Real Life DDP vs OOP Example

[DJFan88]

now that my kids are all disney adults and the plan is way over 50 bucks per person, it's a no brainer. It's no longer the cheaper option, we simple would not eat 220 dollars worth of meal every day.

Found the same to be true. And we were well fed. Ate what we wanted, when we wanted, and did the table service places I wanted (not based on which cost more or less).

 

[SDTeaGirl]

We fall in the "rarity" category I guess. With 2 small kids who love characters, are picky eaters at times, and don't like to sit still very long waiting for food, we do almost all character meals/buffets. Just works better for our family.

I make adr's and then do the math every year, and still come out ahead with the dining plan. We do a military room discount, but then add the dining plan on.

I totally understand why it doesn't work for everyone, but for anyone doing all/mostly meals with a set price, its a pretty good deal!

We are doing the DDP this December. Didn't get it free. We have a lot of character meals CRT. Cp tusker 1900 park fare for bfast and dinner. Fultons . H & v with F! Biergarten with cp askerkus t rex. Plus all qs and snack meals. I figured me dh and dd that is nine on the DDP will break even or come out a couple of dollars ahead. I figured what we would eat each day and totaled it up before tax. DDP WAS $30 HIGHER but when u add tax into meal we will be saving. I like the convience of it Nd done have to worry about forming the money out on vacation. It will be paid for in advance. If we didn't do all the character meals we would not do the dining plan

 

[Zeppelin]

here's my experience/breakdown...in the past i got the DDP because it was free...this time around there was a big discount on the rooms and i passed on the dining plan...

The cost was somewhere around $660 for me (big eater), wife and 10YO daughter (likes lunch and her snacks), who counts as an adult....here's the cost of our meals from start to finish:

8/18:

Breakfast at IHop- $38 incl tip
Lunch at Seasons in EPCOT- $50 = 1QS
Dinner at LTT- $120 incl tip = 1TS

8/19:

Breakfast at Wave- $58 incl tip
Dinner at Casey's Corner- $50 = 1QS

8/20:

Breakfast at Rainforest Cafe- $55 incl tip
Dinner at Plaza Restaurant- $60 incl tip = 1TS

8/21 (Departure Day):

Breakfast at Crystal Palace- $84 incl tip = 1TS
Lunch at Cosmic Rays- $40 = 1QS

Snacks

about 10 total snacks at $4 each or $40
-------------------------------------------

total spent was $595, which includes the cost of 3 breakfasts which would not have been covered under the DDP....

IMO the DDP works if you're going to do a lot of expensive character meals...had we eaten at Chef Mickey's, CRT, etc the DDP makes sense but in the end not getting the plan was best for us...the savings here was about 30% but if i carve out the tips, not included in DDP, the savings would be an additional 20%....

 

[CalSea12]

I usually tend to break even or come out $50 ahead with the DDP. I have looked at the menu this time with the places we plan to eat and what we will be eating versus how much the dining plan would've cost ( we're getting free dining ), and still breaking even. For my family getting the dining plan and breaking even is awesome! We do not always order the most expensive items, but hubby does like his steak and cheesecake. I love the character meals. We would eat as much and the same things on or off the plan, in fact I always wish we could eat more but the dining plan kinda forces me to stick to a plan.

 

[jimmysmom74]

We are getting free dining in november, but I have always felt for us, the room discount was a better deal (being at a deluxe). This year we are staying at a moderate and taking advantage of the FD. I used the dining plan once before when you got apps, entree, and dessert. It was a lot of food, but a much better deal on paper. I wish you could sub apps for desserts though-that would work better for us.

 

[MinnieLovesMickey12]

To address a PP that said a 30% room discount in a deluxe would be a better value if there were only 2 ppl. If you do the math on that it would have to be a 30% room discount on a room that cost at least $400 a night. a 30% room discount on a $300-$350 room is still not as much of a savings as 2 adults X $58 a day for the DDP. So in almost every circumstance the free dining is a better deal. Especially when there are 5 of you all Disney adults.

We can eat OOP and have a CS breakfast, a CS lunch and a TS dinner, even if we order the $30 steak at dinner, for less than $58 a day. And that is 3 meals instead of 2 that the dining plan provides. So OOP for us will always be cheaper than PAYING for the dining plan. But the 2 times we had the dining plan it was free. all other times we pay OOP.

From now on we will be staying off site at Bonnet Creek and still eating out almost every meal. We will have some breakfasts in the room but we also have some BF ADR's as well as dinner ADR's every day.

 

[smiths02]

To address a PP that said a 30% room discount in a deluxe would be a better value if there were only 2 ppl. If you do the math on that it would have to be a 30% room discount on a room that cost at least $400 a night. a 30% room discount on a $300-$350 room is still not as much of a savings as 2 adults X $58 a day for the DDP. So in almost every circumstance the free dining is a better deal. Especially when there are 5 of you all Disney adults.

We can eat OOP and have a CS breakfast, a CS lunch and a TS dinner, even if we order the $30 steak at dinner, for less than $58 a day. And that is 3 meals instead of 2 that the dining plan provides. So OOP for us will always be cheaper than PAYING for the dining plan. But the 2 times we had the dining plan it was free. all other times we pay OOP.

From now on we will be staying off site at Bonnet Creek and still eating out almost every meal. We will have some breakfasts in the room but we also have some BF ADR's as well as dinner ADR's every day.

The room discount doesn't have to be equal to the price of the DDP to be better, it has to be equal to the value you get from DDP.

 

[mommyrosa2]

FWIW, I have always been a dining plan advocate for my family mainly because we have always come out ahead using the DP vs OOP. I run the numbers before each trip and even staying deluxe, getting the DP free was always a better deal for us rather than getting a R/O discount...that is until this past trip. We just returned on Sunday from an 8 day stay (booked the FD BB from last August) and stayed at the BC. We had all our dinner ADR's planned and were ready to go. I started keeping track of all our receipts on our first day until dinner. That's when my oldest DD became ill and we found ourselves at Celebration Hospital the next morning with her. She had a very nasty stomach bug which lasted all week right up until the 2nd to the last day of vacation. Because of this, she missed quite a few TS meals, QS meals & snacks. Even though we got the DP free, I realized very quickly that we "lost our shirts" on this trip. Had everything gone as planned, yes, we would have come out ahead (not by much but still ahead), but it didn't and it made us re-think our future vacations. We ended up upgrading our tickets to A/P's and we got the TIW card (which we did begin using on this trip and it has almost paid for itself already). In October, DH & I are returning to the world and will use our TIW card and when we return next August with the kids, we decided we won't be getting the DP, we'll use the TIW for that trip as well and I'm sure we'll do pretty well. This is a debate that will never end - you'll always have the folks who swear by the DP and those who prefer OOP, to me it's a mute point - different strokes for different folks and I would never try to push my family's preference onto anyone else. I just wanted to comment that "Real Life" threw us a curve ball on this particular trip and we're going to try something else on the next one.

 

[Sheilby]

Just got back from 6 nights in the world.

7 Disney adults.

Meal Plan would have been $55.59 x 7 x 6 = $2,334.78

7 Table Service Meals - We ate at Be Our Guest, Chefs De France, Tony's Town Square, Kona Café, 50s Prime Time, Hoop Dee Doo Review and Ohana (character breakfast).

Counter Service meals were Columbia Harbor House, Casey's Corner, Yak and Yeti takeout, Flame Tree BBQ, Sunshine Terrace and Captain Cook's.

Our gratuities and alcohol consumed at the table service meals totaled $243.07. In addition, we consumed snacks in excess of the meal plan allowance totaling $167.80. We bought two mugs for $32.99.

So with the meal plan our cost would have been $2334.78 + 243.07 + 167.80 - $32.99 or $2,712.66.

Our actual OOP cost for the week was $2,427.19

Cash savings of $285.47

We ordered whatever we wanted and snacked whenever we wanted. And the savings is actually greater because I didn't analyze the non-alcoholic drinks like Wild Berry Foam Lemonade that we ordered here and there that isn't included as a meal plan beverage. Probably ordered at least $40 of those suckers so let's say the savings is $325.

I see some do their own math and the two totals are closer and they say that they like the convenience of the meal plan so they will just pay for the DDP anyway even if the math shows it is more.

We've done the DDP (when it was free) and our experience is the exact opposite - it was SO much more convenient to just order off the menu whatever you wanted and not have to sort out what credits were being used where and if there was a more efficient way of paying etc.

I offer all of this as food for thought.

I'm not surprised, when I run the numbers the only way the DDP saves you money (now with all the price increases) is if you would always be ordering the most expensive things from the menu and you would have always ordered dessert with lunch and dinner anyway.

I have a little different scenario. I can chose 30% off or a free Disney dining plan. The difference between these two things is $1606.36. We are a party of 7 (6 disney adults and 1 disney kid) staying 7 nights. If I take out the kid portion at $18 dollars a day for 7 days that leaves $1480.36 which works out to be $35.25 per adult per day. In other words as long as I get more than $35.25 worth of value out of our meal plan per Disney adult we are making out better choosing the meal plan rather than the % off. I can increase the difference between the two scenarios a bit by making some complicated choices, but that would only make the value of the adult meal have to hit a couple dollars more so I think we could still easily hit the mark.

I do agree, I would prefer the freedom of not having the plan, but the numbers in my case seem to indicate it is a no brainier.

edited to add: thanks for sharing your numbers.

 

[Sheilby]

When I'm on the ddp I end of stressing over the cost of the meal and I make sure I order t he most expensive thing even if I only want a salad because God forbid I didn't maximize my credits.
That's why I never understand the "not think about what you order" line of thinking.
The two times I did the ddp that's all I did was over whether or not I got the most out of my credits.

I totally understand that. I'm already stressing over it and we don't go until November. I actually booked 8 ts meals even though we only have 7 credits so that when someone wants the "cheap" menu item I can pay oop and save the credit for our 8th meal. The last time I didn't stress because it was "free" (and I didn't know any better), this time I'm choosing between the "free" and the discount ro. This will be the last time we do the dining plan.

 

[Sheilby]

I agree with this, even though I'm a huge fan of free dining and am using it for 10 days in November!

My uncle and I go almost every year and share a room, and meet my brother's family there (they live near Ft. Lauderdale.) The timing is based on my niece's birthday at the beginning of November, so the time we are already going happens to coincide well with Free Dining promos, and my uncle strongly prefers to stay on property, so we aren't picking our hotel based on getting free food. For us, it truly is FREE, IMO, so any money it saves is a gain for us.

Still not free since you aren't taking advantage of the room only discount.

 

[Sydney2977]

Our first two trips when the boys were younger we did not use ddp. We didn't know what our eating schedule was going to be with them, and I didn't like the idea of planning.

We have used the ddp on the last 4 trips because I figured out how to get the most out of it for the four of us. I know our eating habits and how much and when we eat. We share at almost every meal except buffets. We like getting to order more expensive things that we may not normally, and knowing it's paid off in advance.
When it's just DH and I, it may not be beneficial anymore. I will probably just save up money, put it on a gift card, and have it paid off in advance that way.

One thing I wish they would change about ts is getting an appetizer OR dessert, not just dessert. They could even limit it to certain lower priced appetizers.

I will add up our "bill" and try to remember to add it in my trip report when we get beack from our Nov. trip.