AP and DDE or dining plan?

[TandCmum]

Just trying to do some budgeting for next years trip. We are staying offsite for our first 2 weeks but do intened to visit the parks and eat some meals onsite, then for our last week we are staying onsite and i'm thinking of renting points to stay at beach club villas as we enjoy the world showcase on an evening and the restaurants there. Question is do i buy and AP/DDE card so that i can get free parking for our first 2 weeks and discount on the meals we have during those 2 weeks plus the ones when we are onsite. Or continue with the normal 21 day pass (which is about $250 cheaper) and buy the dining plan for the onsite stay.

 

[Mackey Mouse]

I have never done the dining plan, but do have an AP as we do use that option of visting many times during the winter and with that I do have the Disney Dining Experience, which I think is well worth the money. It does allow you the discount on liquor as well as the food, not many plans do that. Not all restaurants take it so you might want to look into that, one that comes to mind is the Teppanyaki in World Showcase's Japan.

Hopefully others will come and discuss the dining plan's merits...

 

[ukwildcat]

I really think you have to crunch the number individually. I have always wanted to try the DDP, but I have never been able to justify the expense. We have DDE and it always works out better for us.

 

[newholidayx2]

This Aug we'll have both
5nights VWL w/APs & DDE
3nights AKL w/Dining Pkg (no parks, will be enjoying the resort)
5nights BCV w/hoppers & DDE

 

[CoolDisneyCat]

I think alot has to do it how you eat. We really like the DDE because we always go to at least 2, sometimes as many as 4, signature restaurants. Also, we rarely eat counter service.

 

[eliza61]

I agree with CDC, it depends on what your style is. My family and I always do at least 2 sit down meals a day and since we're not big snackers we would waste the snack credits also. We rarely do a counter service meal so the DDP would not work for me. I purchased a DDE card that will give me 20% off of the entire bill including adult beverages (I do love a cold beer every now and then). If you go to www.wdwig.com I believe there is a chart listing all the places that take the DDE card.

http://www.allearsnet.com/pl/discounts.htm

 

[TandCmum]

a little more information for you. We like to eat a TS meal every evening, and we also enjoy the charcter breakfasts. Although i'm only in the early stages of planning i have the following amount of TS that i would like to do 5 x breakfasts, 2 x lunchs, 10 x dinners. so if we had the dining plan for the last week we would still have 10 meals to pay for out of pocket. I'm thinking it might actually be worthwhile having both