Any Dining Plan success stories to share?

[Rock'n Robin]

We will be booking for July next week and DH is unsure about the dining plan--we will have 4 adults (even though two are 11 and 14) and one child. Anyone have any actual figures on money saved?
Robin M.

 

[lynninpa]

Like many posters have said, the value of the dining plan is different for each family.
In planning a new trip to WDW, my calculator has been humming away.
For our group, the dining plan is well worth it! Here's an example...
The dining plan will be a total of 249.92 per day for all of us.
VS one dinner OOP at Teppanyaki could cost 449.47!
We save 200.00 just on one dinner-PLUS have a CS and snack for everyone!

 

[maggiew]

Wow! What are you ordering at Teppanyaki???? I think I would flip if my bill was over $400!!

I'd like to hear success stories too. I am debating the dining plan for our family. If we eat as I have predicted, we will save a little money but be able to eat at better places with the dining plan. We eat little and share meals, so I am planning using the CS for breakfast, 2 TS meals for lunch (shared) and 2 TS meals for dinner (shared). I wouldn't necessarily recommend this for everyone, as it takes up park time, but we have been to WDW several times and enjoy eating there as much as riding the rides.

Maggie

 

[eblack0409]

DH and I saved $650...we had free dining, but if we had paid for dining, we would have saved about $300.

 

[TnTWalter]

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=996904

Trish

 

[wright1baby]

We went in June 05 with DDP. Cost was $700 for the plan (2 adults, 3 kids). After totaling reciepts when we got home we ate over $1500 worth of food. CRT for dinner, Ohana, Chef Mickey's, Concourse Steakhouse, Mama Melrose, CRT for lunch, and Le Cellier. CRT for dinner for 5 alone was over $200!! GEEZ
The only thing we paid out of pocket for was a couple of Mickey waffles for b-fast and the snow cone buckets at Ohana for the kiddos!

 

[mommic32]

We loved the plan. I have 2 daughters at the time that were 9 & 11, so basically we were 3 adults and 1 child. Now this year it will be 4 adults. Will I still do the plan? ABSOLUTELY! I love the convience of having everything paid for and knowing that we LOVE a sit down meal every night helps me to know I am making the right decission.
In May it cost me: I believe $690.00 and we ate nearly 1100.00 worth of food!

In October it cost me : NOTHING! Loved the free dinning! I belive we ate nearly 745.00 worth of food! This time it was only 2Adults and 1 child.

Hope that helps.

\

 

[PrincessLindy]

In planning our trip I have been busy with the calculator also. We figrued that we will spend a little more with the DDP. However we always stress about the food budget and eat almost all CS. Now we enjoy eating out so that was not really by choice. This time we will spend a little more money but will get to actually eat for once! Biggest stress about food is now figuring which of the places to eat at that we have walked by , with watering mouths on our way to another sucky burger.

 

[jonkatony]

We were at disney last summer and are going again this summer at the same time. I kept my reciepts and mostly eat at c.s. We have booked the plan this time and it has worked out to be around $150 more expensive. The increase is we feel justified because we will obviously eat more t.s and feel as we have been to disney a few times now and the kids now older(my kids want to go on attractions not eat) it would be nice to try different restaurants.

We come to disney for all the magic it holds, not cheap food, if sitting in a nice restaurant is part of the magic then great, but eating to excess cheaply is not my idea of magic.

 

[Letsbgoofy]

We had the free dining this summer, but will purchase the dining plan in 2006. If you have the time to eat at a sit down restaurant daily, the plan will save you money. We have been to WDW many times, so I don't mind spending the time to eat longer meals. If we had young children or had not visited the parks before, I don't think I would purchase the dining plan unless we had at least a week of vacation.

 

[jennifer293]

We had dining in May 05 and we would have spent over 1200 and we paid 560!!!!

I think the dining plan is a great deal for us not for some but we loved it and we are using it again in July, just booked yesterday!!!!

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

We had the plan in October (2 adults, 1 child) and we saved a little over $200. The two mistakes we made were 1) doing a "signature" meal that ended up not costing very much but used 2 credits per person and 2) running out of time on our last morning so we had to leave without using our last 2 CS credits. Our savings COULD have been closer to $350 overall.

The other issue for us is that DH LOVES to eat at buffets. Using TS credits on buffets doesn't save much money, but it does save a bit. Like someone pointed out to me, if you break even then you have still come out OK!

We are planning to use the plan again in August.

 

[bwbuddy5]

And, if you can, be creative with your reservation. We split our 2BR into separate reservations of 1BR+studio, so half of our group can get DDP and half not. It cost me 20 extra points, which I guess would otherwise rent for $200, but the additional DDP would have been $570, so I figure I breakeven if the non-DDP half of our party eats $370 or less. Since we plan to share at the retaurants, and have a kitchen, I don't think that will be a problem.

 

[HayGan]

We paid ~$400 for 4 days of the dining plan and the total cost that all of our meals and snacks would have cost was over $850.

I won't do Disney without the Dining plan now!

 

[kerry34]

We did great on the dining plan in December. Here are my numbers:

Dining Plan for 7 people (4 adults and 3 children) X8 nights.

Plan cost: 1360.00

After adding up snacks, CS meals, and TS meals the grand total would
have been 2210.12 if we got the exact same things and paid out of pocket.
That is a savings of 850.00

The nice thing about this was we got to eat things we would not have otherwise, including appetizers and dessert. It was also very nice with my older daughters whose tastes have moved past simple childrens fare. They loved they could order shrimp for an appetizer. My oldest daughter loved it especially because she said she didnt feel bad asking for something that was expensive. For anyone out there with a family it is totally worth it.

 

[HayGan]

The nice thing about this was we got to eat things we would not have otherwise, including appetizers and dessert. It was also very nice with my older daughters whose tastes have moved past simple childrens fare. They loved they could order shrimp for an appetizer. My oldest daughter loved it especially because she said she didnt feel bad asking for something that was expensive. For anyone out there with a family it is totally worth it.

I agree! We were able to try many things and experience some wonderful dining experiences that we wouldn't have done if it wasn't for the dining plan!

 

[scubamouse]

I never kept super strict track but I thought of it as I was getting all my CS and snacks for free. Plus there was so much CS food that it was easy for us to buy for us and share w/my parents so they got free meals too

When we were at california grill we both got the sushi appetizer and it would have been $20 OOP. No way we'd do that w/o the meal plan and it was so yummy!

 

[jonkatony]

I think kerry34 is right it gives people the chance to try all the nicer restaurants that they would not normally eat at. To my family,( as I previously posted) it will cost us about $150 more with the dining plan. To add up all the costs of the meals with the dining plan and say it would have cost us $1000's only works if you would have eaten exactly the same meals at the same restaurants, we would not have.