I have no doubt you saved by tallying the actual recipts, but did you eat exactly what you would have eaten if you didn't have the plan? We found we wasted a lot of food on the DDP, so for 3 trips we kept very detailed accounting. One trip with the DDP, one with DDP for half the trip (split stay) and one trip with only using OOP and TIW card for discounts.
We saved over $200 (spent that much less) when we did OOP and TIW over the DDP trips. On top of that, we were able to choose appetizers instead of desserts when we paid OOP, and our signature restaurant ressies didn't cost us two days worth of meals. I dare say I would be hard pressed to say DDP saves anybody any real money. Of course with little ones who don't get charged....maybe.
I guess you missed where I said we took out approx. $200.00 for beverages and desserts we wouldn't normally have eaten. But, we then would have had to buy our very hungry toddler his own meals - with ordering desserts for hubby or a fruit cup dessert for the baby, we were able to not purchase him 1TS kid meal the entire trip; therefore, the $600.00 savings is hard to actually quantify as we ate everything we ordered - but as I said, we sometimes only shared 1 dessert and we always drink water with our meals, so the beverages were a wash as well. DH splurged on a few lemonades or milkshakes on the DP where they let him, but we don't normally order these, nor do we normally order desserts.
You can't make a sweeping generalization that the DP doesn't save anybody money - have you tallied up the millions of receipts that the DP generates? Like I said, we are WDW veterans and have done every kind of meal possible - mentioned that above as well. We thoroughly spreadsheet ourselves to death before each trip - we've also eaten pretty much everywhere, including most Signatures, so we know the menus, portion sizes, etc. We don't go into anything blindly - we wouldn't just purchase the DP for convenience, as that is silly to us as well. We have done DDE/TIW, OOP,
DVC and AP discounts, plus DxDP several times, as well as in combination with DP. We've done it all!
Therefore, for this trip, we saved with the DP, and that is only ordering what we normally eat - we don't try and maximize at all, as we think that is silly. We only got a few steaks, didn't order the most expensive, don't eat seafood, etc., but we do eat at a lot of character meals with the kids, so this is a big savings for sure. If you read my post thoroughly enough, you would have seen that we have a child and an infant; therefore, with kids, you usually will always save on the DP for sure. One character meal is 2x the price of the DP, plus there is still a CS and a snack to utilize.
I don't want to debate with anyone as to whether we saved money - as I thoroughly mentioned in my post, we adjusted our savings, and we still came out way ahead. It is, what it is...and for the savings, we are grateful!
Thanks, Tiger
