The Dining Plan is back in Disney World, and there’s a lot to talk about!
Mickey Bar!
The Disney Dining Plan is a way to pre-pay for your meals during your vacation, allotting each traveler a certain number of meal credits and snack credits per day of their trip. We’ve seen some big changes with the plans available since they came back at the beginning of 2024, but perhaps one of the most important things to talk about is Disney World’s FREE dining deal — what does it look like this year and will we get more deals?
Dining Plan Overview
Let’s start this out with an overview of the Dining Plan. There are two different Dining Plan options when booking your trip — the Disney Quick Service Dining Plan and the Disney Standard Dining Plan. The quick service plan comes with two quick service credits and a snack credit per person, per day, while the standard plan comes with a table service credit, a quick service credit, and a snack credit per person, per day. Both plans also give each person one refillable mug for their resort stay.
Chili Cheese Fries at Casey’s Corner
The Quick Service Dining Plan costs $57.01 per adult per night for ages 10 and up and $23.83 per child per night for ages 3 to 9. The Standard Dining Plan costs $94.28 per adult per night for ages 10 and up and $29.69 per child per night for ages 3 to 9.
Totchos at Woody’s Lunch Box
To get the most value for your money, you’ll want to be the type of person who orders the more expensive menu items, especially when it comes to those snack credits! But what’s one way to make sure you get your money’s worth? By booking a free dining deal, of course!
Free Dining in 2024
“Free dining” is a Disney World Dining Plan promotion that we’ve seen pop up several times in the past. In previous years, it was used to convince people to come to Disney World during the off-season by offering a free Dining Plan with their package. When the Dining Plan returned in 2024, a NEW free dining deal was announced along with it.
Contemporary
The current free dining offer notes that Disney+ subscribers can get the Disney Dining Plan for FREE on select dates when they purchase a non-discounted 4-night, 4-day Walt Disney Travel Company package. This package must include a room at a select Disney hotel and a Park Hopper theme park ticket.
Riviera Resort
This new deal is available for trips most nights from July 1st to September 30th, 2024. This is the first time we’ve had a free dining offer in 4 years. This is also the first time we’ve seen a Disney+ subscriber-exclusive free dining deal.
Wilderness Lodge
With this deal being so specific…will Disney World decide to offer MORE free dining in 2024?
Could More Free Dining Come This Year?
Taking it back to 2019, Disney World had not one, but TWO free dining deals in one year. The first applied to dates in the summer and early fall, while the second applied to winter travel dates. Then, before the parks closed due to the pandemic, there was set to be another deal available in summer 2020.
Sci-Fi Dine-In Theater Eats
Free dining used to motivate people to come to the parks in the off-season, but we really started to see this deal shift before the pandemic. The summer isn’t exactly a “slow” time for Disney World since so many people are out of school during that time. So now, the goal of free dining just seems to be to get as many people to the parks as possible.
The Plaza Restaurant full spread
With that in mind, it’s possible that Disney could release another free dining deal later this year, although nothing is certain. If it follows the 2019 trend, a wintertime deal could be released later in the summer (that one was announced in July 2019). It’s also possible that Disney could expand its current free dining deal to be less exclusive, so that people who aren’t Disney+ subscribers can take advantage.
Columbia Harbour House
Either way, this is entirely conjecture based on what we’ve seen in the past. We’ll be interested to see what deals Disney World announces in the future! In the meantime, stay tuned to DFB for all the Dining Plan tips!
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The post Could More FREE DINING Come to Walt Disney World? first appeared on the disney food blog.