DDP Value?

[buttercup1982]

Does anyone know if the Disney dining plan is worth it? I can get the Caribbean Beach with DDP for an extra 1300 for two weeks for the same price as the all star without DDP? X

 

[Mr Stoat]

IMO CBR is the nicer of the resorts. If you have a car and will get out and about, then £1300 will buy you a lot of food out and about.

 

[queendisney]

Does anyone know if the Disney dining plan is worth it? I can get the Caribbean Beach with DDP for an extra 1300 for two weeks for the same price as the all star without DDP? X

Personally I would never buy the DDP as we wouldn't spend that much on food/drink (2 adults). But if I got it free then off course I would take it. Like PP said CB imo is far nicer then the All Stars and I would stay there out of the two. But if I really wanted to save money (on resort) then I would stay at the All Stars and pay for my food oop. We find the DDP has a lot of food and we struggle to get through all the credits.

 

[Tony Bush]

The difference in the First Choice brochure between ASm and CBR is 380 per head for 14 nights. Bearing in mind it is only the quick service dining plan. I think its worth it.. you get the far nicer hotel too. WE have stayed at all stars twice and its great when the kids are young but it does get busy with college and school groups ( a huge party of about 100 brazillian kids) last time ! And if youre using the disney buses the queue for all stars was always twice the size of any other resort on the way out of the parks !

Tony

 

[cliveywolves]

CBR is a nicer resort but not a massively better IMO, £1300 for DDP is a lot of money there are so many places to eat in Orlando and it really is cheap outside DW as long as you are having a hire car... We have done both and ill be honest not much in it..

You do have to watch the all stars resorts for massive groups all depends when you are going we normally go in May or August and have never seen any big groups etc

 

[Mr Stoat]

If you are on the QS or using a QS credit then you can eat at Wolfgang Puck Express, one of the best deals in Disney. We ate there several times last year, good food good service.

 

[MrRomance]

If you are paying for the DP, it is rarely worth the cost. The only time the DP is worth it is during free dining and some would argue there are cheaper ways to do things.

If you have a car and you are comfortable eating off-site, you'll spend a lot less than the cost of the DP.

 

[bobbins]

There's some value in the better hotel so arguably the difference in price isn't as great as stated.

One "advantage" of QS is that, unlike table service dining, at least you don't end up having to spend a lot more on drinks and tips etc. However not sure I could do 2 weeks of quick service food!

 

[tinkerpea]

See we have paid for the DDP and gotten it free twice!
We have also been with out it once,
1.i would never go again without the DDP wether it be free or paid for,purely because we stay on property and the food costs are so high you find yourself budgeting " I'm not willing to do that on holiday" so it's best for us to buy the plan and then get the food we want!

We was paying for it this yr too but as we booked through the US site they then brought out free DDP so were now go it free

I think if you enjoy character meals and will take your time with a TS meal each day then it's very worth it,
Other wise you will look at the prices each day on the menu and want to cry lmao!

 

[queendisney]

There's some value in the better hotel so arguably the difference in price isn't as great as stated.

One "advantage" of QS is that, unlike table service dining, at least you don't end up having to spend a lot more on drinks and tips etc. However not sure I could do 2 weeks of quick service food!

Thats where we are all different on here. This is just my opinion. We would never do the DDP with table service. No way would I sit down and decide 6 months out where I wanted to eat, at what time and then plan around my food for which park I have to be in for the reservation etc. There is LOADS of good food on QSDP and just because you eat it in the main (with exceptions) off paper plates doesn't make it not worth eating or hard going for 2 weeks. It really isn't just burgers/hot dogs/fries, which by the way you can also get in the TS restaurants but on china plates!
We plan our food around our holiday and not our holiday around the food.
If we want a sit down meal we just do a walk up and wait but generally not long at all as we go at a non busy time of the year.

 

[tinkerpea]

Thats where we are all different on here. This is just my opinion. We would never do the DDP with table service. No way would I sit down and decide 6 months out where I wanted to eat, at what time and then plan around my food for which park I have to be in for the reservation etc. There is LOADS of good food on QSDP and just because you eat it in the main (with exceptions) off paper plates doesn't make it not worth eating or hard going for 2 weeks. It really isn't just burgers/hot dogs/fries, which by the way you can also get in the TS restaurants but on china plates!
We plan our food around our holiday and not our holiday around the food.
If we want a sit down meal we just do a walk up and wait but generally not long at all as we go at a non busy time of the year.

See I enjoy the QS meals and don't believe they are all fast food rubbish ..but.... I enjoy dressing up for dinner on holiday and sitting in a good TS place where I can take my time and enjoy my meal,
We do book ADRs in advance but we also get many of our TS ressies while on holiday, we just call up dining in the morning and ask where is available and we usually get what we want, even though there is 6 of us!

 

[Elise79]

Does anyone know if the Disney dining plan is worth it? I can get the Caribbean Beach with DDP for an extra 1300 for two weeks for the same price as the all star without DDP? X

Look at the menus online and work out roughly what you would spend on food covered by the DP that you would actually buy. Then compare that to the cost of the upgrade.

Personally I would never buy the DDP as we wouldn't spend that much on food/drink (2 adults). But if I got it free then off course I would take it. Like PP said CB imo is far nicer then the All Stars and I would stay there out of the two. But if I really wanted to save money (on resort) then I would stay at the All Stars and pay for my food oop. We find the DDP has a lot of food and we struggle to get through all the credits.

Totally agree with this - we had the free DDP at OKW last month and came home with 20 unused CS. I refused dessert at nearly all of our other CS meals and at a couple of the TS meals too - I just do not need that much food

See we have paid for the DDP and gotten it free twice!
We have also been with out it once,
1.i would never go again without the DDP wether it be free or paid for,purely because we stay on property and the food costs are so high you find yourself budgeting " I'm not willing to do that on holiday" so it's best for us to buy the plan and then get the food we want!

We was paying for it this yr too but as we booked through the US site they then brought out free DDP so were now go it free

I think if you enjoy character meals and will take your time with a TS meal each day then it's very worth it,
Other wise you will look at the prices each day on the menu and want to cry lmao!

I have yet to see how anybody can "value" from the DDP - for the at best scenario of break even I would rather just pay OOP and order what I want rather than what's best "value for my credit".

We enjoy the character meals but always for breakfast which is only about $25 so a bad use of a TS credit if you are paying for the DDP - I will not do buffets for dinner

I will happily go to places like Yachtsman Steakhouse and pay $42 for my steak OOP and sit in a nice restaurant with good choices because most judge it as being bad value on the DDP

 

[bobbins]

I think if you enjoy character meals and will take your time with a TS meal each day then it's very worth it,

The plan the OP would be getting is QS though.

Other wise you will look at the prices each day on the menu and want to cry lmao!

We got QS 'free' this year and paid to upgrade to TS. However there's no way I would have paid the whole cost of a TS DDP. For one thing, we like to eat at the Signature places and they're not good value use of DDP credits. And the exclusion of the starter is just ridiculous.

The only benefit is, as you say, you can eat anywhere and laugh in the face of the stupidly high Disney menu prices! Well, until they bring the "virtual" bill and you realise that the tip you have to pay is based on those stupid prices!!

 

[bobbins]

We plan our food around our holiday and not our holiday around the food.

I was very worried the first time we did it that the whole holiday would be based around the food. I was concerned that we'd have to be in the right place at the right time etc but in practice it wasn't a problem at all. Even if your park plans change and you're in the wrong park you can get to another one pretty quickly.

If you've got an ADR you seem to be able to turn up at any time, either early or late, and they don't bat an eye, so the time isn't that critical.

If we want a sit down meal we just do a walk up and wait but generally not long at all as we go at a non busy time of the year.

So do we (well, less busy periods, WDW seems generally busy year round now). Very few restaurants seem to accept walk-ups. Last May (2012) we met a couple from New York who didn't know they had to book in advance and the only table service meal they'd been able to get was in their resort restaurant.

 

[queendisney]

Last May (2012) we met a couple from New York who didn't know they had to book in advance and the only table service meal they'd been able to get was in their resort restaurant.

Blimey if I'd been on that plan and it happened to me I would have been well upset having to eat at POR TS restaurant, its pretty rubbish IMO.

 

[bobbins]

Blimey if I'd been on that plan and it happened to me I would have been well upset having to eat at POR TS restaurant, its pretty rubbish IMO.

They were actually in POFQ (so were we and we talked to them on the bus back) and it was POR they'd eaten at. It makes it worse that POFQ doesn't even have its own TS restaurant, although I realise they're twinned. We have eaten at POR and I don't recall anything noteably bad about it though.

I daresay they could have got into other resort restaurants too, but they'd not been able to eat in any of the park restaurants. Obviously I don't know how hard they tried, but we saw walk-ups being turned away at the restaurants we went to.

 

[Minniesgal]

We don't like the DDP we find to get the value out of it you end up eating way more food than we would choose too. We always go without a dining plan and eat less, we also eat sometimes offsite and sometimes we have take always and eat in the room. We also always do breakfast in the room.

 

[bobbins]

We don't like the DDP we find to get the value out of it you end up eating way more food than we would choose too.

It's not that much food - imagine the Americans who often do the deluxe DDP with 3 TS meals and 2 snacks per day. Now that's a lot of food!

The thing is the credits build up if you do off-site days. I never cease to be amazed that we end up with snacks left over - you'd think you'd easily use a snack per day.

 

[Minniesgal]

It's not that much food - imagine the Americans who often do the deluxe DDP with 3 TS meals and 2 snacks per day. Now that's a lot of food!

The thing is the credits build up if you do off-site days. I never cease to be amazed that we end up with snacks left over - you'd think you'd easily use a snack per day.

Actually for us it is way too much food. If we have a QS for lunch we just don't want a TS for dinner.

 

[Elise79]

Actually for us it is way too much food. If we have a QS for lunch we just don't want a TS for dinner.

I agree with this - I usually share a CS for lunch with DD or just have a snack. We also happily share one large drink.

The other thing is I like eating offsite - we love some of the restaurants in Celebration and LBV. Disney signatures are still nice as are the few hidden gems at the resorts but other than that most lack choice & quality.