Deluxe Plan Worth It?

[v4music]

We will be traveling to WDW next June, and I'm trying to decide if the Deluxe Meal Plan is worth the extra money. We have two kids- they will be 5 and 2, and I used the Basic Plan last time. Can anyone let me know of their experiences. I know we will want to do some character meals, so should we go for the Deluxe? There is quite a price jump.
Thank you.

 

[annnewjerz]

With children, I may be hesitant to upgrade. Since you get 3 meal credits (not CS or TS...you can use them however) that is a plus, but because you are with kids you may not want to take the time to sit down for two TS meals per day, which might end up keeping you from breaking even over paying OOP for some things with the basic plan.

A lot of the character meals like at Crystal Palace are only considered one TS credit, so you could go a TS for breakfast and then QS for lunch and dinner. If you were thinking about doing any signature dining, it may be worth it to upgrade only because with the basic, if you have to use double credits and only have one TS per day, you will be paying OOP for a lot of meals by the end of the trip.

My DH and I are going alone in 2009 and plan to upgrade to the Deluxe because we went the trip to be more relaxing, spend more time enjoying good food, etc. With kids, if you plan on doing a lot of CS, if they don't eat a lot or if they don't do well sitting around in restaurants...you may end up saving money/headaches by using the basic.

I would sit down and do the math based on what you think each person will consume and how much it would cost.

If you break even or it is only slightly more per day to upgrade, do it! It's nice to have the ability to do multiple TS per day, get out of the heat and have some nicer meals.

 

[KelleyD]

My trip is planned for 9/17-9/22. I will write a review of the dxdp when i get back. It is just DH, me and DS (18 months).

I have debated for months on what to do for us - we are not on free dining so the price was - well basically double.

What I figured -
I have a character breakfast for everyday and a TS dinner every night. 2 are actually 2 credits each.

If my son allows us to stick with this plan:with basic dining and all the oop (not including any lunches) we come up $80 short of the dxdp price. So we are going for the dxdp. If we get one TS lunch in we will probably break even.

I was very hesitant to do this just because my sons schedule might be crazy, but I dont know when we will be back and what our plans will be then so we decided to just go for it.

Look for my review of the plan when we get back.

 

[IdoBeliveinFairies]

Hi we just got back from the world and we used the deluxe plan. We loved it would def. do it again. We had a 5yr old and a 15 yr old plus 2 adults. We did always clean our plates, but it worked great for us and we got our money's worth. We did 2 ts a day and 1 cs. We did Crt one day which was 2, but we used all our meal and snack credits. We were left with lots of snack credits the last day but we just let dd go crazy getting little snacks for everyone at home and herself. I don't know if your kids are really into meeting characters but we did almost all the character meals and my daughter just loved it. plus we took it as a chance to try new things we wouldn't normally order because you feel like you aren't paying even though you already did. Like at teppan edo i ordered ebi and steak because I had already paid and it didn't matter where I normally would have just gotten one due to price. I also like that you know all your meals are paid for in advance. It was nice to spend the money up front and enjoy it when we got there.

 

[*NikkiBell*]

My boyfriend and I have had several dining plans in the past. We used the Deluxe DP this past April. I personally felt that it was way too much food, but he loved it. We did two table service meals on most days and the majority were signature restaurants. I think it'd help you decide if you plan out where you really want to eat including dinner shows, signatures, etc., and then make a decision based on that. Everyone is different and what might work for one family may not necessarily work for another.

 

[Superspectral]

We will be traveling to WDW next June, and I'm trying to decide if the Deluxe Meal Plan is worth the extra money. We have two kids- they will be 5 and 2, and I used the Basic Plan last time. Can anyone let me know of their experiences. I know we will want to do some character meals, so should we go for the Deluxe? There is quite a price jump.
Thank you.

As rule of thumb, if you are on the deluxe plan and you use >60% of your meal credits on table service (1 credit), signature (2 credits), or dinner shows (2 credits) you will probably save more money on the deluxe plan than the regular plan. If you use more than 50% of your credits it will still save you money compared to out of pocket, but perhaps less than if you used the regular plan and paid the rest out of pocket.

If you would like to try signature or dinners shows you should definitely consider the DxDDP.

I used the DxDDP in Feb 08 for 9 days and 8 nights and went to:

Ohana, Dinner
Captain Cooks, Breakfast
Crystal Palace, Lunch
Liberty Tree Tavern, Dinner
Hollywood and Vine, Breakast
Backlot Express, Lunch
LeCellier, Dinner
1900 Park Fare Breakfast
Leaning Palms, Lunch
Tony’s Town Square, Dinner
Captain Cooks, Breakfast
Coral Reef, Lunch
California Grill, Dinner
Ohana, Breakfast
Captain Jacks, Lunch
Narcosees, Dinner
Crystal Palace, Breakast
El Pirata y el Perico, Lunch
Chef Mickey’s, Dinner
Tusker Breafast
Yak and Yeti, Lunch
Hoop Dee Doo, Dinner
Kona Café, Breakfast

DxDDP, 2 adults, 1 child, $1278
OOP equivalent without plan, $1740 (before tips)
Savings. $462 or 26% (before tips)
Extra OOP Tips: Approx $300

My DS2 and DS6 *loved* all of the character meals. It is much easier to eat with them at character meals as they are very into the characters and actually behaved better (rather than wrestling with each other or something similar).

On the other hand, I am bouncing back in a few days for 6 nights and I only bought the regular DDP as I am not planning any 2 credits and would use only about 50% TS, so I will pay a little out of pocket. I will keep my receipts and see after the fact whether my calculations are correct (I expect the DxDDP would cost me ~$75 more). I almost switched to the DxDDP a couple of times, but never did since there wasn't a clear savings. On the other hand, I expect it would have been slightly more convenient. IF the DxDDP had covered tips too, I probably would have, as then I could have pre-paid my trip in its entirity. But without tips covered, either way, you still have some OOP expense.

 

[katieandemismom]

Our girls are both 5, and we are trying the deluxe plan this trip. We're arriving early our first day and leaving late our last day so our 3 credits per day are actually being split over 5 days instead of 4. We're also going when it's hot so we're planning to be up early and to the parks at rope drop, eat a late breakfast or early lunch, go back to the resort for the afternoon, and go back out for dinner and to enjoy the parks in the evening when it's cooler. We've been twice before so we know what attractions are important and have a list of new things we want to try. I love the idea of being able to eat nice meals twice a day (a great break in my opinion and it allows us to book a late dinner as well so things shouldn't be too crowded). This is truly going to be a more relaxed trip (I hope) as we've cut it in half b/c of dh's work schedule and we upgraded to the Poly to make up for it.