? about eating meals

[PaDisney02]

Hi, I hope this post doesnt get moved to another board
I was just wondering how many of you r not on the dinning plan and y did you decide not to purchase it?

 

[Pluto_fan]

We are not dining plan folks--it just doesn't fit our style, either time-wise or money-wise. On our 6-night trip, we'll probably only eat at table service restaurants 2 or 3 times. Plus, our oldest child is now 10, but there is no way he'll eat $40 worth of food per day! He doesn't have an adult-sized stomach yet. Maybe when both boys are teenagers, we'll re-evaluate whether the dining plan would be a good deal for us!

 

[Ellester]

We will not be on the dining plan on our next trip. We did do it the last time and for us, it was just too much food. It was nice not having to pay for each meal, but I didn't like having the kids restricted to the kids' meals. I didn't like having a dessert with EVERY meal. We brought something like 4 pieces of chocolate cake home. I would rather not have dessert with a CS meal and then get a Mickey Bar later. Plus, my kids really hated the sugar free gelatin that was served with almost every CS kids' meal. We also felt it was not flexible enough (again, for us). My son had the stomach flu for two days while we were there and that played havoc with our planning. We ended up canceling a few TS meals since we were stuck back at the villa with him and then we had extra TS credits heading into our last few days. We did use them all, but it meant we left the park on our last day earlier than I would have liked to have dinner at Kona and then we stayed a little longer the day we left so we could use our last credits for breakfast at Boma. This time we will do a few TS meals, but pay out of pocket for them. With the tip no longer included I don't think it's nearly as good a deal as it was unless you are the type that would eat a TS meal every day anyway.

 

[DawnM]

We never do the dining plan.

Here are our reasons:

We don't eat that much!
We don't need to eat that much!
It takes a lot of time to eat in the sit down places!
We are there for Disney, not the food and don't want to waste time.
We don't eat a lot of processed foods or high fat/sodium foods anyway.
To get free dining, we need to pay $150/night for the room.
We stay in a Skyauction condo for $24/night
(so really, we *could* spend $100/day for food and still be ahead.)

So, basically:

Health reasons
Time reasons
Cost reasons
Weight reasons
Space reasons (we prefer a 2bdrm condo)

Dawn

 

[PoohGal05]

We don't do the dining plan either. We tend to eat more counter service than table service anyway. There are more things that my mom won't eat, as there are a few things that she'll eat, even at Disney.

 

[thegrimdwarf]

No dining plan here.

We don't think the food in Disney is something worth planning a vacation around, and let's face it - with the ADR system and DDP, you absolutely have to plan things out big-time to get your money's worth. My husband and I are major foodies, and a plate of mediocre food served in a restaurant with a great theme or atmosphere is still a plate of mediocre food, so we don't let it ruin our vacation by giving it top billing.

 

[Malela9]

We are Annual Pass holders and are using the Disney Dining Experience card which willl give us a discount. We always eat breakfast in our room, except for 1 or 2 days. Plus I pack lots of snacks that we take in the parks. I am a huge Disney freak, ( I have an Annual Pass for Disneyland too!) but buying food in the parks is just a thing with me.
Don't get me wrong, I like to eat in the parks, all of them. But I would rather spend my money on other things. I think half our suitcase next Sat. will be filled with snacks for Disney. So my reasons for not using the dining plan are:
1. I would rather spend my money on souveniers
2. I would rather ride rides and enjoy the parks

 

[Tam1067]

We do it because we always eat a TS dinner. If you do that, then you almost always end up saving money with the DDP. If, however, you eat mostly CS meals, you're probably wise to just skip the plan.

 

[bangzoom6877]

We did it this past trip and will do it again but we are people wholike to have a sit-down dinner every night on vacation.

We also did it because we had planned on doing several character meals, and when I found out about the dining plan and did the math we saved a lot of money.

I think it is only a good plan if you would have gone to the TS restaurants anyway, not if you are only going to them BECAUSE you have the dining plan. We would have gone anyway to those character meals (5 of them!), so the DDP was a G-d send to us!

We are also planners (I am anyway, DH is not picky about where we eat), and I was one of those people on the phone at 7AM exactly 180 days before check-in, confirmation number in hand, to make all of our ADRs! I did research for 2 months beforehand to figure out exactly which places we would eat dinner. Also wanted to keep to the dinner times of our kids, so making ADRs was not a problem...spontaneity for dinnertime is not an option for us with 2 little ones who get hungry when they are used to eating dinner!!

 

[wano]

we are doing the DDP we just want to take a break & have a family sit down meal every day . we also wanted to pay for everything at once .

 

[jenseib]

We do it and love it. We like the sit down meals, and enjoy being able togo to character meals. The big perk is that it is paid beforehand too. We mostlikely wouldn't do THAT many TS if we weren't on the plan, but being on it we do and don't think about the cost then. If DH was pulling his wallet out for every meal, then he would be grumbling alot on the trip. But now he can't wait to see where we are going next(I do all the planning). I do wish the tip was still included though.

 

[leagirl12]

We have done it our last two trips but have decided against it for the next time we go. Like many posters it is just too much food!! There were many nights that we ate a table service just because we were on the dining plan but would have been just as happy with a counter.

 

[mejkjj97]

We are not purchasing the dining plan this time because we are now traveling with a 3 year old. When my husband and I went alone a couple of years ago we did purchase it and loved it. But we were there for 1 last trip without a child and wanted to try a bunch of really good resturants.

We found that your whole week needed to be scheduled around your meals. Which is fine for 2 adults but going with a 3 year old, you can only plan for so much and the money would not be worth it (granted it is one thing if the free dining is included).

A little tip though- if you do purchase it, my friend could not use all her sit down meals because of scheduling issues and Disney actually changed the sit down to extra snacks and counter service meals. This way they did not feel like is was a complete waste. So if you are having trouble using all your meals on the dining plan it does not hurt to ask what they can do to help.

 

[brandylouwho]

we did it once and doubt we'll do it again for a normal family vacation (although we may like to try the deluxe plan for an adults only weekend sometime--where food and lounging around is the focus).

* to make it worthwhile you need to use all those TS credits. We aren't people who like to do a TS everyday. We often eat CS and now with DVC even eat in the room.
* Heck, DH & I have been known to share a CS meal even (meaning left over credits= not a great value)
* We don't usually eat dessert, so that isn't a value to us
*We do often like an appetizer (so we'd have to pay that out of pocket anyway)
* It seems like if you are going to use all your TS credits you need to make those ADRs so far in advance (especially during busy seasons). I hate feeling tied down to an ADR, and with 2 little kids I need to be able to go with the flow. If I am paying cash for an ADR I can cancel (usually) if it is a DDP ressie I need to make up that meal somewhere or else lose value (meaning an unused TS credit makes the DDP less of a savings or possibly not a savings).

But I can see how it is a value to some families, either savings and/or convenience wise. But I also bet that it is not a great value to many families who think it is. I think many Dissers are far better informed than the average Joe family.

This plan certainly makes Disney money one way or another, otherwise they wouldn't offer it.

 

[mom2aredhead]

We have done it our last two trips but have decided against it for the next time we go. Like many posters it is just too much food!! There were many nights that we ate a table service just because we were on the dining plan but would have been just as happy with a counter.

Us too. We've gone with DDP twice and without twice and we probably won't do it again.
We did it because we also planned lots of character meals and a few sit-down restaurants, but toward the end of th week I would have been fine with skipping them and grabbing a something at a CS place had they not already been "paid for" as part of DDP. It saved us some money, but not a tremendous amount because we went to places we wanted to go to and ordered what we wanted. We did not pick our restaurnts or purposely order the most expensive things on the menu to get the "best bang for a credit" like so many people do.
And honestly, I don't think a lot of the restaurants are that good! Go ahead and flame me, but I live in New York so I just can't see taking away too much park time to go to a restaurant that serves food "almost" as good as I can get near my home. Some of them have a fun atmosphere, and I can't dine with Mickey and the gang anywhere around here. But we have much better, cheaper, more authentic ethnic food than anywhere in World Showcase right in my backyard, so I just don't see the point, kwim?

 

[EthansMom]

We haven't done it in the past. We do like to eat a few nice TS meals, but eat more CS meals. Also, we don't tend to order "extras" like soda and dessert at TS meals. Instead, we get water and then will have a sweet treat later. For a general trip, I don't think the dining plan would save us money.

However, we did book Free Dining for the first time this year. It's taken a bit more planning to make all of the ADRs and we'll be going to Hoop De Doo which we've never done. So, it will really be a different trip for us from the kind of WDW we would usually do. But you can't beat eating for free!!!