10/04/2026
Did we beat the quick service dining plan?
I did some math to find out. But before I share, let me give you some context. In 2026, kids eat free. So my family had 2 kids and 2 adults. We only paid for the 2 adults. My sister’s family had one adult and 2 kids. She only paid for 1 adult. My parents were with us but didn’t get a dining plan.
My sister easily came out ahead. But I was curious how my family of 4 would do. So I tried my best to keep track of everything.
For the 3 nights we were there, we were given a total of 12 adult meal credits, 12 kid meal credits, and 12 snack credits.
Here were the results:
We paid $362.82 for the Quick Service Plan. In the end, if we had paid out of pocket without the plan, we would have spent $527.42. So we saved about $165.
FYI - there were 4 kid service meals that were unaccounted for because I forgot to make note of what we bought, so I didn’t include them in the running total. So I guess you could add about $10 more per meal to our savings.
This dining plan worked out for us because we had extra people traveling with us (the grandparents) that we could buy meals for. Otherwise, we probably would have been left meal credits on the table because we paid for 2 table service meals out of pocket.
It’s important to note that having the quick service dining plan influenced what restaurant we chose to eat at and even which meal we picked.
I’m glad we got the meal plan but it definitely added another element of planning. If Disney were to do the “kids eat free” again, I’d probably go with the regular Disney Dining Plan so I could book table service meals without feeling guilty - specifically some pricey character dining.
What are your thoughts on the dining plans and have you ever beat it?!
