1 – Decide where you want to eat before your trip. I know that doesn’t sound easy, but when it’s free dining plan period you’ll find that the more popular table service restaurants are fully booked and you’ll struggle to use your table service credits. If you check out published park hours you can work out a rough schedule in advance. Once you know which park you’ll be at on which day you’ll have a better idea of where you want to eat. Check out online menus and reviews. We have some great dining review posts on our forums. Book your Advanced Dining Reservations as soon as possible. Popular places such as Le Cellier Steakhouse book up as soon as reservations open at the 180 day mark. Before booking, make sure that the restaurant accepts dining plan credits, as there are some that don’t.

2 – If you arrive not having booked anything, try these table service restaurants which aren’t as popular and may have availability: Restaurant Marrakesh, Nine Dragons Restaurant, Maya Grill, and Shutters.

3 – Use your table service credits wisely! You’re not going to get full value from them if you eat at places like Beaches and Cream, which are at the cheaper end of the scale. If you write a list of where you want to eat on your trip, for each meal, look at online menus to get an idea of cost, and plan to use dining plan credits at the ones that come out best value. Best value table service include Chef Mickey’s, Boma, ‘Ohana, Le Cellier lunch, and Princess Storybook Dining at Akershus Royal Banquet Hall.

4 – Likewise, try to avoid using your credits for breakfast, unless you have surplus. Breakfast items are relatively cheap, especially at quick service places and are better paid with out of pocket. The exception being character breakfasts which may work out more expensive than regular lunch or even dinner meals. If you have lots of snack credits left they can be used for various breakfast items at counter service places and food courts.

5 – I hear many people complain about how many snack credits they have left at the end of a trip, when it really needn’t be that way. If you’ve not managed to use them up during your trip, stop by one of the stores before you leave and use them to buy food gifts for people back home. Goofy’s Candy Co. at Downtown Disney is a great place to spend snack credits, as are Resort shops.

6 – The best place to use snack credits is at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. If you’re visiting during this time I’d highly recommend saving your snack credits to “eat around the world.” Snack credits can be used to buy most food items at the Festival booths, some of which are more than $7 in value. You could have an entire meal (or two) just from Festival snack items, saving a table service or quick service credit for another time.

7 – If you’ve paid for the dining plan, you’ll have paid over $51 for each day’s dining, so try to ensure that you are using your credits for meals valued at more than this each day, otherwise you’ll be losing out.

8 – Kids are officially supposed to order off the kids’ menu (where available) at quick service places. But, as receipts only show the total number of credits used, and don’t differentiate between adults and children for quick service credits, some people use quick service credits to get an adult meal for their child. If you have your child with you at the counter when ordering/paying, you’re likely to be refused and asked to get a child’s meal.

9 – Some restaurants require two table service credits per meal. If you’re going to do one of these restaurants, you’ll need to forego a table service meal on another day to save that extra credit. You could do this by paying out of pocket, using two quick service credits on one day, eating off-site, or using snack credits to make one full meal. Again, look at the value of this before booking a two-credit place. Dinner at Cinderella’s Royal Table will cost around $55 or two credits, in-room dinner will come to less than $50. Halve that and it doesn’t seem quite as good value as having two separate meals each costing one credit.

10 – Some of the best value places to use quick service credits include: Tangierine Cafe, Cosmic Ray’s Starlight Cafe, Toy Story Pizza Planet, Pepper Market, Flame Tree BBQ, Sunshine Seasons and Wolfgang Puck Express.

Learn more about the Disney Dining Plan here.

Let us know if you have any tips to add!