Our family loves visiting Disney World, and love to save money while doing it even more! In order to visit as often as we can, planning a discount Disney family vacation has become a bit of a hobby of mine, so in this article, I will explain some ways that our family uses to save money on food while at Disney.
I must say that for our family, one of the highlights of our vacation is eating! With all of the great restaurant choices (most of which are good quality), and the fun of trying new foods, we have found that we truly love to eat at Disney World. However, it can become very expensive, so out of necessity, we have found several ways to save money on food, and yet still enjoy the many mouth-watering options the Walt Disney World offers.
To begin with, we signed up for the Disney Visa card, and we use the rewards to pay for our meals. Our visits are usually about once year, so by saving our Disney dollars for the entire year, we manage to accumulate a pretty good amount that we use just for meals. Please know that I am not suggesting opening a credit card to just run up the balance to pay for meals! But for us, since we use one card for everything, the Disney card is the one that we use for that purpose, and then we pay it off each month. It works well for us, so that in many years, we pay hardly anything at all for meals on our Disney World vacation.
Secondly, we absolutely love the Disney Dining Plan. For those not familiar with how this works, IF you are staying on Disney property, you have the option to choose from several levels of the Disney Dining Plan, and basically pre-pay for most, if not all of your meals. Since there are several choices, each providing a certain number of snacks, counter meals, or table service meals, there are options for just about any budget. As our family enjoys table service meals each night, we choose the Plus Disney Dining Plan, and receive one snack credit, one counter meal (entree, drink, and dessert), and one table meal (entree, drink, and dessert) per person, per day. We have found that the snacks generally work well most days for breakfast, and the others are used for lunch and dinner each day. Honestly, it is more food per person than we can usually eat, and often we will get our dessert at dinner "to go" since we are so full! And for this level at least, the cost per day for our family of 3 is usually less than we would have paid for just the dinner itself, so it is a huge cost-saver for us.
Speaking of the Disney Dining Plan, another great way to potentially save money on food is to travel to Disney World during one of the Free Dining promotions that Walt Disney World has been offering. Historically this has been a late summer/early fall offer, but this past year, the current economic situation has resulted in Disney offering this promotion for much of the summer, and now through mid-December. Free dining at Walt Disney World: it doesn't get much better than that!
I must say that, with all the wonderful food our family eats while at Disney World, it is a good thing that there is so much walking involved! We have definitely found that by saving money on food, it has truly helped us to plan a fantastic discount Disney family vacation on a regular basis.
I must say that for our family, one of the highlights of our vacation is eating! With all of the great restaurant choices (most of which are good quality), and the fun of trying new foods, we have found that we truly love to eat at Disney World. However, it can become very expensive, so out of necessity, we have found several ways to save money on food, and yet still enjoy the many mouth-watering options the Walt Disney World offers.
To begin with, we signed up for the Disney Visa card, and we use the rewards to pay for our meals. Our visits are usually about once year, so by saving our Disney dollars for the entire year, we manage to accumulate a pretty good amount that we use just for meals. Please know that I am not suggesting opening a credit card to just run up the balance to pay for meals! But for us, since we use one card for everything, the Disney card is the one that we use for that purpose, and then we pay it off each month. It works well for us, so that in many years, we pay hardly anything at all for meals on our Disney World vacation.
Secondly, we absolutely love the Disney Dining Plan. For those not familiar with how this works, IF you are staying on Disney property, you have the option to choose from several levels of the Disney Dining Plan, and basically pre-pay for most, if not all of your meals. Since there are several choices, each providing a certain number of snacks, counter meals, or table service meals, there are options for just about any budget. As our family enjoys table service meals each night, we choose the Plus Disney Dining Plan, and receive one snack credit, one counter meal (entree, drink, and dessert), and one table meal (entree, drink, and dessert) per person, per day. We have found that the snacks generally work well most days for breakfast, and the others are used for lunch and dinner each day. Honestly, it is more food per person than we can usually eat, and often we will get our dessert at dinner "to go" since we are so full! And for this level at least, the cost per day for our family of 3 is usually less than we would have paid for just the dinner itself, so it is a huge cost-saver for us.
Speaking of the Disney Dining Plan, another great way to potentially save money on food is to travel to Disney World during one of the Free Dining promotions that Walt Disney World has been offering. Historically this has been a late summer/early fall offer, but this past year, the current economic situation has resulted in Disney offering this promotion for much of the summer, and now through mid-December. Free dining at Walt Disney World: it doesn't get much better than that!
I must say that, with all the wonderful food our family eats while at Disney World, it is a good thing that there is so much walking involved! We have definitely found that by saving money on food, it has truly helped us to plan a fantastic discount Disney family vacation on a regular basis.
About the Author:
Nancy Bobby has been planning Disney World vacations (and doing it affordably) for over a decade. Discover how to plan a discount Disney family vacation, and sign up for your free guide on affordable Disney vacation tips.
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