Anyone actualy likes deluxe dining plan?

[mickey2000]

Its like a cruise ship on land with ALL the food
Think I'll stick to my two or three cruises a year with free food
Gosh, pay a little more and even get free soda on a Disney Cruise LOL

[fici]

We did deluxe last time when we were at Poly and it worked well(three families totaling 6 adults and 5 children). This time we are staying at BC CL and got dining plus. I am hoping that this covers our needs. Of course, I will be trying to take advantage of lounge offerings especially at breakfast and drinksappetizers in the evening. We are still going to have to pay OOP for Il Mulino and another one or two meals but I am so tired of trying to figure out what works best that I am going with it. The offer for spring adding the plus dining ended up costing us only $400+ for 11 people for 6 nights from what we would have paid.. Since Grammy(me) and Poppi are paying I figured let's just see how it goes. Do hope I am happy when I compare our receipts to what the plan cost when I get home!!

[almburr]

Another lover of the DxDP here!

[GaBelle]

My DH will not even consider a trip to WDW without the DxDP. For him, therefore me, it is about convenience and a scheduled break. We are a 3 meals a day kind of family, love character meals and dinner shows, so it works for us.
It also feels very indulgent... and its a vacation so why not!!

[fuzzlekins]

This is going to sound strange but we did the DDP this time and are considering doing the DDDP next time for LESS food. No, I'm not crazy. I understand that you get more entitlements but here's why I say this ... Hubby doesn't love CS dining. I like a big hearty breakfast (I'm actually fond of the character buffets for breakfast b/c of the variety). We would NOT eat 3 meals/day again - we constantly felt over-stuffed trying to squeeze everything in. We had ADRs and supplemented the DP with some OOP. We also found that the finer the dining, the smaller the portions ... we prefer that. So, my thinking is that using the DDDP will give us character buffet breakfasts nearly every day, snacks for "lunch," and a signature dining dinner most nights and some regular TS. We'll wind up with a few extra credits probably, but when I did the math, it will be a better deal than paying OOP (I'm assuming we'll get another S/P/D or FD deal for our next trip b/c we do low season). We'll also use more of our snack credits by not over-stuffing meals. This time, we had tons of snack credits to use up on our last day. Thankfully, banana bread freezes well so we loaded up on that at our last breakfast and brought home some Mickey treats to share with friends. There were so many cupcakes and ice cream treats I would have liked to have tried but we just had no room. Hoping eating less and an earlier dinner will change that on our next trip.

[Colleen27]

Originally Posted by Mama Moose

I got the TiW card last trip with my AP, but it killed me everytime I had to pay oop. It just wasn't enjoyable and there were things on the menu I wanted to order, but my frugal side wouldn't let me.
Sure we could eat alot cheaper, but we really enjoy the character meals.
Also, we will probably do more TS meals so we can relax in the A/C.

That's what worries me about using the TiW instead of a pre-paid plan. We're staying club level at CSR next trip and I'll have TiW so I know a dining plan isn't the way to go - with breakfast and evening snacks covered in the lounge, the TiW discount for our TS meals, and the commando pace the girls want to keep we just wouldn't get our money's worth - but I'm still worried DH & I will have a hard time relaxing and ordering what we want without fretting over Disney prices.

[clanmcculloch]

Originally Posted by Colleen27

That's what worries me about using the TiW instead of a pre-paid plan. We're staying club level at CSR next trip and I'll have TiW so I know a dining plan isn't the way to go - with breakfast and evening snacks covered in the lounge, the TiW discount for our TS meals, and the commando pace the girls want to keep we just wouldn't get our money's worth - but I'm still worried DH & I will have a hard time relaxing and ordering what we want without fretting over Disney prices.

Here's what we did. It won't necessarily work for everybody, but it did seem to work for me. I was really nervous the first time we went without a dining plan for this very reason so we booked a split stay with the last 3 nights of our trip being the first time we ever went without a dining plan just to see how we'd handle it (it was also our first CL stay).

Before our trip I went through menus. I took note of the most expensive things that might interest each of us including appetizers, drinks, entrees and desserts. I included things that we might potentially want even if the likelihood of ordering them was only maybe 50%. I added these up and added tax. That then became the amount of money I put aside for that ADR. When it came time for the meal, I knew just what items I had budgetted for. Generally we didn't end up wanting everything I had budgetted for or somebody wanted a less expensive options, but I already had the money allotted for whatever we might potentially order so that gave us the freedom to feel as though we could go ahead and order any of those things. We still continue to do this and it continues to work for us.

[Colleen27]

Originally Posted by clanmcculloch

Here's what we did. It won't necessarily work for everybody, but it did seem to work for me. I was really nervous the first time we went without a dining plan for this very reason so we booked a split stay with the last 3 nights of our trip being the first time we ever went without a dining plan just to see how we'd handle it (it was also our first CL stay).

Before our trip I went through menus. I took note of the most expensive things that might interest each of us including appetizers, drinks, entrees and desserts. I included things that we might potentially want even if the likelihood of ordering them was only maybe 50%. I added these up and added tax. That then became the amount of money I put aside for that ADR. When it came time for the meal, I knew just what items I had budgetted for. Generally we didn't end up wanting everything I had budgetted for or somebody wanted a less expensive options, but I already had the money allotted for whatever we might potentially order so that gave us the freedom to feel as though we could go ahead and order any of those things. We still continue to do this and it continues to work for us.

I went through the menus, plugged everything into my handy-dandy spreadsheet, and put that amount plus a fairly generous margin of error on a Disney gift card. That's how I budget all of our household spending because my girls' school participates in the Scrip program, so I'm hoping the fact that it is a familiar routine will make it easier to do Disney without a dining plan. I know we'll likely come in quite a bit under budget - DD's BFF is picky and might order kids' meals sometimes, and I used average entree costs even though I know I'll be ordering vegetarian (cheap) meals in a few places, plus I figured in appetizers & desserts 75% of the time knowing that it'll probably be closer to 50%. It isn't as though extra money on a gift card will go to waste anyway, with a few other trips coming up in the near future.

[meredith1]

We love it! We usually go to a character meal prepark opening and have a signature meal each night. We will always get it-love it!

[MichelleWDWfan]

I've tried the regular dining plan...but it wasn't enough.
I ended up paying for extra meals because DS was still hungry. (teenagers lol)

DS 17 and I love the Dlx DDP.
We love the flexibility, and we do not like to eat QS.

Taking a break to sit and enjoy TS meals is important to us, otherwise we are on the go morning till night.

Generally we never eat 3 meals a day...it's just too much food.
We usually eat Breakfast and Dinner TS, then have snacks in between.

This works well for us. We do enjoy going to the dinner shows, character meals, and some signature TS as well.

The deluxe dining plan gives us all the flexibility to enjoy Disney dining the way we want to. (I sound like a commercial)

[LovesTimone]

For DH and I this is the only way to go!!! he likes knowing that everything but tip and adult beverages are paid for and we enjoy 2 TS meals so this is a big plus for us.

It's your vacation so don't worry just do what you want.

[goofy4tink]

We did it just once. My dh and I traveled with another couple. The guys love to eat and we all enjoy some 'nicer' meals while at WDW. So, we booked a lot of 2 credit meals. We would book a big breakfast (sometimes character, sometimes not) every morning. We booked it for around 10ish. Then, we would grab a snack around 2ish, and have a big dinner around 6. Worked very well for us. Since the guys weren't hugely 'into' attractions, I didn't feel that we spent too much time eating. We got to do the things we wanted to do, and ha some really good meals.

[disneynanacat]

We're going DxDP this time too! We had to do at 5/2day split stay because we couldn't get the last two nights at BLT so I'm stretching the meals to cover 6 days instead of 5. I was disappointed we didn't get our last 2 night at BLT but it really worked out for the best as far as the dining plan goes. I just have to pay for a couple meals oop for the last day. Also, this is a special trip for my DGD HS graduation and 18th birthday. On top of that we're bringing her DBF who has never been to WDW and is an aspiring chef going to culinary arts school so I've got 4 signatures planned. It will be fun to show him the World and the world of opportunities that await him as a chef! I spent hours on the net crunching numbers with the allears.net menus and decided the DxDP will be the best fit for us this trip!

[fuzzlekins]

Originally Posted by disneynanacat

We're going DxDP this time too! We had to do at 5/2day split stay because we couldn't get the last two nights at BLT so I'm stretching the meals to cover 6 days instead of 5. I was disappointed we didn't get our last 2 night at BLT but it really worked out for the best as far as the dining plan goes. I just have to pay for a couple meals oop for the last day. Also, this is a special trip for my DGD HS graduation and 18th birthday. On top of that we're bringing her DBF who has never been to WDW and is an aspiring chef going to culinary arts school so I've got 4 signatures planned. It will be fun to show him the World and the world of opportunities that await him as a chef! I spent hours on the net crunching numbers with the allears.net menus and decided the DxDP will be the best fit for us this trip!

I never would have thought of splitting my stay but if you do that, do you still only have until midnight on your first check out to use up your credits? We're finding that we will definitely save money with the DxDP on our next time (I spreadsheet everything too) but we will still have leftover credits. It would be great if we could stretch those out. Otherwise, we'll wind up getting extra waffles at our last breakfast and freezing them just to use up the credits. We're driving so we can bring a cooler. Could also pick up sandwiches at DTD for our drive home.

[disneynanacat]

Originally Posted by fuzzlekins

I never would have thought of splitting my stay but if you do that, do you still only have until midnight on your first check out to use up your credits? We're finding that we will definitely save money with the DxDP on our next time (I spreadsheet everything too) but we will still have leftover credits. It would be great if we could stretch those out. Otherwise, we'll wind up getting extra waffles at our last breakfast and freezing them just to use up the credits. We're driving so we can bring a cooler. Could also pick up sandwiches at DTD for our drive home.

Yes, you have until midnight of your check out day to use your credits. I asked here and another site to confirm. I'll be confirming with Disney too before I make the ADRs in April. I've managed to use all of our credits.

We'll have 15 credits. 5 days X 3 credits a day.

Sunday: Late Breakfast at Crystal Palace, dinner California Grill (3)
Monday: Use snack credits for the F&W booths, dinner Tutto Italia (1)
Tuesday: Teppan Edo lunch, Yachtman's Steakhouse dinner (3)
Wednesday: Kona Cafe lunch, Narcoossee's dinner (3)
Thursday: Sci-fi Dine In lunch, Be Our Guest dinner before MNSSHP (2)
Friday: (check out day BLT and check in AKV) breakfast Grand Floridian Cafe, Jiko dinner (3)