Dining Plan or DVC discount?

[bazbirjis]

Hello all,

I am confused about getting a dining plan or using our DVC dining discount, which is 20-15 percent. We have always used a dining plan in the past, however with one major disappointing change in their plan where you can't convert your quick service into table service is a turnoff for us. We are traveling with 8 members, 3 kids, 3 adults and 2 seniors. Now I am stuck thinking about what to do as the table service dining plan costs us close to 6500. I can't even process that lol. I know we are a lot of people but my kids are picky eaters and they eat very minimal so for me that per head is almost wasted. In the past, I did convert our quick service into a table and any remaining snacks. Now they said we can't convert any quick service to snacks (GOSH!!!) So here I am stuck in doing math which will be making more sense. Just coming here for some tips and partly venting I guess.

Thanks in Advance

 

[abdgeek]

Hello all,

I am confused about getting a dining plan or using our DVC dining discount, which is 20-15 percent. We have always used a dining plan in the past, however with one major disappointing change in their plan where you can't convert your quick service into table service is a turnoff for us. We are traveling with 8 members, 3 kids, 3 adults and 2 seniors. Now I am stuck thinking about what to do as the table service dining plan costs us close to 6500. I can't even process that lol. I know we are a lot of people but my kids are picky eaters and they eat very minimal so for me that per head is almost wasted. In the past, I did convert our quick service into a table and any remaining snacks. Now they said we can't convert any quick service to snacks (GOSH!!!) So here I am stuck in doing math which will be making more sense. Just coming here for some tips and partly venting I guess.

Thanks in Advance

Based on your post, it seems like you’re sure the new dining plans aren’t going to help you realize the savings they may have in the past. I’m DVC also and I always got the deluxe dining plan whenever I went to WDW. I checked the menus for each restaurant where I planned to eat and made sure that the items I planned to order would be more expensive than the daily cost of the plan. I have found the new dining plans to be very underwhelming and am no longer sure I’ll buy one for my next WDW trip. Unfortunately, in order to find out which option is best for you will require you to cost out eating at the same restaurants with the DVC discount applied. Maybe someone who has done a recent dining plan spreadsheet will post. I travel solo, so the only way I would spend that much money on the dining plan would be if I knew I was saving money.

If you haven’t already, make sure you check the restaurants where you want to eat to make sure they take the DVC discount. I’m seeing only a 10-20% discount on the website and not every restaurant honors it. Here’s additional info on the website:

About Member Dining Discounts:
Discount is off the regular price of food and non-alcoholic beverages, excluding tax and gratuity, and is valid for the Member and up to 3 Guests, unless otherwise noted. Special events and packages excluded.

Good luck with your decision!

 

[teawar]

I just got back from a 2 day trip with a friend and her 4 year old son. Originally we were planning on using either my DVC/AP discount for sit down meals. Once we decided to do 3 character meals the math for the Dining Plan made sense. I found a website where you can plug in the meals you’d eat on the DDP and compared to the price using a discount. A child’s meal at character dining is about $30, so the dining plan for $27 for 2 meals and a snack “saved money”.

You are in the situation for buying it for a much bigger group, so the price seems crazy. We maximized our adult meals by getting the adult drink at every meal.

 

[bazbirjis]

Based on your post, it seems like you’re sure the new dining plans aren’t going to help you realize the savings they may have in the past. I’m DVC also and I always got the deluxe dining plan whenever I went to WDW. I checked the menus for each restaurant where I planned to eat and made sure that the items I planned to order would be more expensive than the daily cost of the plan. I have found the new dining plans to be very underwhelming and am no longer sure I’ll buy one for my next WDW trip. Unfortunately, in order to find out which option is best for you will require you to cost out eating at the same restaurants with the DVC discount applied. Maybe someone who has done a recent dining plan spreadsheet will post. I travel solo, so the only way I would spend that much money on the dining plan would be if I knew I was saving money.

If you haven’t already, make sure you check the restaurants where you want to eat to make sure they take the DVC discount. I’m seeing only a 10-20% discount on the website and not every restaurant honors it. Here’s additional info on the website:

About Member Dining Discounts:
Discount is off the regular price of food and non-alcoholic beverages, excluding tax and gratuity, and is valid for the Member and up to 3 Guests, unless otherwise noted. Special events and packages excluded.

Good luck with your decision!

Hi,
Thank You! I appreciate your response. We decided not to get it even though we had plenty of dinner reservations for a 9-day trip. It did not make sense to spend that much at once. We will see how it will go and maybe learn for future trips if this fits our family.

 

[bazbirjis]

I just got back from a 2 day trip with a friend and her 4 year old son. Originally we were planning on using either my DVC/AP discount for sit down meals. Once we decided to do 3 character meals the math for the Dining Plan made sense. I found a website where you can plug in the meals you’d eat on the DDP and compared to the price using a discount. A child’s meal at character dining is about $30, so the dining plan for $27 for 2 meals and a snack “saved money”.

You are in the situation for buying it for a much bigger group, so the price seems crazy. We maximized our adult meals by getting the adult drink at every meal.

Thanks so much! The issue with us we ate a specific diet, and I can get where you are coming from by utilizing every bit of your dining plan. But for us, we don't even drink or eat specific meat. So for us, it is not truly a good bang for our buck.