Deluxe Dining Plan opinions?

[srdipert]

For us I looked at the difference in the cost from the ddp to the deluxe plan and the difference was 400. I then looked at what we would have to pay out oop for the appetizers and extra TS that we really wanted to do. It was going to cost us about 400 so we upgraded so we could do the extras that we were skipping. Now we were able to do more 2TS meals and order appetizers when we want them plus the kids can have all the snacks they want.

 

[jodywgirl]

We enjoy the deluxe dining plan when it is just me and my husband as we can go to the signature restaurants. I do not want to have three sit downs a day.
when we have the family we just get the regular dining plan and do more of the buffets, family style and character meals.

Lots of time just one of the signature restaurants are more than what we payed for the dining plan per day and then you get the snacks and another table service.

 

[fici]

That was my question. Enjoy club level food offerings and use deluxe plan points for special dinners. Seems a waste to use credits for breakfasts when most of our group(11) are not eggs, etc. breakfast eaters. My major concern was to go Deluxe or basic plan; so we use all points.For some reason I just cannot image not being able to use them all. Thanks for your post . It was exactly what I am trying to decide on.

 

[Dean]

That was my question. Enjoy club level food offerings and use deluxe plan points for special dinners. Seems a waste to use credits for breakfasts when most of our group(11) are not eggs, etc. breakfast eaters. My major concern was to go Deluxe or basic plan; so we use all points.For some reason I just cannot image not being able to use them all. Thanks for your post . It was exactly what I am trying to decide on.

I certainly would not do club or concierge combined with the DDP unless for a very specific circumstance such as a split stay, even then I'd likely do the DDP with the non concierge componet. If you take advantage of the club lounge to any degree, it would be very difficult to use up the DDP credits. In essence, you'd be paying double for essentially one benefit.

 

[crashbb]

Our logic for doing the Deluxe plan was that we are all adults, don't want to eat quick service everyday, and want to do signature meals.

We have a signature dinner each night and an early one point lunch. We'll use snack credits to grab something for breakfast if we need it.

Since we are doing a signature every night, the Deluxe plan works for us. I priced it out and I save even when I don't order appetizer or dessert at every meal.

We are going in January, so the parks close fairly early. Our dinners are booked for after the parks close, so the dinners don't take away much park time.

 

[padawans]

I think it really depends on how you want to eat. We stayed at the poly this year and had easy access to many of the signatures. We ate signature meals 7 of our 9 nights. If we had not been on the plan we would not have eaten at these restaurants so yes we probably would have spent less money. Definetely would not have enjoyed the trip as much. Our dining experiences is what really made our trip special(we don't have very many good restaraunts where we live). Most days we came close to breaking even just on our dinners. We ate 2 meals a day which I dont' think is too much food. We used our snack credits for water and diet sodas in the park. We left there with 10 credits left over. But still came out ahead. We plan on doing it again next year and eating signatures every night. I think will pass on the charachter breakfast next year some of them were really Baaaad.

 

[jlhill4444]

We enjoy the deluxe plan and it offers us the opportunity to try new things while at Disney. We usually always purchase a dinning plan of some sort, just for the benefit of having a plan that is all inclusive, like a cruise, where your meals are included in your vacation. The deluxe plan was only $200 more than the regular dinning plan, and since we pay OOP for HDDP which for the four of us is about $180, the difference in the upgrade basically pays for itself. This allows us to do mostly character breakfasts and signature or show dinners.

If you really want to maximize the deluxe plan, you can choose to do all the dinner shows and CRT and save money because alcohol and tips are included in the 2 ts credits.

They way I have it calculated, is if you have to pay for more than two dinners out of pocket, you would be better off with the deluxe plan. Remember you can also use your 3 credits per day for a counter service, so you still save money if you use 1 credit per day for a counter service meal and the other 2 credits for table service. You still come out ahead with the deluxe.

 

[kifuller4]

So we just got back on 8/19/10. We had the DxDDP. There were 3 adults and 2 children. We had 5 credits remaining when we left (we had to skip a meal, we were too full and too tired!) So here is my info...

$71.99/3adults/5nights = $1079.85
$20.99/2kids/5nights = $209.90

total = $1289.75

We ate at:
Cinderella's Royal Table (best mac and cheese EVER)
Tusker House (awesome breakfast)
Whispering Canyon (not bad... fun atmosphere)
Akershaus (good potatoes!)
Coral Reef (nice atmosphere)
ESPN (awesome food!)
50's Prime Time Diner (best desert!)
Hollywood & Vine (F! package - food okay)
Chef Mickey's (ya just have to do it once!)
Crystal Palace (never again)
Cape May Cafe (love those crab legs)
Earl of Sandwhich (so yummy!)
Cap'n Jacks (last minute choice before we left)

Used all of our snack credits... had lots of goodies to bring home with us!

approx grand total if paid out of pocket- $1830.00 (not sure on exactly how much some of the snacks were and had to base some of the amounts on what tip we left... which doesn't include tax)


That is a savings of $540!!!

Would have been more if we could have made it to Boma's! Next time!!!

 

[catne]

we were in the Deluxe is too much food camp after our first experience with it...scheduled 3 meals a day, and too close together. Could not begin to enjoy that 3rd meal in 12 hours, lol.

The last 2 times we've done the Deluxe, I booked smarter...5-6 hours between meal times, spreading 2 nights' credits over 3 days. And we thoroughly enjoyed it. Do we carefully analyze what we're choosing to make sure we're getting the most value...no. We order what we want, and love the freedom of having most costs covered before we get there.

We tend to like appetizers AND desserts...we tend to want the more expensive entrees (LOVE steaks!) and we tend to not do very many buffets - we like the order-off-a-menu places, not the the fixed-price buffets & family-serve places which are not quite as good a value on the dining plans. So naturally, we tend to get better value out of our plans, but that's due to the way we like to eat on vacation, not because we're deliberately running a tally while we're there. I do all the analyzing before we book each year, and every time I've started perusing menus in advance & figuring out cash costs, iso far, it's always worked out that a dining plan would at least save us a little - even if we skip some apps and or some desserts. And I'm a compulsive record-keeper...I also keep all receipts and tote 'em up at the end.

So far, the worst we've done on a Disney Dining plan was save about 26%.
Now if you tend to prefer buffets -- especially breakfast & lunch buffets which are less costly--and you tend to prefer counter service, or salads for your entree--and you'd skip desserts or split an appetizer, well, then deluxe is probably not going to be a good value.

Every family is different, though...so look through the menus & run some totals...a dining plan may be a great fit for your group. Or maybe cash is better.

 

[bangzoom6877]

2 years ago we did the basic DDP. It fit very well into our eating plans at the time, and we were doing all-you-can-eat dinners so I knew what it would have cost for those OOP. We were going to do the basic DDP again last month, but then things changed.

Last month I upgraded my ticket to an AP. The difference in cost was $165 including tax (we get a $100 DVC member discount on APs). Then, I spent $75 on the TiW card.

We went for 10 nights, DH, me and our 2 boys (ages 3 and 5). If we were on the basic DDP, it would not have fit in with our restaurant plans for this trip. We had too many TS for it, but too few CS and would have had tons of CS credits leftover. We had 18 TS restaurants, which would have been 19 credits on the deluxe plan since one of them was CRT (the rest were 1-TS restaurants). We had 2 CS meals, plus 1 meal at Picabu at the Dolphin, but they don't take the dining plan so we would not have been able to use a credit for it. The kids got lunch at a CS at MK one day, but DH and I were still too full from breakfast at Crystal Palace so we only snacked. Throughout the whole 10-night trip, we bought 24 items that would have been considered snack credits on the DDP.

So.....overall, if we were on the deluxe dining plan, we would have used 21 meal credits, 24 snack credits, paid OOP for lunch at Picabu in the Dolphin, plus the kids each would have used another credit for lunch at MK, and we would have paid full price for the alcohol DH and I sometimes enjoyed at dinner. We would have been allotted a total of 30 meals each, 80 snack credits altogether !

Therefore, we would have had 9 adult meal credits left per adult, 8 child meal credits left per child, and 56 snacks altogether at the end of our trip! As far as costs are concerned, the price of upgrading my ticket to an AP, PLUS buying the TiW card, PLUS the cost of food (not counting alcohol or tips, but counting tax) was just over $1600. The deluxe dining plan would have cost us $1859 for the 10 nights for the 4 of us. In addition, we never ordered an app AND a dessert EACH at TS restaurants. We didn't get dessert at either CS lunch either. We sometimes just split an app and a dessert between the 2 of us. Sometimes we were too full for dessert, but we love our sweets, so later on we would get something from Boardwalk Bakery or somewhere in the theme park we were in. One time, I got an app as my entree at lunch. We liked not worrying about whether or not our meal components would be covered by the dining plan, and what is or isn't considered a snack credit.

Something else that you should know (I didn't know this before my trip)...our server at Kouzzina informed us that although on the kids' menu, it states the full price of the 3-course meals for children that are listed on their menu, you could just get the entree for them and not the app (my kids didn't want the app most of the time), and you just pay for the entree. There is a certain amount allotted for each course of the children's menu, and you pay for each one. All three courses add up to the amount listed on the children's menu. Many times, my kids just wanted a hamburger with fries, but did not want soup or salad, or ice cream because we went to the Boardwalk Bakery later on to get dessert.

Bottom line, my opinion of the deluxe plan is that it is a great deal if you tend to eat a 3-course meal when you go to a restaurant, if you plan to go to a lot of signature restaurants, or if you would have spent at least that much amount on food when paying OOP (could be hard to figure out what you would order though). Perhaps it would work better for us if we were on a shorter trip, but for a long one, it just would have been too much for us. Others will feel differently and would never go without the deluxe plan. That's why they give us options!

 

[hermione8]

DH and I are considering the Dxdp for our anniversary trip in January. We usually go every August with our college aged DD and her cousins, and always get the regular dining plan. The regular DDP is almost too much food for us, and I know that we don't actually save any money, but what I am paying for is the convenience of having it paid for ahead of time and mainly, NOT HAVING TO THINK! I am terrible at making decisions, I tend to overthink everything, so being able to sit down and order whatever I feel like without having to look at prices is worth it to me.

 

[dansyr2514]

Just another point to bring up.

Since free dining is being offered into next yr...the one credit restaurants are pretty booked up. For the most part..the signature restaurants are not. Having the ddp as opposed to regular dining will give you a little more freedom on making adr's

 

[Disneyadore]

I certainly would not do club or concierge combined with the DDP unless for a very specific circumstance such as a split stay, even then I'd likely do the DDP with the non concierge componet. If you take advantage of the club lounge to any degree, it would be very difficult to use up the DDP credits. In essence, you'd be paying double for essentially one benefit.

Cl level food isn't meant to be a substitute for a full meal. There just snacks.
If somebody uses it the get full meals its a big PITA.
You would have to leave the parks just to fill op your stomach with snacks and that three times a day.
O and no doubt there are guests that do this. You can see them haul numerous of that very tine plates into there room.
We stay CL and use the DxDP and we love it. No fuss no problems
The problem of "to much food" is just a self invented excuse to stuff yourself. We never ever had a waiter standing behind us with a gun forcing to clean our plates.

 

[Dean]

That is a savings of $540!!!

IMO it's only a savings if you would have made the same choices and spent the dollars without the DDP. Otherwise it's simply an added value that is rarely anywhere near the dollars one can generate by making choices based on the higher cost locations/items.

Cl level food isn't meant to be a substitute for a full meal. There just snacks.
If somebody uses it the get full meals its a big PITA.
You would have to leave the parks just to fill op your stomach with snacks and that three times a day.
O and no doubt there are guests that do this. You can see them haul numerous of that very tine plates into there room.
We stay CL and use the DxDP and we love it. No fuss no problems
The problem of "to much food" is just a self invented excuse to stuff yourself. We never ever had a waiter standing behind us with a gun forcing to clean our plates.

But it's additive to the meals you get on the DDP. I'd say it could and likely should, sub for breakfast, to add 3 full meals a day to the CL is a LOT IMO.

 

[Colleen27]

If you like a lot of signature meals, I think it is well worth it.

We've used it twice and I do think it would get to be food overload if used for 3 meals every day, but we usually have signature dinners every night with the exception of our Epcot days (and now with Le Cellier being signature, if the new menu looks good enough we might have a sig. dinner on one of our Epcot days too) and we don't find it to be too much food at all.

It is luxurious and freeing and so relaxing to know that lobster at Narcoosees, filet at Jiko, sushi at California Grill are awaiting without any worries about menu prices. We really like that "all inclusive" factor, because we do so love to eat out and eat well when we're traveling but DH in particular would have a hard time with seeing $150++ dinner tabs every night!

Being able to enjoy character breakfasts just for the experience even though none of us are big breakfast eaters is wonderful too; on the basic plan we don't do them because it isn't worth using up our one sit-down for the day on or paying OOP for.

I wouldn't go into the deluxe plan thinking about getting the most bang for the buck or eating every bite you're entitled to. You'd just end up overstuffed. Unlike the basic plan, you don't need to worry about those things to come out ahead; if you're going to use 2/3 of your credits on table service - including the lower value-per-credit but oh-so-wonderful signature restaurants - saving with the plan is almost a given (that almost in there to allow for those who would frequently skip courses and order the cheapest entrees on a regular basis).

 

[KathyK]

We have used DxDDP on 3 trips. On our most recent trip, I saved all of our receipts and compared it to what we paid for the plan. We saved 41% using the DxDDP.

Once our children turn into Disney adults, it won't be as great of a deal for us.

 

[Dean]

If you like a lot of signature meals, I think it is well worth it.

We've used it twice and I do think it would get to be food overload if used for 3 meals every day, but we usually have signature dinners every night with the exception of our Epcot days (and now with Le Cellier being signature, if the new menu looks good enough we might have a sig. dinner on one of our Epcot days too) and we don't find it to be too much food at all.

It is luxurious and freeing and so relaxing to know that lobster at Narcoosees, filet at Jiko, sushi at California Grill are awaiting without any worries about menu prices. We really like that "all inclusive" factor, because we do so love to eat out and eat well when we're traveling but DH in particular would have a hard time with seeing $150++ dinner tabs every night!

Being able to enjoy character breakfasts just for the experience even though none of us are big breakfast eaters is wonderful too; on the basic plan we don't do them because it isn't worth using up our one sit-down for the day on or paying OOP for.

I wouldn't go into the deluxe plan thinking about getting the most bang for the buck or eating every bite you're entitled to. You'd just end up overstuffed. Unlike the basic plan, you don't need to worry about those things to come out ahead; if you're going to use 2/3 of your credits on table service - including the lower value-per-credit but oh-so-wonderful signature restaurants - saving with the plan is almost a given (that almost in there to allow for those who would frequently skip courses and order the cheapest entrees on a regular basis).

That's interesting as I generally think the signatures are the worst value overall. IMO the higher end single credit locations are the best value for sit down and the combo meals, WP express and Pepper market the best value for Quick service.

 

[seadd67]

I love the DxDDP, but I so wish they would bring back the apptizer(ok I am being selfish here ) we are real big apptizer Family. On our last trip we ended up paying out of pocket for the apptizer. The Dessert,was over kill we are not big dessert fans, so thats not a big deal but the apptizer would be great(Mickey do you hear my plead ). So next year we will again do our DxDDP and pay for apptizers out of pocket

 

[crashbb]

I love the DxDDP, but I so wish they would bring back the apptizer(ok I am being selfish here ) we are real big apptizer Family. On our last trip we ended up paying out of pocket for the apptizer. The Dessert,was over kill we are not big dessert fans, so thats not a big deal but the apptizer would be great(Mickey do you hear my plead ). So next year we will again do our DxDDP and pay for apptizers out of pocket

The DxDPP is the DELUXE DP and does include appetizers (and desserts).

The acronyms can be confusing - DDP is the regular plan and DxDP is the deluxe. If you actually had the deluxe, you should not have paid out of pocket for the appetizers.

 

[Colleen27]

That's interesting as I generally think the signatures are the worst value overall. IMO the higher end single credit locations are the best value for sit down and the combo meals, WP express and Pepper market the best value for Quick service.

The DxDDP, even for next year when the price goes up, is priced in a way that allows more flexibility with "value" than the basic plan.

What you're saying is absolutely true of the basic plan. With the removal of the appetizer there's no way to make signature dining make sense on the plan. California Grill with an average entree-dessert-drink cost around $26 per credit is as just not as good a use of TS credits as Kona, with an average entree-dessert-drink cost of $31 or Chef Mickey's at $32.

On the basic plan, the per credit breakdown I work from looks something like this (2011 non-peak pricing): 45.99 - 1 snack at 2.50 = 43.49 - 1 counter service at 13.00 (average) = 30.49 per table service credit. Both 1 credit uses are just barely a "good value" on the plan, but the signature dinner doesn't even reach the break-even point. You really can't mess around with lower value restaurants, whether signatures or inexpensive venues like The Plaza or non-character breakfasts, and still get your money's worth from the plan.

But look at those same numbers for the deluxe plan, and you get a different picture. Adding the appetizer back in brings the value at California Grill to $35 (again, per credit - $70 average 3 course meal cost), Kona to $39, and leaves Chef Mickey unchanged at $32.

Without accounting for the mugs, the per-credit breakdown of the deluxe plan ends up looking something like this (2011 pricing): 78.99 - 2 snacks @ 2.50 (average) = 73.99 divided by 3 meals = $24.66 per meal credit. All three of the above are a "good value" on the plan. There is a lot more flexibility to choose less expensive restaurants and still get your money's worth out of the deluxe plan, because of that difference in per-credit value.

And now that I have once again exposed my borderline-obsessive Disney dining dorkiness to the world, I'll share the numbers from my spreadsheet for our May trip. I'm still working on the exact plan because my ADR date is this coming Saturday but with my "must dos" - which use 8 of 12 credits per person and include 2 signature dinners on a 4 night trip - we're right at the breakeven point for the plan. Whatever we do with the rest of those credits - most likely another TS lunch, maybe a character breakfast, and some counter service to fill in the gaps - is all savings.