DDP fans no more.....

[elaine amj]

That's good to know. So with that being said in your opinion would you go with FD or RO? FD would be the bigger saver so if my decision was based only on money I believe that is what I should choose. Do you think so? We've never done the DDP so I can't say if it's for us or not. It can't be THAT bad can it?

If you're going to save 1K getting the free dining, why worry if you don't maximize it? My take with free dining is that I will eat what I want, when I want and not worry about "maximizing" credits. Well....other than refusing to buy oatmeal for a snack credit for the 1 bfast when no one was too hungry when I have perfectly good pkgd oatmeal in the room instead.

If your kids don't want to eat everything on their plate, don't. We will leave desserts on the table, typically get ice water instead of the included drink, etc etc. For us to maximize our credits, we share many of our meals and the waiters are perfectly gracious about it at 90% of the restaurants.

 

[catne]

It really, really depends on how much you eat & what you want to eat...I've always said "do the math." but I'm thinking I'm probably in OP's club now...DDP fans no more.

We did use the Deluxe plan this past weekend, and I have to say, I "did the math". My pre-trip math, perusing menus & toting up everything we'd probably be ordering for the two of us..well, that showed the Deluxe dining plan would work out to saving us money (about 5% savings vs. paying cash.)

Have to say, though,that once we were there, and actually ordering/eating the food...if we had not already paid for the dining plan, there's no way we would have spent that much on food - cash would have been cheaper. Because over & over, sitting in the restaurants, we probably would have stopped at ordering just one appetizer (or none)...or we would have skipped entrees when we both ordered appetizers...or we would have had one app to share & both order entrees, but no dessert, etc. Most places we would not have ordered dining-plan acceptable beverages, because we preferred ordering cocktails & ice water. So even though I did the math in advance to show that we would save money on the deluxe plan, and carefully timed out meals so there was 6-7 hours between meals so as not to get over-stuffed (and only planned 2 meals a day) we still ended up way over-stuffed and leaving a lot of food on the plates everywhere we went (except the buffet...we took smaller portions so there was little waste there.)

We won't do the dining plan again...my guess is next time we'll probably just eat one table-service restaurant meal a day and snack or counter service (probably shared meals) for any other meals we want. The portion sizes are just so large everywhere...we just can't eat that much, especially in the heat!

 

[goofy78]

If you're going to save 1K getting the free dining, why worry if you don't maximize it? My take with free dining is that I will eat what I want, when I want and not worry about "maximizing" credits. Well....other than refusing to buy oatmeal for a snack credit for the 1 bfast when no one was too hungry when I have perfectly good pkgd oatmeal in the room instead.

If your kids don't want to eat everything on their plate, don't. We will leave desserts on the table, typically get ice water instead of the included drink, etc etc. For us to maximize our credits, we share many of our meals and the waiters are perfectly gracious about it at 90% of the restaurants.

FD is a better discount for us but I'm trying to weigh the pros and cons of the DDP. Like I said, it would make sense to use FD over RO BUT you are obligated to use your credits how Disney tells you too ( CS with dessert, TS no app but dessert, and SN). I'm not sure if saving an extra 1k over RO is worth it based on not being able to eat your meals the way we would want to. But I did do some math and even if we got FD and brought an extra 1k our total trip would still come out cheaper than using the RO and bringing 3k for dining. I know that 3k is ALOT for dining but I was figuring too much instead of not enough.

 

[CrabbyPatty]

Prices are getting so high that I'm even shying away from FREE DINING - and we've gotten that about 10 time since they started offering it. Next year during our usual 'free dining' August trip - I think I'm going to use a room only discount on Beach Club (we NEVER stay deluxe - often Value but sometimes upgrade to MOD for DDP upgrade), and use our non-expiring tickets that we have (wish I had an extra $1500 back then would have bought 2 sets of them at that price - works out to about $28 per day with those tickets since we get 20 total park visits). For food and to try to keep with the 'free' feeling - I'm going to rack up as many Rewards Dollars that I can. I have about $250 now...pricing everything out I am hoping for $800 on the card to cover all the TS AND CS that we will want - without feeling like we're doling out cash right there on the spot.

We're going to be able to stay at a DELUXE and have all our meals covered (although we won't get nearly as many desserts, but that's OK - probably will add in a couple of appetizers), even calculating the cost of the tickets that we're using - we're coming in below what it would have cost to buy our tickets, stay at a value and upgrade to basic DP.
.

We just returned last week from WDW with the free dining plan ........ and while I have sung the praises of free DDP, I have now changed my mind. We stayed at WL and I loved the place. Next year, we may rent points for a stay in the WL Villas, which would cost us $1300. Staying at WL in a standard room would cost $1940. For that $640, I think DD and myself could basically eat anything we wanted at WDW (and we tend to share meals, bring along snacks, drink mostly water) without feeling "deprived" I also have Disney Reward money to pay for those meals, and purchased 10-day non-expiring park tickets from UT this past year before the price increase.

 

[basketlacey]

We are a family of 5 - 2 adults, 2 "Disney" adults (13 and 11) and a child (8). For us, the FD discount is better than the RO discount. I just did the math a few minutes ago actually because I added a night to our reservation.

At the Beach Club, a Sunday night stay with the current 30% off RO rate is $323. With the FD discount, we pay full price which is $461. So for $138, I get 4 adult TS meals, 4 adult CS meals, 1 child TS meal and 1 child CS meal plus 5 snacks. We can't eat all of that food for $138.

Just estimating the cost of the meals:
Adult CS at $10 each = $40
Child CS at $5 = 5
Adult TS at $20 each = $80
Child TS at $10 = $10
5 snacks at $3 each = $15
That totals $150 without calculating the desserts. I also think those estimates are pretty conservative and most meals would cost more.

We would order some desserts without the DDP but not nearly as many and probably not any for CS meals. However, I have been very successful in getting them to sub carrots or grapes for CS desserts.

I like the convenience as well. This will be our third trip on the DDP. Before we only ate at one or two TS places a trip (mostly character meals). Honestly, all 5 of us, like this better. We like sitting down to eat and we like the choices offered at the TS locations.

 

[Tinkerpeas hubby]

This may be true if you're paying OOP for your meals but don't assume they'll allow you to do that if you're on the dining plan. We were denied that option at Whispering Canyon. I really don't know why they wouldn't allow it....like you said, many adults probably would like a smaller meal, or a choice from the child's menu as well. Maybe it's a server issue, who knows.

We are not big eaters, but the dining plan has always came out cheaper for us as well. We like TS meals and they are OUTRAGEOUS at Disney. Last year we paid OOP for our TS meals and spent over 900.00 for 6 or 7 meals. This year we upgraded to the regular dining plan and factored in tips and we're still getting a deal for our family size. We never felt bloated or gained weight during vacation either. We didn't feel like we had to finish each and every bite, but most of the time my kids cleaned their plates. I guess it works better for some families

Hi I'm replying from my DH account as he has the app set up! But you can guess from his name who I am lol...

We managed to do the above option you was denied many times while on the DDP so really not sure sure why you was denied it unless you did the family style meal at Whispering canyon?

We have done the DDP 3 times now and have always found it to be brilliant and very accommodating! My twins wanted the adult plan this yr like there 10 yr old brother and so I've upgraded them, I will pay OOP for kids meals at signatures for all 3 boys as my oldest won't be 10 till the middle of the trip, and they actually love the kids meals and the signature kids desserts like the chocolate puzzle!
DH and I will then use their credits for our meals . I think the DDP can work well you just have to figure out what you want it to do for you

 

[goofy78]

We are a family of 5 - 2 adults, 2 "Disney" adults (13 and 11) and a child (8). For us, the FD discount is better than the RO discount. I just did the math a few minutes ago actually because I added a night to our reservation.

At the Beach Club, a Sunday night stay with the current 30% off RO rate is $323. With the FD discount, we pay full price which is $461. So for $138, I get 4 adult TS meals, 4 adult CS meals, 1 child TS meal and 1 child CS meal plus 5 snacks. We can't eat all of that food for $138.

Just estimating the cost of the meals:
Adult CS at $10 each = $40
Child CS at $5 = 5
Adult TS at $20 each = $80
Child TS at $10 = $10
5 snacks at $3 each = $15
That totals $150 without calculating the desserts. I also think those estimates are pretty conservative and most meals would cost more.

We would order some desserts without the DDP but not nearly as many and probably not any for CS meals. However, I have been very successful in getting them to sub carrots or grapes for CS desserts.

I like the convenience as well. This will be our third trip on the DDP. Before we only ate at one or two TS places a trip (mostly character meals). Honestly, all 5 of us, like this better. We like sitting down to eat and we like the choices offered at the TS locations.

Where can you eat an adult TS meal for $20 pp? I'm assuming that includes any apps, entree, drinks (alcoholic or not) and maybe a dessert? I need to know!

 

[wdwfun!]

This will be our first time doing the free dining. I always went with the room discount and bought tix from UT in the past. However, this time the CR MK view was not available with the room discount but I was able to book it with FD. IF we were able to get the 30% room discount it would have saved us about $180/night. Using Disney math, FD saved us about $220/night since both kids are considered adults for the plan (4 in total). However, using real world math I calculated we spend about $38 per person per day or $152/day. We are a family that does not drink soda or order dessert (too much sugar). So my calculation was based on 2 TS meals and 1 buffet breakfast and the remaining meals are QS and a snack for our 5 park days. Bottom line is that the room discount would have saved us a bit more than FD based on our normal eating plan but no room discount was available. However, this is based on pretty expensive room category so many resorts are a greater savings with FD even when I use real world math for our family. Of course the room discounts seem to be much lower than the last time we visited (Nov 2010).

 

[jenrose66]

I did free quick service dining for this last trip and wasn't a huge fan. For kids, I think it stinks. They don't want a boring pre packaged cookie as a dessert when they see their parents eating huge cupcakes, etc... Plus it was too much food! If we weren't on the dining plan Me and DH would have each ordered our own adult meal and shared our food with the baby. We then would have ordered one adult meal for our two son's to share. We would not have ordered desserts with our meals and instead just did snacking a couple hours after eating our meals so we could digest.

 

[mom2my3kids]

I wont pay for it, only when its free..

 

[basketlacey]

Where can you eat an adult TS meal for $20 pp? I'm assuming that includes any apps, entree, drinks (alcoholic or not) and maybe a dessert? I need to know!

I doubt that you can! I was just picking a number to illustrate my point and I was trying to be conservative. You will find some entrees under $20 on some of the menus. I mentioned in my post that I didn't include dessert in the calculation. Honestly we would eat less dessert if we weren't on the DDP. I didn't include appetizers because we are on the regular DDP and apps are not included. Anyway, my point is and was, we save more money on the DDP than with the room discount!

 

[londonderrydisneyfan]

I think the only time the DDP makes sense for us is when we are doing a short stay (1 - 2 nights) somewhere and then going to a different hotel. It is just too expensive and too much food for a full vacation.

 

[JLS]

We were DDP fans for a long time, but what finally swayed us to not use it in the future is two things:
-feeling like I don't want to order a salad or more simple entree on a menu because it is too cheap and I would not be "getting my money's worth" on the plan
--Stressing about canceling a dinner because we were just too tired.

I realized that if we had not had the DDP I would have been happy to just order a salad or even just soup in a couple of places when I wasn't that hungry.

I also feel like a full dessert per person is ridiculous with every meal, especially given all of the other snacks and junk you eat while at Disney. The supposed savings on the DDP factor in the price of those packaged CS desserts, which we would never buy ourselves (and most of them are not very good) and sodas with every meal... which I don't need.

 

[CraigInPA]

The only way to know what is the cheapest option for any given family is to actually sit down with the online menus, pick out what you'd buy at each meal, and add up the total. Once you've done that for your entire trip, you'd compare that OOP cost to the discount offered with a RO discount, or FD, or FD with upgrade to DxDP (if needed based upon your restaurant choices).

My wife and I occupy a room by ourselves, and we have to stay on a monorail (i.e. deluxe) resort. When there is a 30% RO discount or greater, it is cheaper for us to take the room discount over FD. We buy the deluxe plan because, over the last 4 trips, we have calculated the typical cost of our meals at 20-30% more than the cost of paying OOP. Our average TS meal per person cost was $16 (breakfast), $45 (non-signature lunch), and $75 (signature dinner) in December 2011. These averages were calculated over 24 meals (10 days) and include tax, exclude everything not on the deluxe plan, and do not include gratuity.

My sister-in-law, husband, and twin boys will stay anywhere on property. They're foodies like us. When they stayed at the value resort (twins age 6), they took FD (which was 2 TS per day at that time). When they went deluxe resort (twins age 10), they took FD (now 1 QS and 1 TS) and paid OOP for some TS meals. For them, there is no RO discount Disney has ever offered that will offset the savings for 4 people on FD.

My brother always takes the RO discount. His wife and daughter eat like birds. One QS meal and they're pretty much full all day. He pays OOP for everything.

You can't really generalize that in "every" situation FD is better than RO, nor can you say that FD will, necessarily, save you anything over OOP. You need to sit down and calculate the costs of the different options and see how they compare.

 

[BuzznBelle'smom]

For our family, it looked like the Dining Plan would never be a good deal. We're a family of 6, two teens, two under-10. The gang generally prefers staying offsite and having most of the meals at the house we rent. As this is much cheaper than onsite (with or without DDP), that's what we've done.

Now, my MIL has generously gifted me and the younger two kids (DD9, DS6) a trip in January. Since it's a gift trip, she wants us onsite and on the dining plan, so she can just pay for everything. We doing the regular DDP--honestly, I don't think the kids will need much more than that, although I'll likely have some snacks/quick breakfast items in the room. It'll be interesting to see how this trip works out, compared to our previous offsite trips. Although it's not my money that will be spent, I feel an obligation to be a good steward of MIL's generosity.

 

[Qltrgrl2]

We have always used RO discounts but will be trying the free dining for a short stay in November (3 nights) on FD. We have advanced reservations at the places we want to eat and since we are participating in the Wine and Dine half marathon, it was a logical time to try it. We also needed to purchase only 2 day park tickets and that helped as well. I am sure for us (two females) it will be cheaper to have RO discounts in the future.

 

[Ava]

We've never tried the DDP because we don't think it's worth the price for us. On our last trip, we were with our parents and even if the DDP would've saved us money I was not going to be in charge of planning all those meals for a group of 5 adults who have varying tastes and schedules.

That said, we're working on a trip for next fall for just the 3 of us and if FD is offered, we'd like to try it out. There were some meals I wanted to try last time but just could not justify paying $40+ OOP for a dinner buffet. If it was "free" I'd eat where I wanted and not worry about the price. (Also last time we had over $600 in Disney Visa Rewards saved up, which paid for most of our food. We won't have nearly that much saved again by next fall.)

 

[beansmom]

the only reason we did FD this next trip is that, at the time of booking, there was no room only discount offered...and we are taking dgs and we're doing a fair number of character meals so we will save money coz those are expensive. We are also taking a grown son who is a fairly big eater.

and, i wanna use my snacks at F&W.

we have APs but we will save the 2day tickets and apply them to our renewals.

our next trips will not include DDP because it just isn't worth it when it's just dh and me.