Call me crazy . . . . .

[tink07]

But I really do not understand the "value" of the dining plan. For our family of 5 it will be 194.95 per day (1169.70).

Do you realize how much food we could buy outside the park for that price ? ? ? I can see where there would be a "convenience" of purchasing the dining plan, but I fail to see the value.

Am I totally misunderstanding the concept ? ?

 

[debster812]

But I really do not understand the "value" of the dining plan. For our family of 5 it will be 194.95 per day (1169.70).

Do you realize how much food we could buy outside the park for that price ? ? ? I can see where there would be a "convenience" of purchasing the dining plan, but I fail to see the value.

Am I totally misunderstanding the concept ? ?

You're not crazy, and you're not not understanding the concept.

For you and your family, it's not a good value.

For me, and my family, and our upcoming trip, it's a very good value. Our trip will be short (4 days), and the convenience of not having to travel offsite to eat and save money is worth it for us.

This will be our first time using the Dining Plan with DS being classed as an 'adult' at the tender age of 10 so we'll see how it goes, and make further decisions from our experience this time.

 

[DisneyGirl4188]

For us it's a great value. We don't travel offsite to eat and we like to have at least one TS a day. We used our snack credits for mainly breakfast and then CS for lunch and TS for dinner.

We ate at Le Cellier one night and the bill was over $100 for two of us. We only paid $80 for the DDP and we still got a CS meal and snack.

We even paid OOP for a couple meals and still came out ahead.

It just depends on your dining style; it's not going to be a great value for everyone. I love it though and hope they never get rid of it.

 

[MALE*RN*777]

I'm with you. The dining plan isn't for everyone and we can eat a heck of alot cheaper on our own.

 

[ksoehrlein]

It's worth it if you usually eat 1 TS and 1 CS meal on-property each day (and tend to order fairly expensive items at that). If you dine off-property and/or in your room/villa, the DDP is certainly less of a value.

It works for my family of 4 because we have 2 under-10-year-olds and usually eat at both character meals (which cost as much or more than the kids' DDP daily price) and higher-end 1-credit TS meals (such as Le Cellier, which -- the way we usually order -- would cost as much or more then the adults' DDP daily price). If we keep the character-meal-to-high-end-TS ratio at or close to 1:1, we make out like bandits on the DDP. I view it as if we're getting our CS and snacks for free.

 

[Lynne M]

No, you're not misunderstanding the concept. If you compare the price of the DP to the cost of dining at the WDW restaurants without it, then it can be a tremendous savings. If you compare it to the price of cheaper offsite restaurants, it won't save you money.

That said, if you're staying at a WDW resort (as folks using the dining plan must do), it would be VERY inconvenient to leave the property for every meal. Many people who stay onsite don't have a car, so there's no way for them to get to offsite restaurants. Even if you had a car, you'll blow so much time getting in and out of the theme parks, and driving to and from offsite restaurants, that it would significantly cut into your park time.

So, those who stay on site usually eat at least a couple of meals per day at WDW restaurants, which means that the DP becomes a way to save money.

Also, for many of us, the WDW restaurants and character meals are an important part of the trip. I can eat at Denny's or Chili's anytime, I don't want to eat there on vacation.

 

[TinkerbellLuvr7]

I believe the DDP is designed for people like my family who are flying into MCO, using the ME, and will not have a car to be "tempted" to go somewhere off property to eat like we have in the past. Its a disney perk to get you to stay on property and spend your money on their goods and services much like ME is, if you take that and not rent a car then you will not be tempted to go to Sea World or Universal, its almost as if they are trying to make WDW an all inclusive resort much like the resorts on Caribbean islands.

Even tho that is their point, you do save a ton of money with the DDP as well as ME (the money we are saving is going towards our deluxe room!) I think you save like 40% on your food and its a great deal if you take the time to research menus and make ADRs and price everything out. We did like mock menus with my family and see what everyone would get and if it would add up to the magic numbers of: 10-12 bucks for lunch, 25-27 for dinner and 3-5 for a snack and most of the meals we chose we either broke even or went above and beyond the price (le cellier and coral reef are the main ones i believe!) But this is also helpful for those families who did not either have the the money to spend on expensive TS or did not want to dish out the extra money for a TS so its nice they get to experience the disney magic in restaurants. We are hoping both the ME and DDP work smoothly for us in May (my dad is very impatient and does not take change well but with the money we're saving we are able to afford to stay at WL!) but good luck with your decision and I hope this helped!

 

[DisneyBaby2004]

I agree with PP. I stay away from McDonald's and TGIF type places while at Disney. The DP is worth it for our family of four (2A 2C) it costs about $100 a day which is what I budget for food. We usually only spend 3 days on the package. If we stay extra day or two we use AP discounted room and remaining credits from the plan. For us we get much more food and dining options with the same amount of money that I originally budgeted the trip for. We eat a character meals, which I think are way overpriced and have a few nice sit-down dinners. If I had a trip of more than 6 days I may think twice though.

 

[dopeyprincesses]

Terrific question, thanks for posting!

I'm hoping someone will post their trip report of what they they paid without dining per day for meals including where they ate.


I think it all depends on the ages in your group. For us, we are mom, dad,
DD-5, DD-9 so my children would not be sharing a meal. We are getting the dining plan for the first time. We think it's worth it (edit- for this trip, next time to WDW we'll be camping so no DDP) so we already have the meals paid for when we get there; we can have character meals; and not worry about looking at the menu from right to left.

Here's what I think we would spend without the dining plan in the parks. Very rough estimates since I didn't really check any prices at restaurants.

Without dining eating in parks
$5 each person for breakfast
$8 each person for lunch
Dinner is so flexible depending if you get counter service or table service so I'm just going to use a low figure of $8 per person
$10 each person for drinks/snacks throughout the day at parks...this might be flexible if Mom and Dad grub off the kids snacks

So my total without dining is $31 per person. The dining plan is $39 per adult, no travelling off-site, no worry about tips, character dining included so you don't have to run around the park looking for autograph opportunities, Mom & Dad get their own snack

Now if you go offsite, I'm sure you can save by getting pizza but I don't think you would choose that for every lunch or dinner.

 

[toocooltobeMom]

We will alway do DDP only because we love to be able to sit down at least one good meal a day. Travelling outside the world to dine may be cheaper, but if you have to do that every time you want to eat, it could be such a headache. Unless you want to toll a massive cooler(with drinks and food) and drive it to the park, I don't see how one can really save $$$.

 

[marivaid]

It's worth it if you're going to be eating at 1 table service inside WDW each day. We saved about $100 by using the DDP last December even though we wasted 2 TS and 2 CS. (We wasted the TS because we were too tired to go to dinner and used them as CS in the food court instead - the 2 CS we traded for snacks - not a great value).

We don't have a car when we go to WDW and cabs aren't cheap. The DDP was a great deal for us, though it's not for everyone.

 

[drag n' fly]

We saved approx 40 -45% instead paying OOP. Well worth every penny. You do have to use the TS to make it worthwhile though.

 

[PrincessTrisha]

But going off site for many people means renting a car (don't forget insurance and gas) which is an extra expense.

Plus, most people will eat at least something at the parks so you would have to calculate that in (and since a burger and fries is $5.89 plus $2 for a drink plus tax = $8.40).

And don't forget to calculate how much your time is worth - because it's not just the actual "time" it is the perceived value of the time. The time it takes you to leave the park, get to your car, drive off site, *be seated, order, eat* get back to your car, drive back to the park, park your car, and get back to an appropriate place in the park can take some time - time you are paying for with your park ticket.

If it were not for the DDP my family would eat at least some meals off site. The DDP let's me use my time more effectively because it has cut back on travel time. If I know that we have reservations at CP in the MK at 5:10. I don't need to think about it until 4:55 (because it shouldn't take us more than that to get to CP from most places in the park). If we choose to go to say, Denny's (off site) and want to eat at 5:10, We would be starting the trek down main street around 4pm (because it always seems to take a long time to leave) and wouldn't return to the park until around 6:30 - 7pm by the time I get back to the swing of things in the park (pick up my mom's ecv, take another look at the park map, decide where to go, walk there).

So, I can take an hour (and $32 or the DDP) and eat on property or I can take 3 hours and $15 and go off site.

At Disney 2 hours of my time is worth more than $15 (and that is based on paying cash - with the DDP I find the cost of the average meal less because I also have cs and snacks covered).

 

[la79al]

Just a thought, plan on more than $8 for your second meal each day in the park. We only did lunch in the park and were so tired of CS by the end of the trip......

 

[BourbonCigarsSteak]

I do think that the DDP is great for some families, but there are many for which is does not work. I don't particularly find it useful because we typically eat two table service meals each day. I also like many of the World Showcase restaurants that are not included in the plan.

 

[tadamom]

This will be our first trip with the dining plan and I am sooo excited to use it. What we did to see if we wanted to do it was looked at what we would order compared to what we could order.

For example, here is a typical day from our last trip for me.

This is from lunch @ Pecos Bill's
Bacon Double Cheeseburger & fries - $7.39
Coke - $2.39
Lunch price - $9.78

Dinner @ L'Originale Alfredo di Roma Ristorante (In Epcot)
Lasagna - $18.50
Drink - at least $2.00
Say the tax & tip is $4.00
Total - $24.50

Snack - Dole Whip $3.00
Total - $3.00

Total for the day is $37.28 for the day. For $3.00 more (Dining Plan is $39.99) I could have gotten a dessert w/my lunch and an appetizer & dessert w/my dinner.

I would much rather have too much food than have to be buying $2 - $3 snacks throughout the day.

Also, for my family there will be 2 children that aren't old enough for the dining plan and this way we should have more than enough food for them.

Hope this helps. This really helped all of us in our group decide if we were going to do the dining plan.

 

[PlutosFriend]

The DDP is a splurge for us We enjoyed it last time. Had we not had it, we would have not ordered apps or desserts. We never do when we go out to eat. Nor did we eat at TS restaurants prior to the DDP, with the exception of character meals. I saved all of my receipts from our trip last May. Our cost was way over the cost of the plan.

 

[Freyja]

The DP would never be worth the money for us (family of 6). We usually always eat breakfast off-site, either at the villa/hotel or at a buffet place. We maybe do 2 characters breakfasts per trip. If we eat both lunch and dinner at the parks they usually both are CS. When it´s hot we´re light eaters and we don´t want to have to make a lot of ADR´s and be "bound" to them.

 

[newholidayx2]

I also dont think its a good value. We dont eat that much or spend that much either. We did get the free dining plan for 3nights of our 14night stay last Aug. We stayed 5nights VWL, 3nights Pop and 6nights BCV. On our 1st night at BCV we were trying to finish up our dining credits from our Pop stay. We brought alot of snacks, and a few counter service meals back to the BCV room for the week.
Id much rather have a small brkfst, small (if any) dinner and make my lunch a TS salad.

 

[kribit]

DDP isn't for everyone. If you are dining off-site the whole trip, it probably isn't worth it.

We weren't planning on it this trip, but with the discount we got, we decided to in the end. We just thought there was way too much food. I'm not fond of the children's menu either, so we'll probably share adult meals with them.