DDP vs. OOP meals

[kristenrice]

OK, please bear with me.....

I am an obsessive planner and I am flip-flopping on whether or not we should use the DDP. We are 2 adults and 2 children (who will be 2 and 4 when we go) I was initially thinking that the DDP was a no-brainer since I could prepare ahead of time for our total food cost. Then, I realized that the TS meals may be difficult with the little ones. I decided that we should stick to buffets. Well, with the shorter park hours (going in January) and the little ones (and the DH) needing their naps, I figured that lunch and/or dinner would be easy to handle in the room (1 BR at OKW) So, I planned on 2 breakfast buffets, 2 lunch buffets and 2 dinner buffets. The rest of our meals would be eaten in the room. We will be there Saturday night (arriving at 8pm...meals in the room that night) and leaving on Friday late afternoon (after lunch)

Anyways.... When I crunched the numbers and came up with a food budget (based on gardengrocer.com prices) and NOT including all of the non-perishables I will send ahead of time, the cost of food and the buffets would be $470. The DDP ( at current prices) would be $455.

Any thoughts? I think I can get MORE food with the DDP but I would need to eat at the CS restaurants. I don't see where we would need to eat more than one meal a day in the parks since we will be back at the villa every afternoon, but with the DDP, we'd almost be obligated to do just that. I do not want the DDP to impact our schedule, but it still seems like the most economical option.

BTW, if we went right now, my DD3 and DD1 could easily share a kid's meal. My DD1 eats about twice as much as her older sister. The child's credits would easily provide enough food for both of them.

Just looking for opinions....

 

[bicker]

If you're not going to eat at least one TS meal each day, and you're not going to use your CS credits, then you probably shouldn't bother with the Dining Plan. The folks who find it most valuable tend to eat no meals in their room, so it wouldn't be surprising to learn that you wouldn't find it to be a great value if you plan to eat many of your meals in your room.

 

[PrincessTrisha]

since you have the villa and the kitchen you could use some of your counter service meals and bring them back to the villa to rewarm to cover off some of your meals in the villa.

For instance, POFQ is not that far away from OKW and they have a nice food court - when my mom and I had a studio at OKW, we stopped by POFQ and picked up a half chicken dinner (with mashed potatoes and corn) and a fruit bowl. We put it in the fridge and rewarmed it later. It allowed us to have food in the villa and still use the dining plan.