AP's and Dining Plan

[karsen11]

Does anyone with AP's get the dining plan while they are staying onsite? Why or why not? We tend to order some of the highest priced items on the menus since we always get the dining plan, and I like that freedom, but I don't know if we would if we were out of pocket. Decisions Decisions

 

[AngiTN]

No, never. The Dining Plan is never cost effective for us.
For 1 simple reason, no plan offers options that fit the way we eat
We eat 80% TS and 20% QS. Obviously that eliminates both the QS plan and the Regular plan. That leaves Deluxe and that's 3 meals a day and using it on ANY QS meals is a waste of money. But mostly, who eats 3 full sit down meals a day at Disney? Nuts. We usually do 2 TS, early lunch and late dinner. or late breakfast and early dinner. OOP is always cheaper. Add in that as an AP we can use TiW and it really makes the Dining Plan a bad choice.

 

[MsThumper]

No.

Edited: I just realized that the original question was about the dining plan, not free dining, so my Reasons 1 & 2 relate to free dining, not the dining plan.

Reason #1 - It is just DH and myself occupying a deluxe room. Paying rack rate for a deluxe room to get free dining would most likely exceed what we would pay for food for that day.
Reason #2 - I don't like to have to purchase tickets that I may never be able to use. I know we can save them and use them towards a new AP, but I do not like having money tied up on unused tickets. I don't want to feel like I have to return to Disney to use up tickets.
Reason #3 - The dining plan does not fit the way we eat. We may or may not eat a TS meal on any given day of our trip, and we wouldn't get any use out of snack credits. We are not big breakfast eaters. I don't want to feel like I have to overeat to "get my money's worth". The TIW card has always worked well for us, but since they raised the price, we may not even one of those again.

 

[CAS239]

Nope

We rarely eat sit down meals inside the parks just because of how marked up everything is. If we do it's usually 1 time during the trip, or for a special occasion.

We would never fully utilize how much you would have to eat to make it worth it

 

[Faldred]

If you already have an AP, I'd think the first thing to look for would be whether or not the TiW card works out for you - it's far more flexible than a dining plan, but you've got to be committed to getting your use out of it. Plus also note where you get an AP discount.

That aside, I can see the possibility that for a specific trip, the circumstances might be just right to make a dining plan (especially if you're thinking DxDP... I can't see how basic DDP or QSDP ever beat TiW and/or AP discounts except in extreme cases) make more sense. But that needs to be evaluated on a trip-by-trip basis.

 

[Kaarup]

Yes. We've done the free dining when we have APs. No matter how long our trip, we purchase the package with a 10 day ticket (for best value) and then save it for a future trip. I know they can keep it in your MDE account, but I'm old fashioned and I go to Guest Relations and get a hard plastic card as back up. Just make sure Guest relations prioritizes the tickets to use the AP and not the purchased tickets. We have found that there is too much food on the dining plan, so the last time we did this we chose the meals that were 2 credits for the table service. Yachtsman steak house was awesome. Sunday brunch at the Grand Floridian was great!!! And the Hoop de doo Revue. Places that I would never pay OOP. It was nice to do things that would never be in our budget and if I had to pay that much I would not enjoy the meal We've also done AP with TiW and that worked great when we had other family joining us for meals, as a good option.