40%. For something on offer from Disney World, I was a bit surprised by this - Disney offering more for less? Crazy.

I use the following math to figure the actual "value" of each dining credit by looking at the total amount paid and subtracting the value of the snacks and mug.

Deluxe Dining Plan - $72/Day

7 Days X $72 = $504

-Cost of Resort Refillable Mug - $10
-14 Snacks, which on average were worth $3 apiece to us - $42

Cost of 21 table credits - $452

Cost per credit - ~$22

Based on this, I'll be comparing the cost of any meal using 1 dining credit against $22, and the cost of any meal using 2 dining credits ("Signature" restaurants) against $44.