Dining Plan FAQ- Is there one somewhere??

[SRUAlmn]

Let me preface this by saying that I know everyone is getting tired of all the ?s regarding DDE and I'm sorry if there is an FAQ somewhere that I have missed. I did a search to no avail. If there is one, could someone please direct me to it?
If not, I apologize if these things have been brought up before, but if someone could help, I'd appreciate it

I've been looking through the dining plan and I just don't see how it would be a good deal for us. I looked through the menus on allearsnet, and I see how you could easily get your total to be WAY more than $70 per day, but it just doesn't seem logical that someone would eat that much. When we went last time we used the Q&C and VKL vouchers and shared the meals most of the time and we were plenty full.

We are 2 adults so if I'm understanding correctly it would be $70 per day and we would have to get it for all 7 nights that we would be staying. That's $490 for food When we went last September we didn't spend nearly that much. Granted, we could go to more character meals and sit down meals than we did, but it just seems like so much food.

The thing that really doesn't seem worth it to me, though, is the snacks. With all the food you get with the dining plan, it doesn't seem like you would want snacks. We barely snacked at all on our last trip, and when we did it was a beer in Germany, a dole whip, school bread, fudge from the main street bakery, unique things that we really wanted to try, not popcorn and ice cream that you can get anywhere (except of course for the .)

Any thoughts?

 

[jenndisney]

I think it depends on what kind of food you really want to eat. For my family it is a great deal. We love to try new foods and get very bored with the burgers and chicken strips. We are planning one sit down meal a day as our break. We are planning to eat at places we could not afford to try: Chef de France, Ohana, Whispering Canyon, Cindy Royal Table(dinner), Boma, etc... My husband and I look at food as part of the vacation. That is us. Everyone is different. It sounds like it may not be the way to go for you. If you have reviewed all the menues and you don't see much you would want, then pass on the package.

Have fun planning......

 

[SRUAlmn]

We do see a lot we want and we also like to try new things, the 'issue' is that I don't see how we would eat that much. Like I said, on our last trip we used the meal vouchers. We split one Q&C (counter) and one VKL (sit down lunch) and ate about 1-2 small snack type things per day. I just don't see how we would EACH eat one counter, one sit down and one snack (on average) per day. Is there anyone else who has used the vouchers before that could give a comparison? I really want to do this because of all the otherwise unaffordable options it opens up, but I don't really see how it would be financially smart for us.

 

[maxaroni]

We've been in a quandry about this as well. I was starting to think it was me that was or . We are coming up on our 90 day mark so want to make sure we know what we are doing with our PS's.....I said to DH last evening that I don't think the meal plan is worth it for us. I've read so many posts as to how it works and how it saves everyone money and I thought it was me. Glad someone else thinks the same!

We went through our notes from our last trip (2002) and we didn't spend what we'd have to spend to make it worth it. Our ds12, will still pick chicken strips or a burger anywhere we go. I'm more of a light eater (trying to lose wt) and if I split with dh, it may not be enough for him.

Still have time to figure it out....

 

[shellybaxter]

I don't know much about the dinning plan, but that seems to be what you are asking about. DDE, which is in the title of your thread is the Disney Dining Expirience. DDE is a membership club thing for AP holders and Florida Residents. It costs $50.00 a year for AP holders and you recieve 20% off at most sit down resturants and a few counter service places as well (in AK and at the resorts that don't have sit downs). For us the DDE is WAY better then the dinning plan. But that's because we eat more than you do. We hardly ever eat at counter service and we usually have an appetizer and dessert as well as alcoholic drinks some of the time. We save a lot with our DDE card.

Shelly

 

[SRUAlmn]

I don't know much about the dinning plan, but that seems to be what you are asking about. DDE, which is in the title of your thread is the Disney Dining Expirience. DDE is a membership club thing for AP holders and Florida Residents. It costs $50.00 a year for AP holders and you recieve 20% off at most sit down resturants and a few counter service places as well (in AK and at the resorts that don't have sit downs). For us the DDE is WAY better then the dinning plan. But that's because we eat more than you do. We hardly ever eat at counter service and we usually have an appetizer and dessert as well as alcoholic drinks some of the time. We save a lot with our DDE card.

Shelly

Oh my! Thank you for catching that for me. I changed the title.

 

[pumba]

this was why we got the DDE card and saved over 100 dollars for our meals.....we did stay at a resort with no restaurant at it and this meant we could get 20 percent off our meals at the resort.....we did wicked good and even our night time snacks of ice cream for the two grandkids we saved 2.00 every snack time with them

 

[SRUAlmn]

Ok, so I just went back through all of our info from last trip and with the vouchers, plus all the extras we paid for, snacks, extra tips, water and sodas, etc... it came to about $420 which isn't as far away from the dining plan total as I thought. However, I then went back to see how much of that $420 was spent on things that could not be used in the dining plan and it came to about $360 once I subtracted it. Still only about $100 less than the cost of the dining plan, but I think we would still spend the extra for the specialty snacks that we love and then we would waste the dining plan snacks... hmm....

That DDE card sounds good, but we are neither FL residents nor thinking about an AP. I doubt we could ever afford to get there more than once in a year. Maybe once we move to SC we'll see

 

[DisneyGirl2005]

Would it work for you if you used some of the credits towards signature meals(they take two credits each instead of one; most of the higher end restaurants and the shows like HDDR and MBYB are signature)? Then on the days you don't have a sit down planned you could share counter service so the counter service credits would go further. You might still have to add to the budget for the special snacks you like but if you drink alot of water you could just use the snack credits for that and it might balance out. I hope this makes sense to you I feel like I am talking in circles.

 

[SRUAlmn]

Thanks! I'm now beginning to see some options for us. Yes, I do drink a LOT of water, and I noticed when looking through our info from last trip that we spent about $10-15 just buying water in the parks

Someone else's suggestion about using one CS for Breakfast and one CS for lunch and sharing for both of those meals and then each using one TS for dinner was a great idea. I just went to allearsnet and did a sample 7 night meal schedule for us using this method and ended up saving $151.83. This might work!!

 

[MICKEEP]

At the beginning we were dead set against getting the plan, but we made a lot of comparisons in evaluating it. If you compare the cost of the plan to what you can buy, including all the appetizers and all the deserts the savings is very big. But it is an awfull lot of food, typically more than we eat.

We also made a comparison between the plan and what we would normally order during a typical stay at WDW. Even in this comparison the plan saves a significant amount of money. (about $200 to $300 for a seven day stay)

So in our opinion the plan saves us money and it gives you the option to pick from the most expensive items on the menu and also to try appetizers you normally wouldn't.

I know it is a lot of food but no one said you had to finish all the food you are given unless you are at the 50's Prime time cafe .

 

[SRUAlmn]

That was the point my boyfriend made too. It may be more food than we could eat, but it will give us the opportunity to try things that we normally couldn't afford to try. He is a huge steak lover, and there are quite a few places that have $25-$40+ steak meals that I'm sure he would love. Our steak at Le Cellier was amazing, but we shared it because of the price...I don't like being young and poor

I think if we used the CSs to share breakfast and lunch and then each ate a TS dinner we might be ok. I would rather each do a TS lunch so that we have more time in the day to work off all that food, but it doesn't seem like a lot of the lunch menus I looked at have expensive enough lunches to get your money worth. Any suggestions??

 

[renessa]

Karen- After comparing menus and prices between lunch and dinner, we decided to do early dinners. We plan to split a breakfast, a lunch, have early dinner, and a late evening snack. We may split one or two dinners, but mainly we'll each order our own. I like dining at off peak times, and this will allow us to work off some dinner!

 

[SRUAlmn]

I just realized that this might not work out for us after all

We bought gift certs from restaurant.com when they had one of their sales (we bought two $25 ones for a total of $6!) They were for a local restaurant in Baltimore and we just went today. You have to spend a minimum of $35 to use the $25 GC so we knew we would be eating a lot. We both woke up around 10am today and around 12:00 we each ate a turkey sandwich here at home. We went to a movie and then got to the restaurant around 5:00. We hadn't eaten anything all day but the turkey sandwiches and we were starving!

We got a crab pretzel app , each got a sandwich with fries, and each got a dessert. We both only ate half of our sandwich and half of our fries. We were so full we didn't even want dessert, but had to up our tab to be able to use the GC.

Here it is now 9:30pm and neither of us is remotely hungry. I just don't see how we could do what we did today, but each get an app, plus have shared a breakfast and a lunch. I know at WDW we work it off and get hungry sooner, but I just don't know now.

 

[maxaroni]

We just re-evaluated and found it to be a good deal for us. We didn't think so at first but now that we are starting to approach our 90 marks, we looked at it again, analyzed, re-analyzed every situation and it came up to be a better deal.

Thanks to all that made me look into it further.