Voice of Travel

Walt Disney World has announced the dates for their free Disney Dining Plan 2012! If you travel between 8/25/12 – 9/29/12, stay on Disney property, and buy at least a 1-day park ticket per person, every person in your party will get free dining!

Now what does Free Disney Dining include?

It depends. If you stay at a value resort (the least expensive resorts on property), you’ll get the Quick Service Dining Plan, although you can upgrade to the regular Disney Dining Plan for a small fee per day.

Quick Service Dining Plan

For each night you stay, each person in the room will receive:

• 2 quick service meals
• 1 snack
• 1 resort refillable drink mug

Now what does this mean to you? It means that twice a day you can go to a restaurant that has counter service and that’s on a list of restaurants on the Disney Dining Plan, and get yourself a meal. A meal includes an entree and non-alcoholic beverage, and for lunch and dinner you also get a dessert.

Once a day you can get a snack, and this includes a whole huge list of items, from ice cream to fruit to a bottle of water.

Plus, you have the refillable mug that you can refill at your resort.

If you stay at a moderate or deluxe resort, you’ll get the regular Disney Dining Plan.

Disney Dining Plan

For each night you stay, each person in the room will receive:

• 1 table service meal
• 1 quick service meal
• 1 snack
• 1 resort refillable mug

The Kilauea torte at Kona Cafe - It was so good!

If you have the regular Disney Dining plan, each night you stay you will get 1 quick service meal, which like above means that you’ll get an entree, non-alcoholic beverage, and dessert during lunch and dinner. You will also get 1 table service meal, which includes an entree and non-alcoholic beverage, plus dessert for lunch and dinner, or a full buffet for any meal.

You’ll also get 1 snack per day like the quick service meal, and a refillable resort mug.

Now, even though you get each of these “per night” that you’re there, at the beginning of the trip all of the meals/snacks are added to your account. You can use them however you want. If you wanted to save up your snacks and use them all on the same day, no problem. If you want to use 3 meals one day and only 1 the next, that’s fine too. It’s completely up to you how to use them.

This can be an amazing deal, since if you’ve ever been to Walt Disney World, you’ll know that the food can be expensive. There are many times on the dining plan that a dinner for 2 of us would have cost over $100 if we weren’t on the Disney Dining Plan.

Another reason I love the Free Disney Dining Plan is it takes all of the stress out of your vacation.  Once you pay for your trip, the only thing you have to worry about is souvenirs and tips for your table service meals.  You don’t have to carry money around with you everywhere…you don’t have to think about which menu item you should get – the one you really want, or the lesser expensive one, etc. because you can order whatever entree you want off the menu.

Last September I went to Disney and was lucky enough to get the Free Disney Dining Plan.  We stayed at a value resort, but wanted the regular dining plan, so we paid I think it was $10 per person per day to upgrade, which was really worth it to us.

Just to mention some of the amazing meals we had on the dining plan:  a lobster roll at Columbia Harbour House in the Magic Kingdom (Quick Service), a really great steak dinner at Kona Cafe at the Polynesian Resort (Table Service), an amazing lobster salad at Gasparilla Grill & Games at the Grand Floridian Resort & Spa (Quick Service), really good tacos at Cantina de San Angel in Epcot (Quick Service), great crab cakes at the Captain’s Grille at the Yacht & Beach Club (Table Service), and so many others.

If you’re someone who really likes to enjoy your meals…instead of just eating because you have to, I strongly suggest getting the Disney Dining Plan…and if you can travel between the dates of August 25th – September 29th, you can get the Disney Dining Plan for free!

If you have any questions about the Disney Dining Plan at all, please feel free to ask. I’ve used it on multiple Disney World vacations, and will hopefully be able to answer your question.

Book Your Walt Disney World Vacation with the Free Disney Dining Plan Now!

Enjoy,