In March 2025 I spent two weeks in Walt Disney World with my partner. We stayed at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort and when we booked our package through Virgin Holidays we qualified for a free Disney quick-service dining plan.
With the quick-service dining plan, each person on the plan gets two quick-service meals (one entrée and one drink) and one snack per day, as well as a refillable resort mug.
As I ate my body weight in pizza, hot dogs and Mickey shaped snacks, I couldn’t help but wonder if the quick-service dining plan was actually worth it. And so once I returned home, I decided to do the maths and figure out exactly how much we would have spent on food had we not been on the dining plan, and compare this to the price of the dining plan.
How much does the 2025 quick-service dining plan cost?
As I mentioned, we actually booked a holiday package with Virgin Holidays that came with the quick-service dining plan for free, so I’m not 100% sure how much the quick-service dining plan would have cost us to purchase.
However, based on the research I have done, I believe the quick-service dining plan would cost $59.14 per adult per night. So for two adults for 14 nights this would cost $1,655.92. It’s unclear whether these numbers include tax or not, but none of the other prices on the Walt Disney World website have taxes included, so I’m guessing not.
How many quick-service and snack credits did we use?
Let’s take a look at how many credits we were issued and how many we used.
We were issued 56 quick service credits that could be used to redeem for meals. This worked out as 2 meals per person per day for 14 days.
We redeemed 54 meals in total, meaning we missed out on 2 meal credits.
To be honest, I don’t think we did too badly considering there were days when we were “off-property” either at Universal Studios Orlando or elsewhere, and considering we didn’t arrive until the evening on our first day. I can assure you, we tried to use up as many meal credits as possible on our last few days, but we was hard to eat any more!
We were also issued 28 snack credits, which works out as 1 snack credit per person per day for 14 days.
We redeemed all 28 snacks. I found it so much easier to use the snack credits than the meal credits (I’ll talk about that later) and there was no way I was letting any snack credits go to waste!
We also had two refillable mugs (one each) which we could use in any of the Disney resorts but not the parks. Of course, we claimed both of these mugs and used them a lot. We mainly used them for fountain drinks (mainly Fanta!) but we did also try the hot drink options like their hot cocoa.
How much would we have spent without the dining plan?
I have done the maths! I’ve added together the price of every meal, drink and snack we purchased and paid for using dining plan credits.
The total comes to $1,397.48 without tax (and approximately $1,481.33 if you include the 6% sales tax).
On average, this works out at $49.91 per person per day.
If you’d like a full breakdown on what we ate and drank, and how much it would have cost, you can check out this Google Doc. Please, no judgement on our choices; particularly on our last day!
So was the quick-service dining plan worth it?
Based on these numbers, if we had paid for the quick service dining plan at $59.14 per adult per night, we would not have got our moneys worth.
Even if we had used up our 2 remaining meal credits, we still wouldn’t have spent as much on food as we would have spent on the dining plan.
Honestly, I’m quite surprised! I think we were really smart with our use of our meal and snack credits, and we tried to make the most of being on the quick-service dining plan. I thought we were going to easily spend more than the dining plan costs but I think it’s very interesting to see the numbers and know that we didn’t manage it.
Would I choosing the quick-service dining plan again?
If I were to go to Walt Disney World again and I was unable to get a dining plan for free as a part of the package, I wouldn’t pay for it. The maths suggests it is not worth it.
And if I were to visit again and the free quick-service dining plan happened to be one of the perks, I would spend some time playing around with options and doing the maths to see if it’s really worth it.
Don’t get me wrong, I loved being on the dining plan and I found it super convenient. I liked not having to think about spending money on food and drink while we were there, knowing that it had all been paid for in advance. However, seeing these numbers has really made me think twice about getting the dining plan in the future.
I honestly think my eating habits would be completely different if I visited without the quick-service dining plan. For example, I probably wouldn’t eat two meals every day. I’d probably have one meal and then purchase snacks instead. I found that there were a lot more snacks I wanted to eat than meals (especially in Epcot!) and so I would probably spend more on snacks than meals.
I also probably wouldn’t have as much alcohol if I was paying out of pocket. As much as we love a drink, I don’t think we would have been ordering a beer with nearly every meal when you consider it was over $10 for a beer.
What about the full Disney dining plan?
As well as the quick-service dining plan, Disney also offer the full dining plan which includes 1 quick-service meal, one table service meal and one snack per person per day, as well as the refillable resort mug.
This is, of course, more expensive than the quick-service dining plan. But I don’t think it’s something I would opt for anyway. I don’t think we would get our money’s worth and I also don’t like the idea of having to book all our table service restaurants in advance.
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