Walt Disney World Trip Recap - Disney Dining Plan

We recently got back from a trip to Walt Disney World in Florida and I thought I'd share my experience for (mostly) my future reference. This part includes the Disney Dining Plan.

I used our previous experience (Disney Character Dining Review) to help decide what character dining we did. With the regular dining plan, you get 1 sit down meal per person, per night. You can use these for character dining. So we went to the following:

  • Tusker House Restaurant (Animal Kingdom)
  • Akershus Royal Banquet Hall (Epcot)
  • The Garden Grill Restaurant (Epcot)
  • The Crystal Palace (Magic Kingdom)
  • Hollywood & Vine (Hollywood Studios)
  • Chef Mickey's (Contemporary Resort)
The only one that was new was Hollywood & Vine. You could see characters from Disney Jr - Doc McStuffins, Jake (from Neverland Pirates), and Sofia The First - which you can't see at any other dining experience. But the lines for the buffet were huge - we almost missed seeing the characters. I don't know if that was because of New Year's Eve or if that was typical.

As far as the overall dining plan goes, if you are going to have character experiences, the standard dining plan is awesome. We brought small stuff for breakfast (bars, donuts, etc) and then did a sit down character meal and a "quick service" meal each day. Plus there's snacks that we didn't completely use until the last day when we got stuff like licorice and gummy worms to bring home.

If you aren't doing the character dining, I don't know if the dining plan is worth it or not. The quick service meals are sufficient - you don't need a sit down meal every day. If there's an option that has mostly quick service, then that might work out.

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