Disneyland Paris Half Board and Meal Plans: Good Deal or Not?

Is a meal plan worth it?

Which half-board plan should you choose? How much can you save? To help you, I’ve created a free calculator that will point you to the meal plan best suited to your stay.

Simply choose a Disney hotel first, then a type of board and the kind of dining you have in mind. The calculator will tell you:

• the meal plan best suited to your needs
• the net amount you’ll save

How do meal plans work?

Before choosing between Standard, Plus or Extra Plus, you first need to understand how it actually works once you’re there. Because it’s a question that comes up again and again in your messages: “OK, I’ve booked half board, but how does it work on the day?”. I’ll explain everything, step by step.

Before your stay

The meal plan is booked when you book your stay on the official Disneyland Paris website, or by phone. You pay for it at the same time as your hotel + park tickets package. It’s a single amount: once it’s paid, you have nothing more to pay on site for the meals included.

A little subtlety I discovered on my second stay: you can add a meal plan to an existing booking, as long as you haven’t yet arrived at the hotel. Handy if you booked in a rush and realise afterwards that half board would be a good deal. Just call Disneyland Paris back or change your booking online.

Important: the plan must apply to everyone in the room and for the whole stay. You can’t take half board for the parents and nothing for the children, or book a plan for only one night out of two. It’s everyone or no one!

On arrival day: the Magic Pass comes into play

When you arrive at your Disney hotel, head to reception to check in. That’s where each member of your family receives their Magic Pass: a small yellow and blue contactless card in your name, which holds everything you need for your stay.

Your park tickets, your room key and, above all, your meal vouchers. In practice, if you’ve booked half board for 2 nights and 2 adults, each adult will have on their Magic Pass: 2 breakfast vouchers + 2 meal vouchers (lunch or dinner, your choice).

Worth knowing: with half board, meal vouchers don’t have to be used day by day. You can spread them freely over your stay (for example, using two meals on the same day), as long as you stick to the total number of vouchers and use them before you leave.

I tried the digital Magic Pass!

On our last stay at the Marvel hotel, I activated the digital Magic Pass in the Disneyland Paris app. It’s very handy: a QR code on your phone that replaces the physical card. The advantage is that the app shows the number of vouchers left in real time. No more trying to remember whether you’ve already used the lunch voucher! You can also check your balance on the TV in your hotel room.

At the restaurant: how to use your vouchers

This is the easiest part. You arrive at the restaurant, sit down and, when it’s time to pay, you show your Magic Pass (physical or digital) to the Cast Member at the till. They scan your card, deduct the voucher, and that’s it. No ticket to tear off, no paper voucher to hand over. It’s as smooth as a contactless payment.

What a meal voucher covers in the different types of restaurant:

My experience on site

At the Downtown Restaurant in the Marvel hotel (all-you-can-eat buffet), we simply showed our four Magic Passes on arrival. The Cast Member scanned each card in two seconds, and we were seated. No extra charge, no nasty surprises. At the Manhattan Restaurant (table service), the same thing, except that we got the dedicated meal plan menu: starter, main, dessert. Honestly, we ate very well and the children were delighted.

The 3 traps you absolutely need to know about

The system is simple, but there are three traps that many families fall into. I’ve seen them all around me, and one of them nearly cost us dearly.

Trap no. 1: unused vouchers are lost

This is the harshest rule of the system: if you haven’t used all your vouchers by the end of your stay, they’re lost. No refund, no carry-over, no goodwill gesture. You paid for two dinners but only had one? The second is simply wasted.

My advice: on the last day, check your voucher balance in the app before leaving the hotel. If there’s a voucher left, use it for lunch in the park rather than losing it!

Trap no. 2: the meal plan doesn’t guarantee you a table

This is the classic trap. You’ve got your lovely half board, you turn up at Bistrot Chez Rémy on a Saturday at 7pm… and it’s full. Having a meal plan doesn’t guarantee you a place in the popular restaurants at all. You need to book your table as well, ideally several weeks in advance.

Trap no. 3: a lost or demagnetised Magic Pass

Less common, but it happens (especially with children). If your Magic Pass is lost, stolen or demagnetised, don’t panic: go to your hotel reception, City Hall in Disneyland Park or the guest relations desks. Your card will be cancelled and replaced free of charge, with all your remaining vouchers intact. That’s why I strongly recommend also activating the digital Magic Pass in the app: even if the physical card disappears, you still have your QR code on your phone.

Should you take a meal plan?

To the question “is a meal plan worth it?”, I’ll be blunt. The answer is yes (but)! Yes, because in many cases a plan will save you some money on the overall food budget for your stay.

To help you understand, here is the comparison table for the half-board plan I chose two years ago during my stay at Hotel New York – The Art of Marvel. There were two adults and two children (under 11). We booked two nights in a superior room and wanted to try the Marvel hotel’s two restaurants: the all-you-can-eat buffet at the Downtown Restaurant and table service at the Manhattan Restaurant.

As you can see in the table above, the saving is significant: £118 (136 €)! Enough to treat yourself to Disney Premier Access for Crush’s Coaster or some shopping in the Disney shops.

There is a “but”, because it will mostly depend on your expectations and habits. If you want to treat the children to character meals with Disney characters, the bill will be much steeper and the savings smaller. But to give you a personalised answer, I’ve created a calculator.

The 3 types of board: breakfast only / half board / full board

Breakfast only: handy, but not really a “plan”

This is the basic option. It lets you have the morning buffet at your Disney hotel, prepaid with your stay. Handy, yes.

But let’s be honest: the price of the breakfast option is almost the same as what you’d pay on site. The advantage is mainly about budgeting and organisation. You know the amount in advance, but don’t expect a spectacular saving. And you save time in the morning before heading to the parks!

If you’re staying in premium rooms & suites at the Disneyland Hotel, the Newport Bay Club (Compass Club), the Sequoia Lodge (Golden Forest Club) or New York – The Art of Marvel (Empire State Club), breakfast is already included in the room price. In that case, there’s no point adding this option: it would be a duplicate.

Who is it for? For those who want to save time in the morning and fuel up before a busy day!

Worth remembering: you can also have lunch in the park!

With the breakfast option, you can also use it at the participating restaurants for the cash value of the voucher! Very nice if you fancy a change during a stay of several nights!

Half board: the best balance for 90% of families

Half board is the combination of breakfast in the morning + one meal during the day (lunch or dinner, your choice). It’s by far the most popular plan, and for good reason.

In practice, here’s how a typical day goes: you start well fuelled with a hearty buffet at the hotel, you set off to conquer the parks mid-morning, and you use your meal voucher either at lunchtime to take a breather or in the evening before heading back. The rest of the time, a few snacks grabbed on the go in the park are more than enough.

Personally, it’s the plan I chose on my family stays, and I’ve never regretted it. The rhythm fits perfectly with wanting to make the most of the parks without spending your holiday at the table.

Who is it for? Families who want to make the most of their time in the parks, couples who’d rather have a nice dinner than a lunch break in a restaurant, and anyone who wants to control their budget without going without.

Full board: for those who want everything included

Full board adds a second main meal to your day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. In theory, you should hardly have to pay anything on site for food.

It’s a great plan on paper, but beware of one thing that families often overlook when booking: two sit-down meals a day take time. A lot of time. If you come to Disneyland to go from ride to ride, full board can paradoxically weigh you down. I’ve met families frustrated at having “lost” an hour of park time at lunch when they’d rather have headed for Big Thunder Mountain.

Another drawback: one of your two daily meals has to be taken at a quick-service restaurant! If you were hoping for two all-you-can-eat buffets, no such luck 😆!

Full board makes sense if your stay is long (3 nights or more), if you’re travelling with young children who need proper meal breaks, or if eating in Disney restaurants is an integral part of your experience, which is a perfectly valid approach, by the way.

The 4 options: Standard, Plus, Extra Plus, Premium

Once you’ve chosen the type of board, you need to choose the option. And this is where a lot of people switch off 😥 when faced with the apparent complexity of the Disneyland Paris price grid. Let me simplify it for you 👇.

The logic is simple: the higher the option, the wider the choice of restaurants and the more upmarket the experience. And the price follows, of course. Prices in the tables below are Disneyland Paris’s euro prices converted into pounds at a fixed indicative rate of 0.87.

Standard: the entry level that’s still decent

The Standard plan gives you access to a selection of around thirty restaurants across the two parks, the Disney hotels and Disney Village. They include quick-service restaurants, all-you-can-eat buffets and table-service restaurants. That’s already pretty good.

The menu in table-service restaurants is a specific menu that usually includes a starter, a main and a dessert. For buffets, there’s absolutely no difference!

• What it actually includes ✅: the morning all-you-can-eat buffet at the hotel + your main meal in one of the participating restaurants.
• What’s not included ⛔: character meals
• What you need to know ⁉️: the last day’s meal on full board must be taken at a quick-service restaurant only

It’s perfect for: families discovering Disneyland Paris for the first time, short stays of one or two nights, and those who mainly eat at the table (the buffets included are well worth the price of the plan).

Plus: just more expensive?

The Plus option is not very different from the Standard option. The first difference: it’s for guests staying at Hotel Cheyenne, the Newport Bay Club, the Sequoia Lodge and New York – The Art of Marvel.

The only real differences are:

1. The price: the voucher value is higher (so less to pay on site) because breakfasts and meals in these hotels’ restaurants are more expensive
2. No restriction on the last day’s meal: you’re free to have it wherever you like

Premium: the ultimate experience, exclusive to the Disneyland Hotel

The Premium plan is in a category of its own. It’s available exclusively to guests of the Disneyland Hotel, the most iconic and most expensive hotel at the resort, which reopened with great fanfare in January 2024 after several years of renovation.

What Premium brings compared with all the other options is essentially this: unlimited Disney character meals throughout your stay. As many lunches and dinners as you like alongside the characters, in the restaurants that offer this experience (Plaza Gardens, Auberge de Cendrillon, Royal Banquet), within the limit of your available meal vouchers and subject to availability.

Is it worth the cost? The honest answer is: it depends entirely on how you see the Disney experience. If you come mainly for the rides, Premium will probably be too much for you. But if, for you and your children, dining with the princesses every evening in a fairy-tale setting is an integral part of the Disney dream, then yes, this plan has real value.

Extra Plus: the plan for foodies and families with character-loving children

Extra Plus is the most comprehensive plan outside the Disneyland Hotel. It stands out from Plus thanks to several concrete advantages that really make a difference on site.

1. Access to almost every restaurant at the resort, including the most popular ones. Only the Disneyland Hotel is excluded from this option (it has its own Premium plan).
2. One snack with a soft drink included every day. It’s the advantage people always underestimate when booking, and really appreciate once there. A snack at one of Disneyland Paris’s 55 snack outlets saves those little impulse buys mid-afternoon, a Mickey waffle, a churro, an ice cream, which quickly add up on the daily bill.
3. A drink included each day in bars, restaurants and quick-service outlets. Another expense that disappears from your daily budget.
4. One Disney character meal included per stay (not per night). Extra Plus is the one to go for if you want to give your children that magical moment of lunch or dinner alongside Mickey, Minnie or the princesses, without paying extra.

List of participating restaurants by plan

Which restaurants can you use your meal plan in? It’s THE question everyone asks after booking their plan: where exactly can I eat with my vouchers? The short answer: in around thirty restaurants across the two parks, the Disney hotels and Disney Village. But not everywhere, and not with every plan.

To save you discovering on site that the restaurant you dreamt of dining in doesn’t accept your plan, I’ve sorted all the participating restaurants by category. In each table, the last column tells you which plans give access to the restaurant:

All-you-can-eat buffets in the Disney hotels

This is often the best way to get your money’s worth from your plan: Disney hotel buffets cost between £30 (35 €) and £48 (55 €) per adult without a plan. With your voucher, it’s included. Each hotel has its own buffet, and you can eat in any hotel, not just your own.

Table-service restaurants in the Disney hotels

These restaurants offer a dedicated meal plan menu (starter + main + dessert). The experience is more refined than the buffet, ideal for a special evening.

All-you-can-eat buffets in the Disney parks

Three buffets are available in the parks. Plaza Gardens is the biggest and best known, Agrabah Café is an often-underrated gem, and PYM Kitchen in Disney Adventure World (formerly Walt Disney Studios) has an Avengers theme that children love.

Table-service restaurants in the Disney parks

These are the most immersive restaurants at Disneyland Paris. Each has a strong theme linked to the ride or land it’s in. With your voucher, you get the dedicated meal plan menu (starter, main, dessert).

Quick-service restaurants in the Disney parks

This is the biggest category. These restaurants are ideal for a quick lunch without losing too much ride time. With your voucher, you get a main + a side + a drink.

⚠️ Watch the value: a fast-food meal costs about £13 to £17 (15 to 20 €). If your voucher is worth £48 (55 €) or £57 (65 €), you “waste” the difference.

Save your vouchers for buffets and table service, and pay for fast food out of your own pocket.

Disney Village restaurants

Only three Disney Village restaurants accept meal plans. The others are independent brands that aren’t part of the Disney voucher system.

⛔ Disney Village restaurants that are NOT eligible

The following restaurants do NOT accept meal plan vouchers: McDonald’s, Rainforest Cafe, Starbucks, Five Guys, Earl of Sandwich, Vapiano, The Royal Pub, Brasserie Rosalie and the Gaumont cinema. If you eat at one of them, you’ll pay out of your own pocket, plan or no plan. It’s a classic trap, especially for families who spot the Five Guys on arrival and decide to eat there without checking.

Disney character restaurants

It’s often THE magical moment of the stay for children: lunch or dinner with Mickey, the princesses or other Disney characters. But beware: these restaurants are not available with the Standard and Plus plans.

🎭 Specific rules for character meals

With the Extra Plus plan: only 1 character meal included per stay (not per night). Choose carefully! With the Premium plan: unlimited character meals throughout your stay, within the limit of your vouchers. In both cases, booking a table is required and the characters present may vary. Disney doesn’t guarantee that a specific character will be there.

Snack outlets (Extra Plus only)

If you have the Extra Plus plan, you get a snack + a soft drink every day, which you can use at around fifty outlets. In practice, that covers almost all the snack stands and counters in the parks: a Mickey waffle, a churro, an ice cream, a giant cookie… with a drink included.

Eligible outlets include:

• Cable Car Bake Shop, Cookie Kitchen, The Gibson Girl Ice Cream Parlour (Main Street)
• Café de la Brousse, L’Arbre Enchanté, March Hare Refreshments (Parks)
• Cool Post, The Old Mill, Critter Corral, Rocket Café (Parks)
• The Coffee Grinder, Victoria’s Home-Style Restaurant (Parks)
• The Ice Cream Company, Specialty Ice Cream (Parks & Disney Village)
• All the fast-food outlets listed in the table above