Average cost of food for 2 weeks at Disney

[MFras23]

I have just totalled up 10 days/9 nights at Disney with our 'usual' eateries we go to using the DDP, thrown in drinks, breakfast and a snack ... WOW! What I would love to say would most likely result in my post being removed. I cannot comprehend spending that much ... I have always held the view that the DDP comes in at about the same price as using OOP. Boy I was wrong!

With no free dine next year we will be cutting down the amount of TS, utilising free cups of water at QS and potentially a grocery order delivered to help with breakfast costs. I am exasperated, completely shocked about the costs adding up so quickly. We are only a party of 2 and looking to have a family in the future! God knows how the costs would sky rocket!

[Shooby doo]

Op is clearly "pro"eating onsite & I can sort of see the whole no car argument but even the logistics seem to get ignored:
Saratoga is our Home resort so it takes 20-25 mins walk to the Crossroads & a large selection of off-site restaurants or if we want to eat anywhere apart from Disney Springs we either have to get the bus to a park then get another bus to the resort of choice or alternatively walk to Disney Springs & get a bus from the Station, all to be somewhere by a certain time on a certain day. Now obviously some resorts are easier than others to go off-site & I'm sure Disney are fully aware of that fact!
We ate onsite extensively for the 2 weeks that we had family out there, last year, they had DDP we didn't, also in that 2 week period we ate in 4 Signatures- Cali, Flying Fish,Le Cellier & Morimoto- LC was a first & last, just didn't live up to the hype especially at those prices, Morimoto also a first but we'd perhaps visit at lunch as Ramen is Ramen. Cali was great but it was $200 for 2 of us! Flying Fish was superb but on refelection we just couldn't justify a $240 bill for a shared starter, 2 entrees, shared dessert & 2 cocktails! Kona Cafe another long time favourite- $50 for a steak with a small onion (think pickled onion) all sides were extra! Compared to Manny's where our total bill was just over $60!
The food at Johnnie Hideaways was on par with Cali & Flying Fish but without the view/ambience & whilst I wouldn't say it was cheap we were still $70-$80 cheaper than Disney & my steak dwarfed both Disney ones!
Next year I'd guess that we might eat at Disney Springs once or twice but the rest will all be offsite, there just isn't one onsite restaurant that I'd rush to re-visit!
SD

[MrsSevSpaghetti]

As I said before we aren’t early risers (well I am) getting to a park at 11am and then leaving at 6pm to go get dinner makes the idea of staying at Disney totally pointless. Without DDP staying onsite is a total waste.
There are other reasons for not coming off site I don't want to go into detail but other half has health problems. Packing up, driving off site, coming back blah blah, all makes for a long day. Then finding places that suit daughter make it more of an issue and more time. I’m the only one allowed to drive and I want a alcohol with my dinner (I was so looking forward to free cocktails this year!). I can’t say I’m massively enthusiastic about driving in Florida, I live in a small town and rarely drive much further, multiple lanes terrify me. In 20 years I’ve hardly driven on a major motorway.
One of the perks for Disney for us has been the ease of it basically all inclusive without being on a small site.
My original query was just the cost. I know I’ve read reports where people have said the dining plan wasn’t good value compared to paying, but it really is! I never knew what the difference was and it was worth asking. I’m sure I read once the difference was 15%, this is so not true!
I think unless things improve in the US we aren’t going anyway, DH has been told to long term shield, ignoring government advice, so unless we get a vaccine we aren’t going anywhere.

[Custancia]

Free DDP is definitely good value given the prices Disney charge for snacks, drinks and meals. Any advice I would offer in the tracking of costs we’ve done, is redundant since an early poster included the calculation link.
Some TS places are cheaper than others though, Sci Fi diner is a good example. It may be worth comparing menu prices. You could also perhaps use garden grocer or similar to deliver and have breakfasts in your room and take snacks into the park. Especially given snacks are typically $5 each! You don’t need to buy water in the parks as Iced water is free, and we take the super concentrated squash with us to the parks to add to it. Cocktails at Disney prices may bust the bank... but how about buying some pimms duty free and enjoying it at your resort with some sprite? (it doesn’t have to be Pimms obviously, but Ive given away my personal plan there!)

Hope you manage to find a way to get the finances to work.

[nothingless]

Originally Posted by MrsSevSpaghetti

My original query was just the cost. I know I’ve read reports where people have said the dining plan wasn’t good value compared to paying, but it really is! I never knew what the difference was and it was worth asking. I’m sure I read once the difference was 15%, this is so not true!

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But this just SOO depends on your family's eating habits and style. For my family, with a 3-year-old who eats like a bird and 2 adults who don't drink alcohol and don't eat meat, paying OOP for the QS DPD would have cost a LOT more than just paying OOP for our food as we went along (we spent around $85 daily vs $136 for the QSDDP daily). For us, the plan truly was more expensive - your best bet is always to use a dining calculator with your family's eating habits to make sure.

[Shooby doo]

MrsSev I think the original plans (not free) were designed to save on a sliding scale QSDP 10% & DDP %15-20%, now before being allowed alcohol I'd say that that certainly wasn't the case. With, you are now about even & possibly in "the black" but not by much. As we all know you have to maximise all of your items to get that "bonus". Free obviously is a different ballgame but I've always thought that it was a bit like "look at what you could have won" in that the price that they told you you would save wasn't entirely realistic if for instance you didn't have desserts, we wouldn't have alcohol with every meal. "Free" has also allowed them to increase prices without it being really noticed, we had 7 nights DDP last year (before 3 weeks without) & I can't think of one TS that was under $100-$120 for a meal for 2, that's £100 every night
As I said before I can't think of 1 Disney restaurant that we must eat at, really enjoyed Trail's End but it looks like they've put the price up to reflect the other buffets & it's not worth $60! But if you "have" to stay onsite then unfortunately there is no escaping those prices IYKWIM
SD

[sha9]

If it helps at all we stayed a week onsite with no DDP in 2018 (trip report here ). We only really ventured off site for one meal when we went to SeaWorld for dinner at Sharks Underwater Grill and basically spent the same as we would have had we paid for DDP.

[meegraine]

It was great to read this thread! We're going in July 2021 and of course there's no DDP so I'm trying to budget for food!

We're staying on site and not hiring a car. We've managed to get a $300 gift card with our booking that we are going to put towards food. We're also hoping that Disney are still offering the gift cards for opting out of the mousekeeping which would give us an extra $130. I'm budgeting for £500pp for the 2 weeks excluding the gift card.

I will be buying a crate of water and breakfast items so we will only be buying lunch and dinner (we will stick to QS's and maybe do 1 TS)

Would you advise this'll work?

[BevS97]

We stay onsite, and eat a mixture of Quick Service, Table Service, meals in our room, and offsite. We don't actually go off-site all that often, but we have a few favourites that we like. We generally have breakfast in our room, bagel / danish / cereal etc.

Lunch is nearly always QS in the park. We sometimes share because portions are large and then we can have a snack / dessert later without being too full.

Dinner is usually QS, we might pay for 1 or 2 waiter service meals. I just can't justify the cost for what you get. There are lots of nice quick service places. We also pick the cheaper full service places, such as Mama Melrose, Skipper Canteen, Yak and Yeti (You can get a voucher for here which makes it even cheaper).


The Dining Plan will save you money compared to a quick service / full service and snack everyday, but without the dining plan we don't eat like that, so it doesn't save us any money.

It's a decision, am I prepared to spend £150/night just for dinner, or would I be happy spending less and eating quick service. Some of the quick service places are very tasty but obviously you don't get the same ambiance of a full service meal.

[BevS97]

Originally Posted by meegraine

It was great to read this thread! We're going in July 2021 and of course there's no DDP so I'm trying to budget for food!

We're staying on site and not hiring a car. We've managed to get a $300 gift card with our booking that we are going to put towards food. We're also hoping that Disney are still offering the gift cards for opting out of the mousekeeping which would give us an extra $130. I'm budgeting for £500pp for the 2 weeks excluding the gift card.

I will be buying a crate of water and breakfast items so we will only be buying lunch and dinner (we will stick to QS's and maybe do 1 TS)

Would you advise this'll work?

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£500 or $500?

Take a look at Quick Service prices, they tend to run around $13-$20 depending on what you order?

$500/14 = $35 per day. You should be ok to get 2 QS a day for that, but keep an eye on costs of snacks / drinks.