On dining plan, too many OOP meals Oh my!!!

[Mustangdi]

Anyone else with the same problem?
We have free dining, but it looks
like we will have 2 or 3 OOP meals. I
have a few places for res that won't
fit into our credit allowance. Is this a
common thing to happen with all the
good places to eat? I will try to not
think about the extra $$$ and the
possibility of added weight.
Am I the only one?
:)

[tripplanner2]

No, we did the same thing. But I will say it was way too much food and we had a ton of leftover CS credits left.

[Stellapedia]

That's why I generally don't do the standard dining plan, I don't want CS. Once or twice, fine. Not every day. I wish they had a middle of the road dining plan. 3 TS with apps is a bit too much... 2 TS a day would be perfect.

[MichaelColey]

We will have five out of pocket with our upcoming 14 day/credit trip. I look at it as a great way to maximize our value while getting to eat everywhere we want. Look up the prices for all of the meals you'll be eating and mark the ones that are the cheapest (per credit) to pay out of pocket. If you're going with kids, this will almost always be different for the adults and the kids. It's no problem to pay out of pocket for some meals on a ticket while you're using credits for others.

In general, I've found that the cheapest ones per credit are usually breakfasts, lunches, and signature restaurants. For kids, the cheapest ones are usually the nicer restaurants (not buffets or character meals) which are typically $7.59.

[TheRatPack]

We are doing the QSDP this year, normally we do the regular dining plan. So we have 5 OOP TS dining ADRs made. While we think we'll enjoy the QS plan with the extra CS a day....there were certain TS that we didn't want to miss so we'll pay OOP for those.

[eliza61]

Anyone else with the same problem?
We have free dining, but it looks
like we will have 2 or 3 OOP meals. I
have a few places for res that won't
fit into our credit allowance. Is this a
common thing to happen with all the
good places to eat? I will try to not
think about the extra $$$ and the
possibility of added weight.
Am I the only one?
:)

It may be time to re-evaluate whether DP is the best option for you. We tried the DP once and had a lot of cs credits left over and had to pay oop a few times so we've never gone back.

We use the TIW card now. Definitely suits us better.

[Mustangdi]

Thanks for all the good tips.

[1hero2princesses]

Same problem. Because of CRT I will have to pay out of pocket for two meals. Just trying to figure out which two. We used all our CS last year by the way too. Course we have 5 people on a 4 person plan (youngest is 2 1/2). We eat all our meals though and even the kids won't share - they don't get enough to eat! I don't know how anyone has anything left over. You are only getting two meals a day on the regular plan!

[gigi1313]

Look up the prices for all of the meals you'll be eating and mark the ones that are the cheapest (per credit) to pay out of pocket.

i disagree with this theory... i say use all your credits before you pay OOP simply because if you end up cancelling any of those later reservations, you run the risk of going home with unused credits... i would most certainly rather pay $2 or $3 more on a meal at the end of the week than leave unused credits behind...

cancellations can happen for so many reasons... weather (i.e. hurricane!), tiredness, illness, something else appealed to you, etc...

[Chelley00]

Same problem. Because of CRT I will have to pay out of pocket for two meals.!




You may want to check on pricing. It was cheaper for me to pay OOP for CRT and use our 2TS credits for 2 TS meals instead.

[Colleen27]

That's one of the reasons we go with the deluxe plan now. On the basic plan, we found we didn't have enough TS meals and had far more CS than we wanted. The DxDDP is a lot more flexible, so we can plan the TS meals we want without deciding which to pay for OOP or feeling like we should be eating more CS even though we don't care for the CS experience.

[Nadjalu]

We will be on the DDP on our upcoming trip.....yay for FD!!
But we have opted to pay OOP for Donald's BK and a lunch at Sci FI on our departure day, simply because we want to experience these places.

[Disney Lovin' Grammy]

:confused3
I guess maybe my family and I are just "weird". When we go and we get dining, we make our plans to fit into what dining we have available. We have always had plenty to eat but haven't paid OOP for any meals. I will, however, say I do always take some snacks, breakfast items, etc. to supplement.

It's all personal preference, but I guess I am just too "practical" to go on vacation and spend OOP for meals when I have DDP....free or otherwise.

[TheRatPack]

:confused3
I guess maybe my family and I are just "weird". When we go and we get dining, we make our plans to fit into what dining we have available. We have always had plenty to eat but haven't paid OOP for any meals. I will, however, say I do always take some snacks, breakfast items, etc. to supplement.

It's all personal preference, but I guess I am just too "practical" to go on vacation and spend OOP for meals when I have DDP....free or otherwise.

We've always done this too, planned our days around where we wanted to eat and only planned meals for the credits we had available. This year since the free dining plan was the QSDP with only the CS available, we chose to try it out instead of upgrading. Due to that, we will have to pay for any sit down table service meals we want to experience....and over the years there are a few that we don't want to miss....so we're fine with that.

It would have cost us maybe 500.00 more to upgrade to the regular dining plan, but then we'd have to buy our mugs, and pay OOP for any extra snacks or extra CS meals....so we figured we're probably breaking even paying OOP versus upgrading to the regular dining plan.

It's what's practical for us this year :)

[Chelley00]

[QUOTE=Disney Lovin' Grammy;33558976When we go and we get dining, we make our plans to fit into what dining we have available. [/QUOTE]


Our problem is our flight comes in very early on day 1 and leaves very late on day 11. We only have 10 nights of credits, so we have to pay OOP for a couple of meals so we make sure we get to eat on our last day.

[robinb]

Same problem. Because of CRT I will have to pay out of pocket for two meals. Just trying to figure out which two. We used all our CS last year by the way too. Course we have 5 people on a 4 person plan (youngest is 2 1/2). We eat all our meals though and even the kids won't share - they don't get enough to eat! I don't know how anyone has anything left over. You are only getting two meals a day on the regular plan!I would pay OOP for CRT for the adults and use TS credits for the kids. On the other two meals, I would use the adult TS credits and pay OOP for the kids.

[WETWHISTLE]

We usually pay OOP for 2 character breakfasts. We find them to be the cheapest meals. We love to do TS for dinner each night, so we use those credits for those. It works for us.