“When will the Disney Dining Plan return?” and “will Walt Disney World bring back Free Dining in 2022?” are common reader questions. We’ll try to answer based on what we know about the prepaid meal plan and this popular discount, plus an earnings call update, restaurant capacity, crowds, staffing shortages, and more. (Updated December 21, 2021.)
Walt Disney World temporarily suspended the Disney Dining Plan (DDP) and cancelled Free Dining last year, along with several other things. In the time since, Walt Disney World has restored or announced the return of most offerings, with the pace of this dramatically accelerating in the last few months. That should underscore the temporary nature of these changes–the vast majority of which are not irreversible or permanent.
If you want to be notified when the Disney Dining Plan’s return is announced, you can subscribe to our free email newsletter for instant alerts. For now, here’s everything you need to know about when the Disney Dining Plan might return. (If you’ve already read this post in the past, scroll down to the “December 2021 Update” section.)
We should start by addressing a common misconception: Disney eliminated the Dining Plan as a cost-cutting measure. This is patently false. The Dining Plan is actually incredibly lucrative and advantageous for Walt Disney World. Quite simply, the Disney Dining Plan is a primarily a revenue engine or a guest perk. As such, it’s a matter of when the Disney Dining Plan will return, not if it will.
One of the biggest reasons Walt Disney World offers the DDP is because it keeps guests on-site. If guests are already locked-into all of their meals at Walt Disney World, they’re less likely to venture to Universal, SeaWorld, and so on. Even if they do, Disney already has their money for those meals.
There’s no such thing as a free lunch–Disney benefits from the Dining Plan by capturing guests’ vacation dollars and boxing visitors into making all of their purchases at Walt Disney World, where every price has an on-site premium. Moreover, guests using the Disney Dining Plan order more than those who pay out of pocket.
This is quantifiable. Historically, per guest food & beverage spending is lower among guests who do not use the Disney Dining Plan than those who do. Consider how many guests on the DDP end up stockpiling Mickey Mouse Rice Krispie Treats at the end of their trips because they have so many unused snack credits. Now think of how many guests do not do that, and instead just let snack–or even table service–credits go to waste.
The portion of guests who save money on the Disney Dining Plan is relatively small. Sure, you can consult online tips and hacks to leverage it to your advantage, but most people don’t have the time or desire for that level of work.
The vast majority of the park-going public is not reading blogs like this one to meticulously research and plan their Walt Disney World vacation. They want the simplicity of an “all-inclusive” meal plan and costs known up front. They don’t care (or realize) they’re potentially wasting money or credits. Suffice to say, when it comes to the DDP, the House of Mouse (almost) always wins.
That’s not the only way that the House of Mouse almost always wins. In our Disney Dining Plan Info & Review post, we reverse-engineer a dollar value for each type of DDP credit, with $45 being the amount ascribed to a table service credit. Walt Disney World does the same and sets a reimbursement rate for the many third party restaurants operating in the parks and at Disney Springs.
If a third-party table restaurant accepts the Dining Plan, they’re repaid at a set rate–often below the cost of the meal. For example, the third party might be paid $25 by Walt Disney World for each credit that’s redeemed, even though the guest is ordering $40 worth of food. Without the Dining Plan, Disney is missing out on this cut of business at most restaurants in World Showcase and Disney Springs.
Hopefully that explains how the Dining Plan is a profit center for Walt Disney World and not just a guest perk. Even if you’re a fan of the DDP who is personally able to leverage it to your advantage, it should be obvious that it’s also beneficial to Disney.
To all of the above points, Walt Disney World reiterated in an announcement a few months ago about new theme park early entry and extended evening hours on-site guest perks that the Disney Dining Plan will return, but that the company is “not quite ready to share an update on timing.” Disney indicated that the guest-favorite option would be back soon, with more updates on restaurants to come.
The operative question here is thus, when is it possible to bring back the Disney Dining Plan?
December 2021 Update
Another month has passed since our last update, and it has now been almost 6 months since Walt Disney World confirmed that the Disney Dining Plan would be back soon, but that they were “not quite ready” to make an announcement. Apparently Disney has a different definition of “soon” than we do. Not that we’re counting the days, or anything!
Officially, nothing has changed with specific regard to the DDP since then. There have been appearances of the Disney Dining Plan in marketing materials, and a few “fakeouts” in Disneyworld.com booking process where it appears you can add the Disney Dining Plan, but nothing real. Every new menu that goes up for Epcot festivals also features the DDP symbol next to eligible snacks, as if food & beverage teams are preparing for it to possibly return at any time. However, the company has not since stated that the Disney Dining Plan is returning imminently.
Most restaurants have reopened, to the point that the number of locations that are unavailable is fairly insignificant in the grand scheme of Walt Disney World’s dining capacity. Additionally, restaurants that have been open for months–some since last summer–have continued to scale up operations.
As we’ve noted in updates to this over the last few months, Walt Disney World turned a corner on its staffing shortage, at least for most dining locations. This was thanks to the return of the College Program and a hiring blitz, which brought in a lot of fresh faces and allowed for Walt Disney World to scale up and increase capacity at restaurants and beyond.
There has also been some minor movement in December 2021. In addition to the variety of 50th Anniversary items added to menus, more special items have been added for Christmas. In general, menus have expanded at numerous restaurants around Walt Disney World, suggesting many kitchens aren’t as short-staffed as they were earlier this year.
In addition to that, a few resort restaurant locations have reopened. Most notably, the first princess meal has returned, with Story Book Dining at Artist Point reopening at Wilderness Lodge. A willingness to now operate meals with face characters means several other restaurants could return soon. This may seem relatively minor, but every little bit of added restaurant capacity helps pave the way for the Disney Dining Plan’s return.
With that said, staffing still remains an impediment at many restaurants and resorts. Walt Disney World continues to hold job fairs at Coronado Springs (with more already scheduled for late January 2022), and is offering hiring bonuses and higher pay for certain roles. Of particular relevance, Walt Disney World has had ongoing and significant shortages for a number of culinary positions, including cooks, dishwashers, and more.
In an attempt to attract more employees, Walt Disney World has been offering hiring bonuses for those openings for the last several months. The bonuses started small, and have incrementally increased. Last month, those increased to as much as $1,500 for select culinary roles.
In mid-December 2021, a number of those same roles doubled their hiring bonuses to $3,000. There are also a few positions offering $6,000 hiring bonuses in the form of an additional $3,000 lump sum payment for eligible new hires residing 50 miles or more outside the Walt Disney World Resort area.
Walt Disney World is also offering $500 to $1000 referral bonuses to existing Cast Members who recruit new employees. The way these bonuses have aggressively increased this month (it wasn’t too long ago that they topped out at $500) suggests that Walt Disney World isn’t having much success, and is still short-staffed for a number of key positions. If you want to “help out” in getting the Disney Dining Plan brought back faster, apply for one of those culinary careers! 😉
Our anecdotal experiences in continuing to see a good chunk of tables go unfilled reinforces the reality that restaurants aren’t firing on all cylinders. In short, dining capacity is improved as compared to last year thanks to the dropping of physical distancing and hiring initiatives, but still pretty far from 100%.
During Disney’s fourth quarter earnings call, the company’s CFO Christine McCarthy corroborates this. She noted that Walt Disney World and Disneyland are still operating under “capacity constraints,” which are only due to staffing at this point. This has been a regular topic here, and we’ve seen the same thing play out with “sold out” hotels due to the same woes.
McCarthy was also asked about the impact of inflation on Walt Disney World during the Q&A of that earnings call. She started by saying this was a question that’s on the minds of every CFO and senior management team running companies in the United States, noting that Disney is watching inflationary pressures and trying to manage them. As inflation is particularly relevant to the cost of food, her response focused largely on that.
“We can adjust suppliers. We can substitute products. We can cut portion sizes, which is probably good for some people’s waistlines. We can look at pricing where necessary. We aren’t going to go just straight across and increase prices. We’re going to try to get the algorithm right to cut where we can and not necessarily do things the same way. We’re producing technology to produce some of the operating cost. That gives us to absorb some inflation. We’re trying to use our heads here to come up with a way to kind of mitigate some of the challenges that we have.”
This is a relevant consideration because the Disney Dining Plan can be purchased months in advance, and essentially locks in prices for food and drinks. Walt Disney World leadership might be understandably apprehensive about doing that with so much uncertainty about their costs for food and labor.
In addition to all of this, Advance Dining Reservations have once again become increasingly difficult to book through early 2022. Finding ADR availability for Christmas is exceedingly difficult, but the good news is that things open up a bit more in mid-January 2022, after Marathon Weekend.
To be sure, there’s still table service restaurant availability even only a couple of weeks out. However, that tightens up significantly closer to visit dates. Perhaps most significantly, we’ve noticed very little via the Walk-Up Waitlist as compared to even a month ago, which would reflect day-of availability. If there are minimal walk-up dining options, that means tables aren’t going unfilled due to lack of demand.
All of this does not bode well for the return of the Disney Dining Plan. As we’ve pointed out for the last several months, it’s the totality of these things–more restaurants reopening, additional tables being filled, staffing reaching sufficient levels, and less of a supply v. demand imbalance–that would pave the way for the Disney Dining Plan’s return.
Those variables were starting to look better the last couple of months, but that’s no longer the case. There’s once again now far more demand than supply. In the current environment, bringing back the Disney Dining Plan makes less sense–and the lack of ADR availability would also present practical impediments.
On top of that, if Walt Disney World’s record-breaking per guest spending stats are any indication, the company is probably perfectly content to let that demand unfold organically. Disney has an array of metrics, including how much the average table spends with and without the Disney Dining Plan. Right now, the company doesn’t “need” the crutch of the Disney Dining Plan to boost up spending numbers, as is normally the case.
That might seem like an odd assessment after focusing so much earlier in the post on how the Disney Dining Plan is profitable for the company and increases per guest spending. Historically, that’s absolutely true. And it’ll likely be true again at some point in the future. In the here and now, consumers are spending like crazy while paying entirely out of pocket for their meals.
The good news is that this could all change in a hurry. It already seems pretty clear that pent-up demand and inflation are both going to continue playing out into early 2022, but for how long beyond that is up in the air. This Christmas season could be the last hurrah, with more ‘supply’ returning by early next year as Disney continues hiring for unfilled roles.
At some point, the money people saved while spending a portion of last year stuck at home is going to run out, consumers will return to being more cost-conscious and price sensitive, and things will largely normalize. Pent-up demand fizzling out colliding with Walt Disney World being able to increase dining capacity are likely needed in order for the Disney Dining Plan to return, and such a scenario might not be that far away.
As for when the Disney Dining Plan could come back?
The reality is that nothing with Walt Disney World is as easy as flipping a switch. The Disney Dining Plan has its own complicating factors, ranging from dining capacity to contracts with the aforementioned third party operating participant restaurants at Disney Springs, Epcot, and elsewhere. Unless Disney has quietly started laying the groundwork for the Dining Plan’s return, it’ll take at least a few weeks from the time the return is officially announced until it can be purchased and used.
The absolutely best-case scenario at this point is that the Disney Dining Plan will return on January 1, 2022.
Even that seems far-fetched at this point given operational realities on the ground, and is a possibility we’re only putting out there because of the change in the calendar year. If that were not about to happen, we’d say the DDP is still a few months away from returning.
Forecasts for hotel bookings are strong through March 2022, and those usually track pretty well with table service restaurants. If Walt Disney World is seeing strong numbers for the first few months of next year–historically the slow season–the company might try to power through the beginning of the year and even Spring Break season without the Disney Dining Plan.
In that case, we might be looking much further into the future before the Disney Dining Plan returns. If that’s accurate, Walt Disney World may very well wait until around Summer 2022 to bring back the Disney Dining Plan. A return around Memorial Day 2022 is entirely possible.
For what it’s worth, this isn’t my prediction. I’m just presenting it as a possibility since these updates have been overly optimistic in the past, and Disney itself is incredibly bullish on increased guest spending and pent-up demand through the first half of 2022.
I still think there’s a good chance that enough will normalize that an “early 2022” return makes sense. I’m less confident there will be a clean-break at the start of 2022; with the new year only a couple weeks away, that offers very little lead-time. An announcement would pretty much need to be made this week–we’d need a Festivus Miracle at this point for the Disney Dining Plan to return on January 1, 2022!
As is pretty clear by now, we do not have a crystal ball, and circumstances continue to change. Given how lucrative the Dining Plan is for Walt Disney World in “normal times,” I never would’ve predicted it would be gone for this long. But clearly these are not normal times. In any case, you can sign up to our free email newsletter (see above) and we’ll keep you posted as soon as Walt Disney World makes an announcement or there’s more news regarding the DDP’s return.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
When do you expect the Disney Dining Plan to return? Do you agree or disagree that it could still be a while at this point with ADRs filling up and per guest spending skyrocketing? Think Walt Disney World will bring back the DDP by January 1, 2022? Or, do you think Disney will be more slow and conservative, waiting until Summer 2022 to bring back the DDP once pent-up demand fully fizzles out and spending starts decelerating? Would the Disney Dining Plan’s reinstatement make you more likely to book a trip? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback—even when you disagree with us—is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
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