Deluxe plan or regular?

[mommyof3princess27]

paying oop for a few meals on regular has us(with snacks) with in $200 of deluxe. Would you spring for it to have signature experiences and character dining?

 

[_auroraborealis_]

Character dining is covered on the standard plan.

 

[IceSkatingPrincess]

We had SO much food on the deluxe plan, even doing signatures every night. I'd do the regular one.

 

[heidijanesmith]

For us the regular dining plan works best, the deluxe is too much food.

 

[shortnsassy730]

I love deluxe! But we love Signatures. We do very early lunches or late breakfasts at regular TS and then late Signature dinners. The one thing we don't use much are snacks (a little more now because I get starbucks refreshments) but I get things to take home to the nieces with my snack credits!

 

[mommyof3princess27]

We are on the fence about deluxe now. We have a few signatures

 

[LBlovesM&WDW]

We've had the deluxe plan once and we agreed it was just so much food, even with signatures. We will pay OOP for some meals as well, but it still doesn't make financial sense for us to go deluxe. Also, I can think of several things to do with $200.

 

[ajwolfe]

We always just do the regular DDP. Deluxe is quite a bit more and seems like way too much food for us. This upcoming trip, I think we plan on paying oop for 1 TS meal, but typically we don't even do that.

 

[AshleyLovesDisney]

We always do Deluxe bc of the signatures/shows/etc. I also love character meals, so we typically do a brunch and signature dinner.

It is a lot of food, but I find we tend to work up an appetite during a 12-14 hour park day. Plus I love getting to try new things without worrying about prices.

 

[Tigger's ally]

If it is just Mrs. Ally and I, we go Deluxe. She is worth it. And I get to benefit too! When we do deluxe, we do a sit down lunch and then a signature at night. Snacks for us are either drinks/water or bagged goodies for the trip home.

If the kids and soon to be grandkid go, it is the regular. The reasoning is not $$$$, but rather that the kids all prefer to eat on the run, love Cosmic Ray's and Pecos Bills type of eating, etc.

 

[brinkley07]

We usually do deluxe as we prefer TS meals. We also enjoy the ability to try things, so we have tons of options on the deluxe. I do admit it is a ton of food, and we do end up leaving food on the plate which always gives me a pang of guilt. However, we just took our little guy for his first trip and it was perfect as he was able to share for free and with him sharing it was a good investment. I think it also depends on the ability to book reservations, so if you are far enough out it would be better/easier.

 

[HoneyPooh72]

The other thing to consider is the extra tips you will pay being on deluxe over the regular plan, that is more money out-of-pocket while you are there.

 

[mommyof3princess27]

If it is just Mrs. Ally and I, we go Deluxe. She is worth it. And I get to benefit too! When we do deluxe, we do a sit down lunch and then a signature at night. Snacks for us are either drinks/water or bagged goodies for the trip home.

If the kids and soon to be grandkid go, it is the regular. The reasoning is not $$$$, but rather that the kids all prefer to eat on the run, love Cosmic Ray's and Pecos Bills type of eating, etc.

My kids love prepark breakfasts and then lunch is our rest. Since we are up early we don't close the park down so dinner for us around 7 in necessary

 

[mommyof3princess27]

We usually do deluxe as we prefer TS meals. We also enjoy the ability to try things, so we have tons of options on the deluxe. I do admit it is a ton of food, and we do end up leaving food on the plate which always gives me a pang of guilt. However, we just took our little guy for his first trip and it was perfect as he was able to share for free and with him sharing it was a good investment. I think it also depends on the ability to book reservations, so if you are far enough out it would be better/easier.

Oh we have all of them booked. CRT, garden grill, Crystal palace, Tusker house, Ohana etc

 

[Ginya]

We always do the deluxe plan. We do not book any breakfasts. We use the snack credits to get a bagel, or oatmeal etc. We are then able to book more signatures. What we like about it is that it allows us to have a nice arrival day dinner (the boathouse this time, a signature) and it lets us have a brunch on departure day and a early dinner at disney springs before we leave. Having the two snacks a day enables us to use one for breakfast (which a quickservice full breakfast is a waste of a full credit) and still be able to tell the kids yes to those cupcakes and ice creams. By only booking lunches and dinners with the light breakfast we find it is not too much food.

 

[tabrizia]

We seriously debated it. We are on the play stay and dine regular dining deal. Based on where we plan to eat, upgrading to deluxe would likely even have us break even or save money. The big but is, if we change our mind on any of our meals we'll be under the cost of deluxe. In the end, even though we know we may spend more, we like the freedom of not being on it and tied to the extra meals, just in case we change our minds.

 

[nkereina]

We're two adults that do some character dining and signature dining, and we're pretty hearty eaters, but even we found the deluxe plan to be too much food. Each person gets an app, entrée, and dessert. There's never an instance in "real life" when BOTH of us get our own appetizers and desserts. We got to the point where we'd take one bite of an app or dessert because we were getting so full. And unfortunately, we ended up wasting a couple snack credits and meal credits because it was too much. Definitely lost money on it that trip.

If you do opt to go with the signature plan, my best advice would be to stick to two meals a day with one being signature. If you do lunch and dinner or breakfast and lunch, space them apart much farther than you think you'd need to - breakfast at 8, lunch at 2. Or lunch at 12 and dinner at 8. Something like that. We may have done better if our ADRs were scheduled further apart. And if need be, use any remaining snack credits for prepackaged items that you can easily bring home.

 

[snuggly duckling]

We really, really (really, really, really) hate QS, so if we were to do the regular plan we would waste all those QS credits (or have to convert them into even more snack credits that we don't really use.) We usually do 2 TS per day, brunch or early lunch and then dinner. For each trip, after we plan our ADRs, I have a spreadsheet to compare estimated cost of DxDDP versus OOP (with TIW.) Usually OOP/TIW wins, however with free dining, DxDDP wins, even though we will end up leaving a few credits on the table. I think how you approach it depends on what you want to eat. If you're willing to do a mix of QS and TS, then you may be best served on the regular plan. If you're like us and doing multiple TS per day, DxDDP or OOP is best.