Disney has recently announced the Dining Promo Card for eligible guests at Walt Disney World. Here is what it is and how you can use it.
What is the Dining Promo Card?
As it says in the name, the Dining Promo Card is a promotion that Disney World is running for individuals who stay at participating Disney resorts. The Disney Dining Promo card is a gift card worth up to $750 to use on food and beverage purchases at select Disney World dining locations.
If you have a qualifying Disney hotel reservation, the promo card will be sent via email once you’ve completed check-in for your reservation. The card’s value depends on your vacation arrival date, how long you’re staying at the hotel, and which hotel you choose. Unfortunately, the Dining Promo Card will be a barcode that needs to be scanned at restaurants and cannot be attached to your MagicMobile, MagicBand, or MagicBand+.
When and How much is the Dining Promotion?
While the deal has just been announced, it does not go into effect until June 2023. As to be expected there are stipulations on which visits qualify for this promotion and at what amount.
First, and maybe the most important item to note is that this promotion can only be applied to visits where guests are booking a minimum 4 night resort reservation, and at least a 4 day park ticket. If you are only staying the weekend, your visit will not be eligible.
Second item to note is that you must be purchasing an undiscounted resort reservation. If there are applicable room discounts for your stay, you will need to determine if the room discount is greater than the amount you will receive from the Dining Promo, if so, this would not be a good deal for your trip’s budget. If you have already booked your trip, you could re-book it, just be aware that there may have been an increase in room rates since you initially booked your trip.
The travel dates for receiving the Disney Dining Promo Card are June 25 – July 10 and August 1 – September 14. Disney’s announcement also states that there is a lower value promotion available for resort stays during other dates in the summer.
So how much is it really worth? This depends on the type of the resort you stay at and the length of the stay.
For arrivals June 25 – June 30, 2023 and July 11 – July 31, 2023
- Value Resort – $35 per night
- Moderate Resort and Cabins – $75 per night
- Deluxe Resort and Deluxe Villa Resort – $125 per night
For arrivals July 1 – July 10, 2023 and August 1 to September 14, 2023
- Value Resort – $50 per night
- Moderate Resort and Cabins – $100 per night
- Deluxe Resort and Deluxe Villa Resort – $150 per night
Another important factor to note is that the Disney Dining Promo card is one per reservation. This means, if you are traveling with a large party and book several rooms under one reservation you will still only receive one dining promo card. In this case, it would be advantageous to make separate reservations.
How do you get the Dining Promotion?
Fortunately, it is an easy process to get the Disney Dining Promo Card. To check to see if there is still availability for the promotion, go to the Dining Promo Card Special Offer page and click “Check Availability” on the right hand side.
Enter the dates for your trip to see the availability. For this example I have chosen August 5th – 13th. I left it as the standard 2 adults and then selected “Find a Room”.
Based on your search criteria, it will populate all hotels with availability for the period that you can get the Dining Promo Card with your reservation. I have always wanted to stay at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge, so I selected it for this example.
Once there it will show you your booking options. It pre-selected the Dining Promo Card option, but if it hasn’t, select that option before you move on to the room and suite options.
Once you select your room, you will need to select your park tickets. Remember, you must have at least a 4 day park ticket for the promotion to be applicable. I went ahead and selected a 6 day ticket with just the base option.
At this point you will reach the final page that confirms you are getting the Dining Promo Card. Here you can also add extras like Magic Maker before officially checking out and booking your next Disney World trip!
Is this in Place of the Dining Plan?
The dining plan at Disney World went away in 2020 when Disney closed its parks and has not returned since. Depending on what and where you typically eat on your Disney World vacation the dining plan was worth it for some guests, but not others. Typically you had to lean towards more meals and more expensive meals to make the plan worth it.
Disney has run dining promotions before in the form of a Quick Service promotion or for guests visiting from the UK. This is not necessarily in place of the dining plan. While we have heard rumors for over a year that the dining plan would be returning it has not yet been announced. The hope of many is that this dining promotion is a precursor to the announcement that that dining plan is returning to Disney World, but we will see.
