Deluxe Dining Plan

michelleiada

DIS Veteran
Joined
May 12, 2006
Our next trip is May 10-20th. First two nights at Bay Lake Tower in a GV and then 8 nights at Beach Club Villas. We are all adults. My husband and I, my daughter and her husband, and second daughter and boyfriend. We always do the regular dining plan. Our last visit, we paid out of pocket for appetizers and we also did a few signature restaurants. I’m wondering if I do the regular dining plan for our Bay Lake stay, and then upgrade to Deluxe Dining plan for the 8 nights at Beach Club would be worth it. I know its a ton of food. So who can tell me about the Deluxe plan. Have you done it and was it worth it?
 
We always do deluxe dining. We eat at a signature restaurant each night. My husband and DS also need a sit down breakfast to fill there stomachs and wake up a bit. They don’t like to eat on the go. We tried it once and had two very cranky people touring with me. We will snack before dinner usually have some ice cream by the pool. It is a lot of food, but depending on how your family likes to eat it may work or not work for you.
 
Basically, you are just pre paying for food you may or may not eat.
I believe this year, you are paying $78.00 per day per adult for the Regular DP. And I believe it's $119.00 per day per adult for the Deluxe DP. Do the math and if you know what restaurants you are going to and what the price points are and it benefits you then it does.

We did the Deluxe once and found that it was way too much food for us personally, but my wife and I are not big eaters and the Deluxe DP took up a bunch of time in our day at TS restaurants. The other issue, if we ate breakfast, lunch and dinner, we really didn't use the snack credits as there was only so much eating we could do. ha We also don't drink alcohol, so we get zero benefits from that typically.
My breakdown was something like this: QS is typically max $15.00. Snacks are usually no more than $6.00 per credit. So even on the Regular DP, that leaves us having to spend $50.00 at a table service between a drink, entree and desert. That usually means we have to purchase one of the most expensive things on the menu to reach that price. Usually something over $38.00.

Keep in mind if you basically have to spend $50.00 per TS credit and Signatures are 2 TS credits, you are using $100.00 worth of credit for 1 meal. Even if the entree is $60.00 per we have to find another $40.00 worth in apps, drinks and desserts, which is almost impossible.

Disney Dining Plans are "pre-paid stress" and ultimately, the odds of coming out ahead of the game are not that great and really not worth all the extra math while on vacation. Ha

Also keep in mind you still have to pay the tip on those high dollar entrees, apps, drinks and desserts.
Let's be honest, Disney has done the math and they win most of these DDP's or they wouldn't offer them. Ha
 
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We did it as a blow out treat the last time we all went to WDW as a family.
We wanted to be able to pick all the signature dining we wanted, and breakfasts, we love breakfast on holiday.
We found it to be WAY too much food, really way, way too much.
We took bags and bags of snack treats home with us, and we also paid for a whole family to have breakfast at Grand Floridian Cafe to use up leftover credits at the end of our stay.
But I have seen people say it works well for them. So, if you check out the menus, and can see yourself eating enough times to get the value then...
(I have regular DDP for my upcoming trip, partly because it was included in my reservation as a "free" extra, but because I like it)
 


We used it last year, and it came in handy as we got stuck extra time during to the hurricane. We arrived early our first day, and had needed dinner on our last day on the plan, so we were able to stretch out the credits. We found the signature meals to be much more enjoyable and relaxing. We tend to order the more expensive entrees, so the plan covers this. The year before I bought TIW to cover our extra TS on the regular plan and we had a ton of leftover CS credits at the end.
 
First two nights at Bay Lake Tower in a GV and then 8 nights at Beach Club Villas. We are all adults. My husband and I, my daughter and her husband, and second daughter and boyfriend.

I think I would switch it and do the DxDDP the first 2 nights and the regular DDP the last 8 and schedule my meals accordingly. Remember, with that many people, assuming you all eat together, the DxDDP means you'll have SIX apps, SIX entrees, and SIX desserts at every a la carte meal. That's a TON of food. I can't see eating that much for 8 nights, but for 2 nights, it might make sense.

Now, if you're in different rooms, you could put the DxDDP on one room with 2-4 adults and use those credits to fill out the table with apps and such, but it sounds like you're all in one villa.
 
I think I would switch it and do the DxDDP the first 2 nights and the regular DDP the last 8 and schedule my meals accordingly. Remember, with that many people, assuming you all eat together, the DxDDP means you'll have SIX apps, SIX entrees, and SIX desserts at every a la carte meal. That's a TON of food. I can't see eating that much for 8 nights, but for 2 nights, it might make sense.

Now, if you're in different rooms, you could put the DxDDP on one room with 2-4 adults and use those credits to fill out the table with apps and such, but it sounds like you're all in one villa.


You make a very good point. I can’t imagine needing 6 appetizers at each meal. That is just way too much food. I can’t do the deluxe dining on the first two nights when we stay at Bay Lake because I already paid for Hoop Dee Doo for our first night. Maybe we just do the regular dining plan and pay out of pocket for appetizers and drinks. I considered Tables in Wonderland to cover the extras but I’m not certain its worth it.
 


I kicked around the idea of getting the deluxe plan for our trip in July but it just strikes me as too much food and too much planning. We like signature dinners but I don't plan on doing a table service breakfast or lunch plus a signature dinner each day--to me that's too much time traveling to restaurants and eating.
 
We love the deluxe plan, but use it for the shorter leg of a split stay to fit in some more signatures. It really depends on how many signatures you want to hit. My advice would be to list the TS restaurants you want to go to and figure out haw many credits you need.
 
YMMV. We found that none of the dining plans worked for us.
It ended up too much of the food we didn't want to eat, didn't include what we wanted, and many of the locations we wanted to dine at, were not part of the plan. some of this has changed.
As others have mentioned, DDP is just a prepaid plan. While not always true,I've seen many analysis showing you don't save any money with it.Not sure if adding alcohol to it, changed the analysis.
 
Our next trip is May 10-20th. First two nights at Bay Lake Tower in a GV and then 8 nights at Beach Club Villas. We are all adults. My husband and I, my daughter and her husband, and second daughter and boyfriend. We always do the regular dining plan. Our last visit, we paid out of pocket for appetizers and we also did a few signature restaurants. I’m wondering if I do the regular dining plan for our Bay Lake stay, and then upgrade to Deluxe Dining plan for the 8 nights at Beach Club would be worth it. I know its a ton of food. So who can tell me about the Deluxe plan. Have you done it and was it worth it?
If dining is a huge part of your Disney Magic, the DxDDP can break even or even save you a little money. We usually get DxDDP for our longer family trips and go OOP for last minute and adult only trips. With the Dx plan we eat at a signature at least once every day. Last trip we kept every dining receipt and racked up well over the $120 a day per person. But there was also the Food and Wine festival going on and snack credits get to be worth $8+ on some items.

Even if we just broke even or even ended up taking a small loss (grabbing Krispy Treats for the ride home is the cliche) we would still get the Dx plan for most trips, as it lets us pay it in advance over time and make menu choices with zero lost opportunity costs; there is never a case where there is an incentive to go without at a meal. But that's us and plenty of rational people feel very differently about it.

I would say that since the addition of booze, it becomes a better deal for adult travelers. Even breakfasts are better with a mimosa or a bloody mary.
 
I could see where the deluxe plan could save money, or at least break even. For instance, a character breakfast is what, around $40 for an adult, and lunch and a Jai Alai at Regal Eagle is going to run about $25, two snacks at $5 each is $10, and a steak at Yachtsman or Flying Fish is going to cost $50, plus a $15 shrimp cocktail for an app and $15 mixed drink and you are at $155, so you've saved money. It's just a LOT of food and time. Not knocking it, cause I've kicked it around a number of times, I just don't think it works for us mostly from a time perspective. Some of our party isn't really breakfast folks, and I'm not sure there's a lot of interest in eating lunch at a table service restaurant then eating dinner at a table service that same day.
 
You make a very good point. I can’t imagine needing 6 appetizers at each meal. That is just way too much food. I can’t do the deluxe dining on the first two nights when we stay at Bay Lake because I already paid for Hoop Dee Doo for our first night. Maybe we just do the regular dining plan and pay out of pocket for appetizers and drinks. I considered Tables in Wonderland to cover the extras but I’m not certain its worth it.
TIW is so worth it for what you are doing. Remember it can be used on the meals with the 6 of you. It includes drinks and your tip. You would automatically have tip with 6.
 
I could see where the deluxe plan could save money, or at least break even. For instance, a character breakfast is what, around $40 for an adult, and lunch and a Jai Alai at Regal Eagle is going to run about $25, two snacks at $5 each is $10, and a steak at Yachtsman or Flying Fish is going to cost $50, plus a $15 shrimp cocktail for an app and $15 mixed drink and you are at $155, so you've saved money. It's just a LOT of food and time. Not knocking it, cause I've kicked it around a number of times, I just don't think it works for us mostly from a time perspective. Some of our party isn't really breakfast folks, and I'm not sure there's a lot of interest in eating lunch at a table service restaurant then eating dinner at a table service that same day.

Except in your example above, you've used 4 credits for this sample day instead of 3. Most people who use the DxDDP will do a late breakfast/early lunch 1 credit TS meal and then a signature at night. This uses the credits and spreads out eating.
 
The DxDDP would be perfect for the 2 night stay- your 3 meals per night spread out over the 3 days you can use it makes it 2 TS credits per day! We’ve done this and come out way ahead in terms of cost. We did Garden Grill, Coral reef on day one, Tusker house and crystal palace on day 2, fantasmic mama melrose and Hollywood and vine on day 3. We were Fittting in lots of character meals so it saved us tons!
 
We find the DDP saves us money because that's the kind of food we eat on vacation. Do one TS and one signature a day and you're fine. Admittedly three table meals a day is a lot but two is great. Snack credits can be used for drinks too, which can run expensive in the parks and are actually a good use of credits on the DDP.

Disney don't offer dining to swindle you out of cash. In fact, with planning, it can save you money if you were going to eat that sort of food anyway. Disney are merely locking you in so you don't eat (and spend your money) offsite.

If it doesn't work for you then don't do it but it isn't a rip off.
 
We are big eaters, did the DxDP last trip for the first time in years. It was way, way too much food for us, even with going to a Signature every night. Certainly it "saved" us money based on what we would have otherwise spent, but that's just it - would you eat an appetizer, entree, dessert at every meal, or even once a day every day? We would not, so we were eating just to get our money's worth, which is clearly foolish. We went in August and still have some Goofy Candy Co. snacks in the pantry - that's how many snack credits we had left on the last day. I think it's worth a try if you want to try it, I personally just didn't realize how much food the DxDP is until I tried it for myself.
 
We like the Deluxe Plan and have done it several times, but there are just 2 of us. I can see how if you have a larger family, it is way too many appetizers/deserts. DH and I usually chose a salad appetizer and a regular appetizer and share them. We also rarely use them to eat 3 meals per day. We like to do either a late breakfast or early lunch and then a Signature dinner.
 
It definitely depends on how you eat typically. (And perhaps what time of year you're visiting.)

Do you typically buy appetizers and desserts with multiple meals a day? If you are there when it's 95 degrees F. outside, are you still going to want to eat as much as when it's far milder out? Do you drink alcohol with every meal? Do you tend to eat the more expensive meals on a menu? Do you tend to go for buffets or character meals?

If your answer to even a few of those questions is "no", then the plan may very well cost you extra. And, as others have mentioned, even if the food is covered by the plan, regardless of price point, you do cover the tip, and if you're purposely racking up a higher "bill" to max your dining plan value, then you may be also increasing your tip significantly.

For my own family it's a very easy "No." It's so definitely not worth it. We eat completely opposite of how we would need to eat in order to even break even.

(Now, for some folks, there is a convenience to the dining plan that they like, even if it does cost them money. And that of course, is up to you. :) )
 

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