Cancel the Dining Plan?

[LSUwest]

Can I / Should I cancel the dining plan portion of our trip? Not even sure I can so the question may not be relevant, but I'm starting to have second thoughts. We will be going Dec 11 to Dec 19th and staying at the WL. It is just my wife and I, both in our 30's. I've made very few ADR's for our trip (One to Ohanna's Monday night, the other to LeCellier the second Sunday Night). We like to 'wing it' and not plan out everything, but after reading reports of people being turned away from TS meals, I'm starting to worry. I will probably try to get a few more ADR's, but I'm worried that it may be a bit too late.

We prefer table service meals, but I'm a bit worried that if we are turned away, I'll have to try to find another dining plan restaurant instead of just whatever looks good. We also plan on going to IoA/US for a day or 2 and know that we will need to buy a few meals there. I know we would hopefully save money on the plan, but is it restrictive in our case? We have never had a problem walking up to TS meals in the past (this time of year), but I know the dining plan has caused a few changes.

 

[Frantasmic]

Just returned with the dining plan for a family of 4 over Thanksgiving.

I can't suggest keeping or ditching the dining plan, but from my experience, it seemed we were catered to a bit more since we had ADRs. There were a couple of places when we showed up early (30 minutes or more) and only had a 5 minute wait.

I remember only one place (Le Cellier) where they stated to others that they were only taking ADR people. Everyone else seemed to have room for walkins.

If you do enjoy the TS meals and intend to go to many of them, the dining plan saves a lot of money.

 

[mickeysaver]

We are a childless couple in our thirties and when we crunched the numbers, the dining plan was about equal to what we had planned to spend on dining anyway. We decided against it because it would have put us into a package deal which would have needed to have been paid off early and had cancellation restrictions that I was uncomfortable with. We usually prefer to wing it, but this year, we decided to make several ADR's and do more breakfasts than in the past. Basically, we are dining our way. lol We will pay for it out of pocket and while we may come up about even, or maybe even a little over, we won't feel pressured to eat more food because "it's already paid for".

If you have already paid off your package at this late date, just keep the dining plan. You may need to make some ADR's though. The dining plan has made them a necessary evil, if you want to take full advantage of it. Good luck! Maggie

 

[iliketoby]

You've hit on the reason I don't like it. The Universal thing isn't THAT big a deal because you could use the extra meals for breakfast or a Hoop-Dee-Doo show or whatever.

We like sit-downs. But say you get 10 counter-service and 10 sit-downs. Now you have to do exactly that. If you add a sit-down, you're paying out more for it. On top of that, you are not eating a counter-service that you already paid for.

I had to figure out exactly where we were going to eat each meal, and wound up changing parks one morning so that we could eat a counter-service breakfast at the Animal Kingdom.

I think it is a big pain in the patootie, and wish we hadn't bought it.

Never again.

 

[roliepolieoliefan]

When DH and I took the kids in September, we had the dining plan. It was great then. We did alot more characters meals than usual and the kids loved it.

DH and I did a solo trip for my birthday at the begining of Nov. We opted out of the dining plan. We don't usually eat as much as the dining plan gave us and we didn't want to be tied down . When we go on our own, we like to just wing it. And we did and it worked out fine for us.