DDP or OOP

[Danielle1971]

i'll be in Disney in August and trying to figure out whether to purchase the dining plan or pay out of pocket for our meals, I do already have 6 reservations made during our stay and we are a family of 4 with both boys being adults! It would cost us another $2100.00! DH believes it might be cheaper to go this way! I'm just not sure! What does everyone else do? Free dining is available after we leave

 

[smokeyblue]

Do you have soft drinks and dessert with every meal? Do you tend to order the most expensive items off the menu? If so, the DDP may provide savings.

If you are folks that never or don't always get drinks or desserts, get lower to moderate priced entrees, eat apps as meals, split meals the DDP won't save you money.

We had DDP for the first time with a FD promo in January. It was way, way too much food. Between the two of us we had 8 snack credits to burn on our last day because we didn't have the chance to use because we were always so full. What we did like about the DDP is that we went to restaurants and tried things that we wouldn't of anyway because of the price. Otherwise we would be worried about the cost and depriving ourselves. A bit of prepaid sanity if you will.

The verdict for us is that we would only do DDP again if it was a FD promotion. Otherwise, it's just too much food for us.

 

[wdw4rfam]

It depends on how you eat. If you order a dessert with every meal, and do a TS and CS every day, its sometimes cheaper. Also if your meals are mainly dinner. Go on allears.net and get the prices of those meals and price it out. We don't eat dessert with our counter service meals, and do a lot of breakfasts and lunches as our TS, so the one year we did OOP we ended up saving $500 over 10 days. Now we definatly do DDP when its free like this year, because even if I got the room discount plus the $500 savings from paying OOP, the free dining plan still saves me more for 5 of us.

 

[Aristocath]

You need to do one of the dining plan calculators. Our three boys are 16,14 and 11. We never drink soda, my husband is wheat free, and two of us seldom eat dessert. The DDP would cost us a lot of money and we'd still end up paying out of pocket for the plans we've made. As a PP stated, last trip we had about 20 snack credits to blow on the last day because we were always full.

 

[Kalea]

We only take advantage of the dining plan when it is free. Otherwise, it doesn't make sense mathematically. It might make sense for you, though, and the only way to know is to use a calculator or spreadsheet.

When we left last year, we had probably 6 CS meals and 12 snack credits remaining.

 

[kastoney]

As others have said, do the calculator to know for sure but very few come out ahead on the dining plan. For us we generally share entree, never eat desert, drink alcohol or water and not soda, and often just share a few apps for dinner. DDP does not support this.

 

[mello]

We're a family of 5 and our kids are Disney adults also. We've been doing the dining plan for years, and it has been lots of fun to let the kids order anything they want, and get dessert (and in years past, apps too) with every meal.

We like doing a sit-down every day; it's a nice break and the atmosphere is always pleasant; so the dining plan did work for us from that standpoint (though we always had lots of snack credits left over).

But that said, the cost of the DDP has gotten so high that I wasn't able to justify it for this upcoming trip.

I booked our dining reservations first, then looked at the menus to see what we might eat, then figured out where we'd likely have counter service, and added it all up, and even if we all ordered the most expensive thing on every menu, I think we would have trouble breaking even with the dining plan this time. Add in the inevitable unused credits left over and it would come out as a loss. So we decided to go OOP this trip.

But everyone's advice to you so far, to look over the menus and use one of the calculators is smart, because everyone's situation is different. It just depends upon what your family wants out of this trip.

 

[BugsDaddy]

We are going in November 2015 and are going OOP and hoping for a room discount instead.

On our previous 3 trips, we have always done free dining but that is when we took our teenage kids and stayed in moderate or value resorts. Now, it will just be the wife and. I and our 4 year old daughter. We will be staying at the Poly and in all honesty, if we get the room discount, financially there would be no comparison.

In terms of paying for DDP, I think it is mostly a wash financially and I understand why people do it strictly for the convenience of having it pre paid.

 

[GillianP1301]

Financially, I think it ends up being mostly a wash as to which costs more. You can confirm that by selecting your desired restaurants and looking at menus and calculating it all out.

If you assume not much of a financial advantage one way or the other, then I think the decision really comes down to deciding which is more appealing to you:

1) Having your food prepaid and not worrying about "sticker shock" when selecting your meals. For this, DDP is the winner.

2) Not being tied down to ordering food in a certain way and just picking exactly what you want off the menu (i.e. appetizer only, no dessert, sharing meals, etc...) For this, OOP is the winner.

I have struggled with this decision myself for this trip and have decided to go with DxDP to give it a try. I've done DDP, I've done OOP only and I figured now I'll have the DxDP to compare as well. Between DDP and OOP, I preferred DDP. I liked the convenience and prepaid aspect to it.

 

[shadeauxe]

When I calculated our expenses based on all of the places we planned on eating, it was more expensive for us than OOP. We only had one child. If we had more children, the plan would have been a better deal. This was several years ago. I have no idea what the pricing is like now.

 

[Ava]

I think if you like to do a lot of character meals or other fixed-price meals (buffets, Fantasmic package, etc), the DDP could end up being a good value, depending on the size of your party and kids ages. I would never be able to stomach paying the OOP prices for most of the character meals & buffets, but since we have DDP for our next trip I booked a lot of them. (Granted, I don't know that I'd ever pay for the DDP either; we've got the free dining promo this time.)

 

[BrerNashville]

Some people have suggested buying Disney gift cards with the amount of money you would pay for the dining plan, then use those cards to pay for your meals in order to recreate the "out of sight out of mind" advantage of the DDP. If you can get a Tables in Wonderland card, then it really becomes a pretty-easy decision.

 

[DisneyBliss7]

For us it's cheaper to pay OOP. We don't eat large meals, we split a lot of meals as well. We buy groceries at Garden Grocer, pick 2 or 3 TS meals, and only buy QS on park days. We buy numerous snacks during our trips too. We still save ALOT of money paying OOP. DDP just doesn't work for our family. Like others have mentioned,,you should calculate your cost for meals with and w/o DDP. Have a great trip!

 

[Mikie]

If you don't like to do the math for your specific restaurants, I can tell you that I did a ton of calculating to help those in my large group decide.

Others above have given good tips based on how you may eat and the psychological factor, but strictly baed on the math:

Disney kids will generally save a lot of money if you eat at least one character meal or buffet per day and will eat a full kids meal at counter service once a day and have a snack.
Disney adults will ONLY save money if you always order soda with meals, eat dessert at CS and TS meals daily, choose lots of fixed price places (characters, buffets, Fantasmic package) and wouldn't have been likely to share or order cheaper entrees at TS, and would eat a snack daily (we often use ours as our breakfast - a pastry or yogurt parfait at the hotel food court )

Even meeting those qualifications, the "adult-only" subgroups on my trip are just about breaking even on the DDP and just like the prepaid nature of it. The group with water-drinkers & very young kids will lose on DDP (inexplicably buying it anyway) and my family of 5 with 3disney adults and 2disney kids will save money on DDP, largely because the kids are SUCH a savings that it outweighs the potential loss on adults.

 

[Danielle1971]

I like everyone's ideas but not into doing all the math calculations! I just don't know what I'll be in the mood for or at what park? I don't want to stress myself out & just enjoy my trip! I'm the only one that doesn't drink soda & the desserts can be brought back to room to eat enjoy later! I do have 6 TS with 1 being a character so I think these will be expensive OOP! I'm just so confused but I have 1 more month to figure it all out!

What are these Disney GC people are talking about? I have to purchase these right?

If people have the Disney Visa it helps because u get a % off room & get cash rewards, etc!

 

[TooExcitedCantSleep]

Only do DDP if you don't want to be over consumed with trying to stay on a budget during your trip-everything will be prepaid. You just have to make sure to factor in what you need for taxes and tips. Depending on how and what you eat.....it is very possible for you could come out much cheaper OOP than with DDP.

 

[KYDisneyMouse]

My DH and I used to always do the DDP, we loved not looking at the price of the entree and being able to get it without thinking about the final cost and we liked the idea of the trip being prepaid for. That being said, the past 2 trips we have done OOP, with the price increases on the DDP and us always feeling like we ate more food than we normally would we did the math and determined OOP was the best option for us.

Our last trip we got in the habit of getting an appetizer and splitting an entree at table service meals. Many times at counter service meals I would order something off the children's menu because the adult food is too big of a portion for me to finish. We like the flexibility of OOP, we don't always eat desserts and love appetizers so we are able to order what we want and not tied down to the rules of the DDP.

For our upcoming trip we have been purchasing Disney Gift Cards for the past few months at Target with our Red Card for the 5% off discount. We are going to use these to pay for our meals, so we still have the prepaid aspect of the DDP that we enjoyed so much.

 

[GWhitten98]

I found this web page that will give you a rough idea of cost without having to do all the math yourself. Maybe it will help.

http://www.distripplanner.com/

For us the dining plan works, the cost of CS and TS meals alone are enogh to equal to cost without adding in the mug or snacks, that being said we have 3 kids(one still free) and do almost all TS character buffets.

 

[etoiles]

I think it is hard to save money on the plan in general. I saw you had mentioned in a previous thread you were going to Tusker House breakfast. That is about $29. If the dining plan is $60 a day, would you really spend $30 on one counter service meal and one snack?? Doubtful. So, that day you would lose money. You also have Boma breakfast mentioned which is $20-$23 and would also lose you money that day since you would have more than $35 for a snack and a counter service meal.

 

[rwdavis2]

The dining plan is not designed to save people money. We had it last year (heavily discounted) and we thought it was too much food everyday. I would never pay full price for it.