We’re sure keeping busy tracking the food and beverage price increases all over Walt Disney World this week. We’ve already been keeping you updated on price increases to snacks and drinks around property and even increases to select items at the 2018 Epcot Food and Wine Festival.
In this post, we’re exploring price increases at Table Service and Counter Service locations, giving two examples from Epcot.
Epcot’s Spaceship Earth
First up? Biergarten, a Table Service buffet in Epcot’s Germany Pavilion.
The Biergarten Entry Way
Previously, the restaurant offered a separate price for lunch and dinner. Lunch was $35 for adults/$19 for children, and dinner was $41.00 for adults/$22.00 for children. As of today, not only is there no longer a difference between lunch and dinner pricing, but there is also an overall increase up to $44.00 for adults and $24.00 for children as listed on the menu below:
Biergarten Buffet sign with pricing
Now, let’s take a Counter Service example: Liberty Inn in the American Adventure Pavilion.
Liberty Inn
Though increases are more subtle (in keeping with lower cost Counter Service), they’re still present. Here’s the previous menu first.
Previous Liberty Inn Menu
And now, the updated menu from today’s visit:
Current Liberty Inn Menu
Because these can be difficult to read (though you can click to enlarge the images), I’ll just point out a few examples: the All-American Burger with fries went from $12.49 to $12.99, and the Mac and Cheese Hot Dog with fries went from $11.29 to $11.79. And, of course, the fountain beverage prices have increased.
Again, these are just a couple of examples of trends we’re noticing all around Epcot and Walt Disney World in general. We’ve also already reported on an increase to Breakfast at Magic Kingdom’s Be Our Guest Restaurant. What are your thoughts as this story develops?
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Are you surprised by all the recent price increases around Disney World? Please let us know with a comment!
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I also noticed that Be Our Guest breakfast was $28 ( as opposed to $25)
Indeed, Lucie.
Interesting!! Is there any other options or order from the meanu as my daughter and i do not eat meat? Thank you for the info we are heading there next week??
I’m pretty sure Garden Grill jumped up, too.
Has anyone noticed an increase on any kids’ menus throughout wdw?
This makes the dining plan a better value for the remaining months of the year. I’m guessing they’ll increase the price of that for next year, as well.
Hmmn. Biergarten had limited items on the lunch menu (for example, rouladen only was not available before 4pm)… I wonder if this change will mean it’s the same spread all day or if they will still have a more limited offering before 4pm. I have to assume it’s so they don’t have to close to switch over when the differences weren’t that significant. Hoping it’s just the dinner spread all day long.
I feel a little better about purchasing the Disney Dining Plan for our trip in November 2019. But still, I don’t see how the price increases are justified.
Hi DFB, I am so disappointed that Disney has chosen to increase food prices again. It’s bad enough the increase to the hotels, parking, tickets… It seems to me that a regular family will have to take out a 2nd mortgage to visit these days. If Disney is trying to increase profits, that just won’t happen by making people feel like they are getting gouged. For me & my family, we will just eat sandwiches etc that I can make in our hotel room & forego any dining whatsoever. $7 for a pretzel!!!! I’d choke on it!
Is the Biergarten menu now the same for lunch and dinner? I know at least the sauerbraten used to be dinner only.
AJ will Disney soon be out pricing us? It’s getting cost prohibitive for families to go.
My wife & I have gone to Disney World for over 40 years….most recent trip was 2017.
The price increases on tickets, hotels, parking charges for hotel guests, and now food price increases?
I’m concerned how young married people will be able to afford going there with children……if the economy slows down, people won’t be able to afford it….hope Disney realizes that.
Thinking of changing some November dining reservations due to these price hikes. We have Biergarten lunch, Trails End buffet and Garden Grill for Thanksgiving. Now they don’t seem worth the cost?
I’d love to see an updated video on Best Food Deals!!
We are very upset w these price increases, especially the snack carts. $7 for a pretzel is outrageous. A turkey leg is now $13.25 it’s crazy!!! I can buy a 15lb Thanksgiving turkey for $15 and feed an army! We are annual passholders and love to go to the Parks for a day trip, or overnight and snack around. But w these increases we can’t afford to frequent them often like we do. Thinking of foregoing our annual passholder ticket for next year cause the expense is too high for us retired folks. Very sad Disney is doing this. With the old prices they were very high as it was! Also the hotels are charging a fee to park! When does it stop!!!
In the past food was reasonable and fairly good. The past few years Disney has really raised food prices regularly. Specialty restaurants are the worse. Food quality is often reduced and increases yearly are not being met well by return families.
Every single restaurant I’ve looked at (that I was previously sure of the price as of last week) has increased. Casey’s corner, Sanaa (I was only sure of the bread service price), etc. I feel like the drink increases are, in part, to “bridge the gap” between non alcoholic and alcoholic drinks? For a visual “value” enhancement for those who have the dining plan but don’t drink alcohol. I mean, smart water is almost as much as a beer now (which is utterly ridiculous).
While prices seem to be on the rise everywhere these days, you would think Disney would hold them down. It costs soooo very much just to buy theme park tickets, merchandise, and of course the cost of the resorts. This may well be our last trip, too expensive! I think Walt would be ashamed. A trip the magical place on earth is very nearly out of reach for most families.
Molly, sauerbraten is still only listed on the dinner menu online, but that’s all subject to change (often without notice).
Vicki, the buffet will have several cold salad options and some warm vegetarian dishes (like nudel graten!). Double check with your server (or a manager or chef, if necessary) about other menu items, like the soups (may be made with chicken stock!). 🙂 Have a great time!
Amanda, we have seen price increases on kids’ menus. Typically the increase has been about twenty cents, but that varies. We’re still keeping an eye on this!
I agree, Walt would be very dissappointed with those suits running his “Happiest Place on Earth”. He intended it to be a family vacation spot. Now it seems that everything has an enormous pricetag and is out of the reach of your normal “American Family”. Adding parking fees to hotel stays is beyond ridiculous. I remember when you use to be able to stay at any All Star Resort for $59 a night. Now they cost as much as the moderates. Unacceptable Disney Suits!
I hate price increase a of any type because I’m on a limited disability income, but it’s not just Disney. Everything everywhere keeps going up. It’s hard and really scary; I can’t imagine what is going to happen to our economy eventually.
The Biergarten lunch price increase is crazy huge. That makes it a deal breaker for me for lunch.
Honestly, I think that Disney is passing on the cost of building the new Star Wars world and Star Wars Resort hotel on to us. And most probably they are “over budget” as well. I think that this year has been the worst year as far as price increases go for Disney since we have been going there which has been almost 15 years now. Sure, you can expect price increases in this economy from the cost of your daily newspaper to your grocery shopping, which I’m sure most of us have experienced already. However, to have so many price increases in one year?? It’s a little odd. From adding daily parking fees, and the money that Disney will save for eventually no longer providing straws and bags, ( We were in Disney World two weeks ago and stayed at POP CENTURY. They still had straws and still were giving out bags – but that’s only until they run out of their current inventory) to the ticketing prices changing on October 16 – so it will be like the airlines; each day will be a different price for your tickets based on their capacity for that day or week, to now the price increase for food all over the parks, with no warning. This only leads me to believe that they are over budget on Star Wars world and The Star Wars Resort, and also on their new endeavors such as the new Disney vacation club resort that is going up. And don’t forget the new gondola transportation system being built right now! Someone will be paying for that too and it’s looking more and more like it will be you and me, and not Disney! We will each have to decide if Disney is afordable any longer for us, whether we are retirees, single, or a family of 2, 4 or more, whether it’s going to be worth it or not to take a trip to Disney World. If this trend keeps up, I do believe that people will be looking for alternative vacations, myself included. As much as we all like Disney, it just will not be affordable for a lot of people any longer. Sad part is, based on what I’ve seen, I don’t think Disney really cares either. I think they are confident that they can fill their hotels and parks. Only time will tell.
BTW- forgot to say a big “THANK YOU” to AJ and the Disney Food Blog team for all of your hard work and for keeping us aware and informed of all of these changes! Thank you so much! I love your blog and newsletter and look forward to it in my inbox each day! : )
We’re staying at WDW this week and I have been mischarged on wine three times in the past three days at two different resort restaurants. At the Wave it was a $5 difference. When I questioned it a very grumpy bartender told me their prices had all changed and menus were not yet updated. He did get a manager to honour the menu price but the woman beside me told me she was charged $22 for a glass of wine and she was not happy.
We had a lunch reservation for our upcoming trip in November for 6 people that I just cancelled because of this. $44/$24 for a mediocre lunch is obscene. Biergarten isn’t the best fit part of our group as vegetarians but the atmosphere is fun. Definitely not $44 fun, however.
All the recent price hikes caused us to change our summer 2019 plans from staying onsite at POP to getting a 3 bedroom condo at Windsor Hills. Since we need two rooms at POP, the savings of the condo was over $1000 for the length of our stay. Plus, we’ll have a kitchen so we will save money by eating at the condo for all breakfasts and some dinners. We always drive, so the new parking fee at the resorts is basically what we’ll be paying to park at the parks as offsite guests.
The new menu increases are just crazy. I really don’t mind paying slightly higher prices for food on vacation, but it’s hard to swallow paying over $60 on average for a QS lunch for my family of 4. Let alone going to a table service restaurant, where we pay between $200 and $300 on one meal. When we first started going to Disney, I used to budget $100 a day to eat at one QS and one TS every day. That went up to $150 per day once my kids became “Disney adults”. Now, I budget $200 a day and we only have a couple of TS meals per trip. I really don’t know how much longer, we’ll be able to afford to go and that makes me sad.
We are disney club members. We are staying at Saratoga Springs, our home base in November for 5 days. We have decided to skip the parks this trip because we simply cannot afford the tickets. We may have to sell our membership soon because it is getting just too expensive for a family of 4. Very sad.
This may have been a previous change but Restaurantosarus DROPPED the double cheese burger (most expensive item on menut). The most expensive item now is $2 less. Katsura Grill dropped the combo that included drink and Ice Cream price of $18.99. Now it will cost $21.05 to get same thing separately. These are just 2 I have noticed so far.
When our children were little we went to Disney world about every other year. It has now become a once in a lifetime destination because of the cost. Sorry grandbabies
I think the reason for so many price increases is, in part, to manage the crowds for Star Wars Land. They are going to have masses of people flocking in for that and they might be concerned about how they’re going to handle the overcrowding. (just my theory) Pricing out a lot of the regular visitors may be intentional, at least for a time, while things are so crowded. We’re DVC members and we had already decided we wouldn’t be visiting the parks for a year or two because we don’t want to face the crazy Star Wars crowds. We’ll use our points at Hilton Head or Vero Beach or Aulani until things calm down a little.
I don’t think prices will ever go back down to what they once were, but I do think some prices will go down as Star Wars crowds start to thin out in a few years. Back in 2009, after the 2008 crash, Disney introduced tons of discounts of various kinds. If they have a park attendance slump in the future, I’m sure we’ll see that again. In the meantime, we’ll wait a bit before we go back and we’ll probably do Garden Grocer deliveries and take some of our food with us rather than buy in the parks when we do go back. Disney still has a much kinder policy about bringing your own food into the park than pretty much any other theme park. As long as they leave that as an option, while I’m not super happy about the price increases, I’m not too upset about it either.