Going Deluxe with Your Dining: Our Experience with the Deluxe Dining Plan

For each night that you stay at Walt Disney World Resort, you get three meal credits per person that can be used for either table service or counter service meals, two snack credits per person, and a refillable mug, all for the price of $69.99 plus tax per adult (age 10+) per night or $19.99 plus tax per child (age 3 – 9) per night for stays in 2009. In 2010, those prices will go up to $71.99 per night for adults and $21.99 per night for children.

Another important thing to know is that the table service credits include an appetizer, entree, and dessert, a big difference compared to the regular dining plan, which now no longer has the appetizer included.

As soon as I heard about the introduction of this new dining plan, I started to wonder whether it would work for us or not. Certainly, the existing Disney Dining Plan, which gives you one table service credit, one counter service credit, and one snack credit per night's stay wasn't an option for us, given our eating habits. We tend to enjoy two table service meals each day, with usually a snack for breakfast. Although the Deluxe Dining Plan would probably give us too many table service credits, I did figure that perhaps I could even that out by trying out a number of Signature Dining restaurants. For months, I debated whether to go for the Deluxe Dining Plan or not and, eventually, I decided in favor of giving it a go.

As Disney Vacation Club members, we just had to call DVC Member Services to get it added to our booking, and the process couldn't have been simpler. The only slight fly in the ointment I discovered when we checked in was that, because we were staying in a one bedroom villa for one night, then swapping over to a studio for our remaining five nights, we had two Dining Plans, one for each reservation. I had incorrectly assumed that we would have six nights' worth of credits available to us as soon as we checked in. Instead, we had just a day's allowance, followed by the rest of our credits the next day as part of our second reservation. This required a couple of quick changes to our dining plans as we found ourselves with only three credits per person on our first day.