$689, are they kidding??

[Purseval]

At the top of many of the pages is an ad for a free DDP when you book a 6 day-5 night package. They are saying that their dining plan is worth $689 That would be more than an average family of four would spend on a month's worth of food. Unless you are going to WDW just to gorge yourself instead of actually doing any touring all that ad shows is what a ripoff WDW food prices are and how much you can save by staying offsite.

I'm sure there are some families who could spend $700 just on one dinner, but this is a budget board so I feel compelled to point out the outrageousness of that ad.

 

[maggiew]

Well, for my family, the dining plan would be about $40 x 4 x 5 nights, which is $800. So that ad seems about right.

Our grocery budget is $250 per week. (There are 6 of us, including grandma and grandpa who live with us.)

Maggie

 

[MSSANDRA]

That is most likely for a family of four...around a 100.00 /day for meals. Pretty much on target for what most families would spend for the same food bought without the dinning plan.

 

[disneyfans95]

That is most likely for a family of four...around a 100.00 /day for meals. Pretty much on target for what most families would spend for the same food bought without the dinning plan.

Bingo. Sorry OP, but Disney is pretty much on the money (hehe see that witty pun there!) on this one..

 

[Purseval]

That is most likely for a family of four...around a 100.00 /day for meals. Pretty much on target for what most families would spend for the same food bought without the dinning plan.

Bingo. Sorry OP, but Disney is pretty much on the money (hehe see that witty pun there!) on this one..

You don't get it. I'm not saying the price of the DDP is inaccurate I'm saying the price of the plan itself is a masive budget buster. You could easily cut that in half or more by simply eating somewhere else.

BTW, according to the government's latest Statistical Abstract the average weekly food expenditure for a family of four goes from $120 for a thrifty family to $272 for a liberal one. You have to get up into the moderate range to spend more in a month than this DDP charges for a week.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/prices/food_cost_and_prices.html

 

[crisi]

Its one of the reasons the Dining Plan can be a good VALUE for people, but it isn't necessarily the cheapest way to "Do Disney." Bringing in food, splitting meals, eating counterservice, eating offisite, cooking at a timeshare (or "cooking" in your hotel room) can save a LOT of money over doing the Dining Plan.

Pre Dining Plan days the budget board was filled with people who could feed their families at Disney for cheap.

(IIRC, you actually own a LV purse - some people find value in different things - we will spend probably $1500-$2000 for a family of four JUST dining a Disney this next trip - we won't do the Dining Plan. We will drink a bottle of wine that cost more than $100, probably more than once. Yes, it could feed our family for MONTHS, but we have it to spend and this is where we choose to spend it - but I don't own an expensive purse).

 

[casper_jj11]

Yes, but those stats are based on grocery shopping; not eating out for 6 days straight. I know for us, the DDP is a savings. I figure that for us, $100 a day for two restaurant meals a day for a family of 5 (one under 3) is a pretty good deal.

 

[MinnieForMe]

Seems right or low. Our Storybook Dining at Epcot for 1 meal cost over $200 with tip for 2 adults and three kids

 

[disneyfans95]

You don't get it. I'm not saying the price of the DDP is inaccurate I'm saying the price of the plan itself is a masive budget buster. You could easily cut that in half or more by simply eating somewhere else.

BTW, according to the government's latest Statistical Abstract the average weekly food expenditure for a family of four goes from $120 for a thrifty family to $272 for a liberal one. You have to get up into the moderate range to spend more in a month than this DDP charges for a week.

http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/prices/food_cost_and_prices.html

Oh I get it, but I think you are wrong. Disney is saying the value of THEIR plan (ie what they are giving you) is about $700. That is accurate.

Of course you could do it cheaper if you shared meals, eat in your room cold cereal etc. But that is not what they are giving you. Not exactly sure why you are upset over the ad

 

[littlbugmom]

It depends so much on the family and the way they want to vacation. It's well worth it and even a great deal to a family who wants to stay on property and who wants to eat that many restaurant meals.

The one time we stayed on property and used the dining plan, we decided it didn't fit our family's way of vacationing. It was too much food and we didn't want to spend that much time in restaurants.

We stay off property to save money because we want a townhouse or condo. (Disney villas are great but 3x the price) For a 10 day trip, we stock the fridge with about $200 worth of groceries and we budget about $400 for the restaurants we want to make ADR's for. That works for us.

 

[vicki_c]

There is no reasonable comparison to make between dining out (Disney or elsewhere) and grocery budgets - it doesn't make any sense.

If I ate out with my family of four 2 or 3 times a day while at home, for a week, it would cost me the same. We went out to dinner on Friday night at a local BBQ sit down place and our bill was $80. Lunches out at a sit down restaurant cost my family around $45-50 on average, breakfasts at a sit down place around $35 normally. Those 3 examples alone add up to about $150. Even McDonald's for a family of 4 will hit $15-20.

You are not comparing apples to apples (or groceries to groceries, as the case may be). Disney food pricing is really not that expensive for a captive audience, IMO - with the exception of the character dinner type things where you are paying for the experience.

 

[tinkmom2]

One meal at Jikos would have cost us $130.00. That was just for my husband and I. For us the dining plan is a good deal. We also like to do character meals. That in itself is quite pricey.
Our grocery bill at home is $100.00 a week for a family of 4. We like eating fancy meals or things we normally don't eat at home at WDW. Our first time to WDW we didn't have the dining plan and spent nearly $700.00 of our spending money on foods for a week. So the estimate of $689 savings is probably accurate.

 

[snappy]

We do better on the dining plan with the Tables in wonderland card, eating only at our favorite sit downs, and sharing meals at that and cooking in our usually offsite villa. We do have a small disney boardwalk villa contract, but always supplement our stays at the boardwalk with either several AP rate hotel rooms or great offsite villas. We are now really stuck on Wyndham bonnet creek. Offsite villas with a full kitchen and the laundry facilites in the room hve been perfect for us, especially with at least a 3 bedroom unit.

DH and I are in our fifties, and eat less at this point in our lives, our 14 and 20 year old daughters and their friends eat light too. We share meals and salads, easy to do at sit down restaurants, and they will split the meals in the kitchen before the food comes to the table. We end up getting to try a lot of things this way, and it feels like a feast. We seldom order too much and need a box to take back to the villa.

I have several Restaurant.com certificates, we really combine a lot of food options to keep things interesting

 

[GOOFY4DONALD]

There is no reasonable comparison to make between dining out (Disney or elsewhere) and grocery budgets - it doesn't make any sense.

If I ate out with my family of four 2 or 3 times a day while at home, for a week, it would cost me the same. We went out to dinner on Friday night at a local BBQ sit down place and our bill was $80. Lunches out at a sit down restaurant cost my family around $45-50 on average, breakfasts at a sit down place around $35 normally. Those 3 examples alone add up to about $150. Even McDonald's for a family of 4 will hit $15-20.

You are not comparing apples to apples (or groceries to groceries, as the case may be). Disney food pricing is really not that expensive for a captive audience, IMO - with the exception of the character dinner type things where you are paying for the experience.

ITA. We don't normally eat out more than once a week let alone more than once in the same day. But a couple weeks ago we were running major errands all day. We got the kiddos a snack in the am (12.00) had a fast food lunch (30.00) and a sit down dinner (90.00). Thank goodness we don't do that every day. My point is that if we did do that every day it would cost the same as the dining plan. Of course there are ways to cut down on dining at WDW but heck I'm on vacation. I cook, clean and DIET 51 weeks a year. I would pay whatever Disney wanted (within reason) so I don't have to cook, clean, prepare meals. I probably come out a few dollars ahead or break even with the dining plan but the true benefit for me is having everything paid for ahead of time and not have to worry about the prices.

 

[chickapinhill]

That's funny that you had this response, OP, because I was thinking "Oh, that's too low of a figure!" whenever I saw it!! I saved my family's receipts for meals we ate during free dining and we had $1,000 worth of food for FREE. This is for 2 adults, 2 kids, and a toddler. I did it for both yrs we went, and this was the case. Yes, it's Disney prices, but they are only comparing THEIR prices for the food you'd eat vs getting it for FREE with the dining plan. I like the free option!

 

[deerhart]

to each their own, but I don't go on vacation to cook, to eat at places I could have eaten at home, nor to dine on fast food all week. Each person must do their own cost benefit analysis

COULD I do food on a Disney trip CHEAPER then the dining plan. Sure I could! The real question is If I do that what am I losing or giving up?

Some people think the dining plan is too much food. But for my kids, its just barely enough.

Even if we ate off property, anywhere close buy is going to have elevated prices compared to home and eating out 2 meals off property (fast food and one sit down) would still run us about $90/day plus all the time it would take to leave the park, find somewhere to eat and come back. Thus the $130 I spend per day on the meal plan seems perfectly reasonable to me given that I would expect to pay $90 a day ANYWAYS and the extra $40 is MORE then sufficient to cover what I would expect to be 5-7 hours away from disney each day just to eat (as we would leave for lunch and then not come back until after dinner because it seems a waste of time to leave for lunch, be gone 1-2 hours, stay for 2 hours and then leave again for 2-3 hours to get to somewhere for dinner, wait out to be seated, then eat etc).

The problem most people have is they look ONLY at the cost. They say oh its CHEAPER to do it this way. But they only value CHEAPER in dollar signs. In order to properly evaluate the total cost for analysis, one must also add in ALL the costs and costs isn't limited to money. So you must value in how much time it takes you to leave a park, get to your vehicle, decide on where your going to eat, the drive there, any wait you have, the cost of the food, the time to drive back, the cost of the as you just used, etc.. So, if your going off site for dinner and it takes you 20 minutes to get to your car and off property, 15 more minutes to get to the restaurant, a 30 minute wait to be seated, an hour to eat, 25 minute drive back, 15 minute walk back into the park and where you want to go, and 1 gallon of gas you have one set of costs versus the dining plan and having an adr somewhere on site. To YOU the 3 hours it took you to go off property to eat may not be worth much, but to my family that extra 1.5 hours (or if we are eating in the same park the extra 2 hours) that we get to spend doing something we like a heck of a lot more then driving (and I do not want to drive on vacation if I can help it) are worth a lot more

 

[luvdzny]

to each their own, but I don't go on vacation to cook, to eat at places I could have eaten at home, nor to dine on fast food all week. Each person must do their own cost benefit analysis

COULD I do food on a Disney trip CHEAPER then the dining plan. Sure I could! The real question is If I do that what am I losing or giving up?

I totally agree!!!! I cook at home almost every day so when I am on vacation I want a vacation from cooking. To our family, part of the magic of Disney is never leaving Disney property, so it is worth it to us to eat all of our meals at Disney. The DDP is a great deal for us.

 

[torinsmom]

To me, saying you are saving X number of dollars is trying to lure people in without them comparing true costs. Like when something is on clearance for 25% off, people will be all excited and some will not even look to see what the regular price is other places, you know?

DDP is great for some people, but we stay offsite and don't like to plan where we will eat and when. When we did the DDP, we ended up using TS credits for CS meals, because we didn't want to take time out to do the whole TS thing. I also didn't find WDW TS food to be all its cracked up to be. Plus, you have to pay the tip OOP, which adds $ to total cost, especially when it is a restaurant where food is expensive. If you are saving $689, you will be paying $124 in gratuities on top of that(don't they add in 18% automatically?)

We ate at a lot of places we don't eat at at home while we were in Orlando. We actually had lobster tails, crablegs, and all kinds of shrimp at Red Lobster for less than $40 for the two of us. It was amazing! This was after having LUNCH the previous day at the Nine Dragons restaurant in Epcot to the tune of $50. The food was mediocre and it was just an entree and white rice for that price. Actually, my son did not even like the food there, so it was a waste of money(although it was really cool in the restaurant, which was nice on a 95 degree day) Even Bubba Gumps over at Citywalk was around $35 for dinner. We also ate at Outback steakhouse, Olive Garden, etc.

To each their own, I guess. I think we spent around $70/day on food for the two of us. That is about the same as the DDP, but then we saved another $200 not staying onsite(that is subtracting the parking fees) and we had a kitchen as well. No, I didn't cook--well, cinnamon rolls one morning--but it was nice to have a fridge and a microwave to warm leftovers up if we wanted, and to keep sandwich meats cold, as well as drinks.

Marsha

 

[deerhart]

We ate at a lot of places we don't eat at at home while we were in Orlando. We actually had lobster tails, crablegs, and all kinds of shrimp at Red Lobster for less than $40 for the two of us. It was amazing! This was after having LUNCH the previous day at the Nine Dragons restaurant in Epcot to the tune of $50. The food was mediocre and it was just an entree and white rice for that price. Actually, my son did not even like the food there, so it was a waste of money(although it was really cool in the restaurant, which was nice on a 95 degree day) Even Bubba Gumps over at Citywalk was around $35 for dinner. We also ate at Outback steakhouse, Olive Garden, etc.

Marsha

Yes, I can drive 5 miles up the road and have my choice of Red Lobster, Outback, Olive Garden, etc... You may not go OUT there while your at home, but you have the option to at anytime with heading to Disney/Orlando.


As I said, to each their own, but when I am on vacation, I do not like eating at places I can eat at home. Why would I want to chose to spend $70 on red lobster for my family of 4 and spend another $20-$30 on lunch someplace else chainy when I could eat at some place like Kouzzinas or The Wave

 

[dd50]

Disney is not cheap to eat at if you get the plan or not. It is always way over my food budget at home and always will be. You can get by cheaper if you bring food to the park. I am on a tighter budget than last year so I may go out a buy pizza on one of our free nights. May also go to Publix and get subs one day. That is my plan but don't know if I will follow because I don't know what we will be doing on those days.