dl dining plan About This Page:

[PURPLEPRINCESS]

I am planning our first trip to disneyland and california. One of my questions is how does the dl dining plan work? Do iot work the same as wdw dining plan or is it totally different?


thanks
dawn

[DopeyGirl]

Totally different and definitely not as good of a deal as the WDW Dining Plan. In fact, you don't save anything at all. :

I have researched it for trips in the past but found the only real benefit of it would be to pay in advance for meals, even though not all locations take the plan vouchers.

The way it works is . . . You pay a certain amount then are given vouchers in dollar amounts starting at $5, I believe, amounting to exactly the amount you paid. However, you do not get change. So, if you buy something that costs $2 and use a $5 voucher, you lose $3.

[bitterchickey]

WOW...I was wondering if they even had a dining plan, I guess the books I have are out of date! That's not a deal at all!

[HeatherD]

Yeah, I remember looking at it when someone posted it awhile back. Definitely NOT a means of saving nor does it offer a lot of selection (some of the vouchers are limited). I would stay far away from it!

[PURPLEPRINCESS]

Thanks for the advice about the vouchers. But I see they have vouchers for the character meals, are these worth getting or is it better to pay for these out of paocket too?

Dawn

[w-steele]

Originally Posted by DopeyGirl

Totally different and definitely not as good of a deal as the WDW Dining Plan. In fact, you don't save anything at all. :

I have researched it for trips in the past but found the only real benefit of it would be to pay in advance for meals, even though not all locations take the plan vouchers.

The way it works is . . . You pay a certain amount then are given vouchers in dollar amounts starting at $5, I believe, amounting to exactly the amount you paid. However, you do not get change. So, if you buy something that costs $2 and use a $5 voucher, you lose $3.

DopeyGirl, could you provide a web site or someplace where I can also research this dining plan. I'd like to compare it to the one we had at WDW. Thanks

[DopeyGirl]

Sure!

I had a couple of sites still bookmarked, but got a bit of info on how the plan worked by calling DL about 3 years ago as well. It is still the same plan offered now as a few years ago. After finding out a bit more on it, it really just didn't seem a good deal for us unless we just wanted to pre-pay for our meals.

Disneyland Meal Plan?? - MouseBuzz.com --- Post #13 lists the plans and the old prices.

Disneyland Dining Plan.... - MiceChat


This one has "updated" plan info: Intercot West - Disneyland Inside & Out


DL did do a test run on the Dining Plan like WDW has from around Halloween until after Christmas, but no word on whether or not they are implementing it permanently yet. :

[w-steele]

Thanks for the information. DLR's Dining Plans totally SUCK! Hey, if they can have a great Dinind Plan at WDW why can't they do the same sort of plans out here at DLR?

[DopeyGirl]

With any luck, the Dining Plan test run was successful enough last fall that they will implement it soon! We can hope!

[w-steele]

I hope you aren't referring to the voucher plan as being a success. That plan sucks. I mean if your meal is $4.37 and all you have is a $10 voucher, you just threw away $5.63. On the other hand, if your meal comes to $10.67, you still have to pay out of pocket the $.67. I like WDW's meal plan better and not just because when we used it back during our Sept visit we came out ahead of the game by several hundred dollars either. At least if you are paying $71.99 per day for the deluxe plan, if you don't get your moneys with, then it is your problem. I mean for 3 meals and 2 snacks per day, that is well worth the cost. Even if you don't go with the deluxe plan and just go with the standard plan at $39.99 a day, you still get 1 table, 1 quick and 1 snack a day and as at WDW, some of the DTD restaruants were even in on the plan. As for me, I will stick with 'cash' payments for all my eats at DL if the current plan they have stays around. We're going to be staying on property 3 times this year, June, Oct and again last of Dec and with those plans I'll flip out the 'plastic' and ensure that I get what I pay for.

[DopeyGirl]

Originally Posted by w-steele

I hope you aren't referring to the voucher plan as being a success.

Oh no. : I don't think the vouchers as they have it now can ever be a real success.

No, I was referring to what I mentioned at the end of one of my earlier posts.

Disneyland did a test run of the WDW style Disney Dining Plan from this past October through Christmas.

No word yet on whether or not they will be replacing the current plan with it (although they really SHOULD.) but we can hope that the dining plan will change soon! Being that DL's attendance dropped last year, I think if they implemented the new dining plan they would see a good increase in attendance for the rest of this year. More incentive to come to DL, I say!

[raftislander]

It will be interesting to see what happens with the DL dining plan. For those of you used to the WDW system and wondering why it is not available at DL, I am not sure they could implement that plan sucessfully at DL. There aren't as many resaturants at DL overall and very few table service restaurants. Having just come back from a trip to WDW, I was impressed by the variety of food choices there. It seems like I am eating mostly burgers, pizza, salads, and chiken strips at DL. I consumed a wide variety of food at WDW. I did not eat a single burger while at WDW and the only pizza I had came from Wolfgang Puck Express. Some of the counter service options there gave you the feel of a sitdown once you got your food. The eating areas for Flame Tree Barbeque at AK were delightful. We ate dinner at Sunshine Seasons at Epcot and my daughter had a pork chop dinner that was delicious. Because most people were at the World Showcase by dinnertime, the dining area was uncrowded and quiet. You just don't have options like these at DL and all the places are crowded at meal times. Plus a huge difference between FL and CA, is the number of people that vacation at WDW and never leave the property versus how many do this at DL. Disney's primary goal in WDW is to have you come there for a week and spend all of your money on WDW grounds. They make it possible to come for that length of time and not rent a car, but it keeps you on property. Because it has so many resort guests that are depending on WDW to provide a place to eat, WDW has to have places for lots of people to eat morning, noon, and night. In Anaheim, most people are just there for the day or staying off property and have a car to take them to area restaurants. Even if you don't have a car in Anaheim, it is easy to get to off property restaurants that have good food and better prices. You just dont have the captive eaters at DL that you do at WDW. From reading these boards, I can tell that for some people eating at the various restaurants at WDW is a huge aspect of their vacation. You don't see the same type postings about the restaurants at DL.

[JPTexan82]

My wife and I were there in 06 and did the Minnie Dining plan. It was not a good idea to have it, they were very hard to use. Like said before if you had a meal that was $7.50 and you had $10.00 unless you bought more food you were out that change. It was nice to prepay for food, but you could not eat at the Downtown Disney food place like ESPN or the Mexican food. So we were stuck eating like at Granviews. We would probley not have eaten there because we had to use the large $ dollar amount tickets for those so we could use them up.

[PURPLEPRINCESS]

I think those of us coming from far away will use the dining plan if it was like WDW and if they included some of the downtown disney restaurants, the hotels and park restaurants. I think that will give us a nice variety for the few days many of us stay. We will only stay for 5 days compared to 14 days we stay at WDW. SO i think by the time we use character dining and some of the fine dinig in the park and at DTD, The plan could work especially if they offer the quick dining plan, regular dining plan, and maybe a modified deluxe plan which include two TS and maybe 2 or 3 snacks instead of 3 TS and 2 snacks. That way people can have either breakfast or lunch and then a nice dinner after visiting the parks.

Dawn

[Disney918]

This is great info....I had a friend ask me about the DL dining plan the other day and I had no idea about it. I told him I would check "my sources" (passporter boards! and here it is. I will tell him to run for the hills on this one for sure.