Curious…
What can you get in those resort mugs? Soda, hot chocolate, and ???
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For $100 do it.
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I’m going to do a little more detailed guessing about what we’ll buy at QS, but that 1900 Park Fare price says it will probably be a money saver.
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Tea and coffee also I think
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To me that’s not a lot of money to have it all paid for and be done with it.
Frankly I miss the dining plan now that my kids are Disney adults who eat less even than a Disney kid.
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My daughter will be having a $60 salad at dinner buffets.
But I’ll eat $100+ worth of prime rib to make up for it 
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We’ve waffled back and forth on the issue for years. To put it to rest, in April of last year we got the plan and I tracked the actual costs at each payout to compare to what we paid for the plan. At the QS and snack locations I noted the total in my YNAB app before the cashier zero’d it out with the credits (because the receipt doesn’t show dollars). It was 5 of us, all adults - me, DH, DS22, DD14 and MIL for 6 nights. I did not influence what anyone ordered one way or the other. The only deliberate change was MIL got an alcoholic beverage with dinners because it was “included” whereas she has never done before and mostly likely would not have if OOP. She only eats chicken or vegetarian dishes and I have food allergies that mostly require me to order off menu. We ate at Morimoto, Biergarten, Restaurant Marakesh, Mama Melrose, Enzo’s Hideaway and Skippers Canteen.
Plan Snacks: $293.26
Plan QS: $503.19
Plan TS: $1,615.89
Total: $2,412.34
The dining plan cost us $2,718.36
OOP Snacks: $182.36 (off plan items)
OOP QS: $136.33 (arrival day lunch)
OOP TS: $520.00 (tips, appetizers, etc)
It’s obviously not worth it to us to use the plan, especially since on a typical day DH eats one meal. He and MIL complain about too much food when we’re on the plan. That said, when we go with a larger group we do get the plan for convenience.
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Anything that is self serve, really. Coffee, Soda, Hot Chocolate, milk, etc… (and ice cream if you do it right…
) There’s also wash-out stations next to the dispensers too, which is really nice. The biggest downside is they’re only usable in the resorts.
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For me the Disney plan actually makes me more conscious of the cost of things than less. For instance if you want to buy a “snack” it’s only a snack if it costs under a certain amount. So if you want a more expensive funnel cake, ice cream, waffle, thingy, you have to pay out of pocket. When you read reviews people tell you you’re not getting a good value for your chicken entree or breakfast. If I pay out of pocket I don’t really look at food prices.
I spite of not really enjoying the dining plan, I always want to get it.
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Pray share, how to do this right?
Some of the cafeterias have self-serve ice cream. So you just mosey over there and…this is where it gets trickey… do a PROPER dispense into the mug. Making sure to “fill in all available space!!” 
Otherwise it just looks sloppy and horrible. 
EDIT: oh also, another win for the Dining Plan? That Salted Caramel Pretzel in epcot? That lil’ --sorry-- HUGE sucker was $8.25. ooorrr 1 snack credit.
#enabling
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Hold up, where did you find ice cream? Resort restaurant with soft serve machine?
Side benefit is it won’t have a time limit for refilling so you can get as much as you want, right?
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I loved being on the dining plan. Being fed and not thinking about the cost is my happy place. And the snacks! We went through the ice cream place on Main Street and I had to sign off on $60 worth of ice cream sundaes for 7 of us. I would never ever do that in real life. Is that good? Is that bad? Was it wasteful (yes. Because August heat melted those puppies so quickly)? But everything x7 adds up so quickly, and not having to do that math every meal was so amazing.
That said We had “free dining” with our CSR stay in August. I ran the calculator and we still would have come out ahead on our meals had we paid OOP. (We did upgrade to the DDP from the QS plan).
Glad we did all the character meals, but any future trips will probably not include DDP, unless it’s free QS. But I foresee off property stays if we have all 7 of us in the future. We’d still do some TS meals, but not nearly as many.
I’m future I will probably prepay meals by purchasing Disney GC.
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I dunno, honestly. It’s really not something I tested out extensively. Cause it was frozen yogurt being passed off as Ice Cream. 
I can tell, Disney. I CAN TELL!
Other than that, correct.
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Can you take one more opinion?
this is coming from someone who has never done the DDP of any sort. I’ve never even stayed on property. I am also possibly the cheapest person in the forum.
I’d do it.
Clearly it is not the cheapest way to visit WDW… (my off-site, lunch-packing MO hasn’t really caught on here, however.) But if you are already staying on property and it only cost $1475 to add on the food to what you are already planning to spend on the hotel room, it makes sense.
If you are going for a character meal a day (which is probably the key here) it makes sense and then some. We love the character meals and they aren’t cheap. Very quick numbers from Josh’s site updated in 2019 would put this collection of restaurants already at $1071:
Crystal Palace
Tusker House
Akershus
Mama Melrose
Artist Point
Counter service runs the gamut, but I glanced through the allears menus to see what I ordered and my party of 5 (three adults and two kids) was clocking in around $51 without our Cokes.
Another five of those puts you at $250.
I don’t actually know what you get for a daily snack credit. Is it one per person per day? So 20 snacks total? Or two? Two is a slam dunk. Also a slam dunk is if beverages are included with your QS meals.
If drinks AREN’T included with QS and you are using your snack credits for that drink, you are not out ahead. I would probably bow out here. Actually - I would have brought drinks with me for the kids and I’d be drinking theirs that were included in the meal. Or I’d buy the drinks OOP and pour them into the cups I’d brought and use my snacks for bigger treats later.
I’d do it - IF you were doing the character meals. Anything else and you might not make it work for you.
As someone who likes the character meals, I would enjoy this.
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It is so weird. On the 5th there were not any at all- including garden view. Yesterday there were some boardwalk views. I haven’t looked today .
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This is the truth. I’ve told my boys at many a princess meal they needed to eat like it was their job.
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Kinda depends on this one. At Docking Bay 7, you can forgo the drink instead for the oi-oi dessert or you can keep the drink and get a dessert using a snack credit or pay out of pocket.
(it’s confusing. )
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I hope you complained