crazy confused.. please help..

[Kaseys412]

Ok, I'm planning a week at Disney with a family of four, my husband, myself, our son who will be almost 5 and a 1 year old. I am SO confused by this whole dining plan business, I don't understand how it works or anything.. I would like to save money.. but am not sure if or which dining plan would suit us. I'll tell you exactly how I like to eat at Disney.. maybe you can give me some insight because my head is spinning.
We always stay at POR, and like to eat breakfast there every morning, half the time we'll go get hot breakfast, half the time muffins and fruit cups etc..
Lunch is always in one of the parks, nothing fancy... sometimes we'll just grab something from a stand.. sometimes we'll go sit in a casual restaurant.
Dinner is just about always an expensive occasion, we always eat at Planet Hollywood.. Rainforest.. those types of places.. it pretty much is the same each day... and as for snacks.. one or two a day... so what do you think? Dining plan or no?

 

[caroline1851]

I think you should definently do the regular ddp (1 cs, 1 ts, 1 snack).

This is how you could use your credits:B-1 snack credit
L-1 cs credit
Snack-oop (or use dessert from lunch as your snack)
dinner-1 ts credit
or:
B-oop
L-1 cs credit.
Snack-1 snack credit
D-1 ts credit

We brought some snacks w/ us and we still had to pay oop for additional snacks and food. We were me, dh, ds6 and dd2 and we paid $604 for the ddp and got $800 worth of food. In addition, we spent about $150 on extra food. (bottle of water here, banana there, etc.)

Make sure to check which restaurants are on the plan though. I know Rainforest is not and I'm not sure about Planet Hollywood.

 

[maddiesmom0116]

I always save money with the dining plan- You won't regret it.

 

[brokenlola]

I agree, you should use the regular DDP. Here is a link... http://www.disneytravelagents.com/StaticFiles/DTA-Domestic/pdf/2009Product/2009Dining.pdf

The 2 restaurants you mentioned, Planet Hollywood and Rainforest, are not included, but a lot are! You will still probably have to pay OOP for a few breakfasts and/or snacks, but most of your food will be prepaid.

 

[summermac]

It was never really a debate for me & this is our first trip since DDP was introduced. I like the prepaid factor so that was enough for me. But I've worked out several meal scenarios (and have not tried to maximize the savings) and every time I come up with spending all but $100 on TS alone. Over 7 days, you can bet we'll spend $100 on CS & snacks (and would have without DDP) so I'm even happier now.

Try it out.

 

[msce2]

I would sit down with your trusty excel spreadsheet and compare the costs. Look at what you would spend if you didn't do the plan, and what the plan would cost. I figured out that what I had allocated to groceries + snacks + ADR's = more than the cost of the dining plan. So it was advantageous for us to do the DDP. Now 2 of the restaurants you listed aren't included on the DDP. So would it be worthwhile for you to do the DDP even if you still have to pay OOP? I'm not sure it would. But without crunching the numbers it's not possible to make a firm conclusion. The stickies at the top of this board have a lot of great information comparing the different dining plans. What is/isn't included and the cost.

 

[geishagirl81]

If you booked thr 4+3 deal, your package comes with a $15 voucher for Planet Hollywood, so you'd save a little there. We are using that for our 1 oop dinner on the day we arrive, HOWEVER, the 2009 Disney Dining Plan brochure includes Planet Hollywood in the plan. You can find the file in the sticky thread at the top of this forum.

We are doing the DDP and it will save us at least 35%. There is an Excell program that you can download that will let you select your ADRs and it will tell you the approx. savings of doing the DDP. I just can't remember where I found it. Let me look for it in m binder

 

[CUKU4DIS]

My husband was shocked at how much food was included in our dining plan. We went in September (FREE DINING PROMO) and when we go back, we will definately purchase the same on which includes 1 table service, 1 snack and 1 counter service. On the 3rd day, we woul only use one counter service per every 2 people. It was ALOT OF FOOD. You will NOT regret it. GET THE DINING PLAN!!

 

[Faldred]

The 2 restaurants you mentioned, Planet Hollywood and Rainforest, are not included, but a lot are! You will still probably have to pay OOP for a few breakfasts and/or snacks, but most of your food will be prepaid.

Correction: Planet Hollywood IS included, but Rainforest Cafe is not (nor is T-Rex, run by the same folk).

 

[Mich123]

I'd definitely recommend the DDP, you will save money! With kids under 9, and your eating style, it makes a lot of sense. I also recommend the spreadsheet so you can plan what meals you'll pay OOP for.

The other thing to remember is that CS is CS and kids are not required to get kid's meals for CS. So, you might save some money by paying OOP for inexpensive kid's meal lunches (i.e. about $4.49 per allears for a standard lunch including milk or juice at Cosmic Ray's) and using the saved CS credits for your CS breakfasts (i.e. $8.29 for a bounty platter + $2.00 for a drink + $2.59 for a muffin (dessert)).

It sounds like you'll have no problem using the snacks, but you can also use snacks for bakery items like muffins and croissants.

Good luck!

 

[smiths02]

If you are going to eat at 1 table service every night and enjoy eating snacks/counter service in the park...it would be really hard NOT to save money

 

[vedlin71]

i was told by cm that Planet Hollywood is on the plan

 

[summermac]

And also when you're comparing costs (if you decide to do that) be sure to include tax in the OOP costs. It's 6.5%

And tips. Tips are payable regardless but if you wouldn't normally get that dessert but you will b/c it's on DDP, that increases your tip amount.

 

[Faldred]

And also when you're comparing costs (if you decide to do that) be sure to include tax in the OOP costs. It's 6.5%

And tips. Tips are payable regardless but if you wouldn't normally get that dessert but you will b/c it's on DDP, that increases your tip amount.

The tax is an important point, but I find the tips to be "noise", more or less. When doing price comparisons for 2 adults on DxDP, the tips difference (at 18%) for having an appy and dessert each at every TS meal versus splitting one appy and dessert between us was only $10 for 7 nights.

 

[Kaseys412]

Thanks for all the replies!! I guess it wouldn't be so bad if I at lunch at a sit down place one day and just paid for Rainforest that night if we absolutely had to go there.. I'll definitely look into it and consider it for the trip!!

 

[Mich123]

You might also consider a character breakfast one day to use your TS credit if you go to a non-DDP dinner restaurant.

 

[eandesmom]

you can always to a signature dining for that extra TS, that's what we did. Based on what you describe the plan will definitely pay off for you! We did an OOP lunch AND dinner, didn't use all our CS and still saved a ton of $$! As long as you use your TS wisely, the plan pays for itself and your CS and snacks are basically free!

LOVE the plan.