Dining plan or OOP

[eliza61]

Ditto! I haven't actually been to try it out, but based on the calculators I'm planning on the DDP for our next trip. We love to splurge on food on vacation, and I love the idea of being able to order appetizers and desserts

Ok just got back from the world today. 3 Disney adults. Now we did eat off site for breakfast. Total included tips

Here is what we spent.

Monday 5/12
Perkins pancake full breakfast. 25.00
Dinner at big river grille boardwalk. 97.00. I had the ribeye
Ice cream at beaches and cream. 34.00

Total. 156 verses 180 ddp before tips and one extra meal.

Tuesday 5/13
Breakfast at IHOP. 38.00
Pecks bill lunch 40.00
ESPN 86.00
Dessert broad walk bakery. 18.29

Total 183.00 vs 180.00. Ddp but once again 2 full meals and our price includes the tip.

Wednesday 5/14

Via Napoli lunch. 70.0
China dinner. 120.00
Ice cream in France. 18.29

Total. 208.29 including tip. Ddp 250.00 (ddp plus would have had to pay for via Napoli oop)

Remember if you are planning on appetizer, they are not included in you ddp. You have to add that cost in

 

[pigletto]

Ok just got back from the world today. 3 Disney adults. Now we did eat off site for breakfast. Total included tips

Here is what we spent.

Monday 5/12
Perkins pancake full breakfast. 25.00
Dinner at big river grille boardwalk. 97.00. I had the ribeye
Ice cream at beaches and cream. 34.00

Total. 156 verses 180 ddp before tips and one extra meal.

Tuesday 5/13
Breakfast at IHOP. 38.00
Pecks bill lunch 40.00
ESPN 86.00
Dessert broad walk bakery. 18.29

Total 183.00 vs 180.00. Ddp but once again 2 full meals and our price includes the tip.

Wednesday 5/14

Via Napoli lunch. 70.0
China dinner. 120.00
Ice cream in France. 18.29

Total. 208.29 including tip. Ddp 250.00 (ddp plus would have had to pay for via Napoli oop)

Remember if you are planning on appetizer, they are not included in you ddp. You have to add that cost in

Thanks for this. It is helpful to see a real life breakdown of costs. No matter how much I plan or estimate, I still end up with this slightly uneasy feeling that we'll go way over what the DDP cost us. It's an unreasonable fear as far as I can tell, because the DDP doesn't fit the way we eat anymore at all. It's just a small mental block I am not going to get past until we go without it and see for a fact that it's way better for us to go OOP.

 

[luvsJack]

I will say the same to you that I do to everyone that asks this question. Go to allearsnet.com, look at the menus, pick the places you think your family would like to eat, guess at what they would want to eat, and run the numbers.

If you have a young child, look around at the children's meals and think about whether your child will want to eat those the entire trip.

You don't have to do 1 TS and 1 CS every day. You can mix it up. So if you want breakfast at Ohana and dinner at CRT, you will use 3 TS credits for each person and on another day, you can eat 2 CS meals if that's what you want.

For us (me, dh and dd16), it works out better to get the DDP.

DD is going to get a pretzel every day--she is just wired that way. And if dh and I don't get some other snack we will at least get a drink somewhere. So snack credits are used.

We like certain TS meals and are going to order certain things. So, I run the numbers by the places that dd and dh are going to say "we have to eat at xxx".

We are not going to share and we don't cotton to carrying a bunch of stuff in to the parks.

On one day, it may show to be cheaper to eat OOP but on another day, the DDP is cheaper. So, in the end, if we don't come out cheaper with the ddp, it has always, at least, broken even.

 

[dhardawa]

I've run the numbers and can never see how we'd save money on the dining plan. You'd pretty much have to eat at the most expensive restaurants and pick the most expensive items on the menu. That just isn't how we eat. Now,might that said, I won't go to Disney without free dining. We stay in a value or moderate resort, so the 15% - 20% discount on the room doesn't begin to cover our food costs. Plus, we like having a sit down meal to break up the day. We usually run up about $100 a day with two adults and a child on a sit down meal and a counter service one.

 

[bjscheel]

We won't buy it anymore, but we would take Free Dining if it was an option. For DD12 it's not worth the adult price, because she will still order kids meals. If we were going to do a lot of character meals, it might be worth it. But we only want to have 1-2 TS in a week so we're not tied down. We did buy the QS once and paid for a couple TS out of pocket, but that was when DD was 9.

 

[morethananyonex]

We currently have the dining plan for our trip this summer but I am thinking it would be cheaper for us to do out of pocket instead? Has anyone else found this to be true? Most of the places have far too much food and I could see it feasible for us to share a plate and still be full. Looking for advice on this one as we have had free dining included in the past so we haven't given much thought to pricing until now!

No question that if the goal is to save money, OOP is cheaper, especially if you're willing to share meals.

The DDP only saves you money (and not a ton) if you would eat the way required to maximize the plan if you didn't have the plan as well. I can't remember the exact breakdown, but I think the worth of the credits on the regular DDP is something like $40 for TS, $15 for QS, and $5 for snack. I think I might be a little low on the TS credit value. If the meals you would choose to eat at regardless of the DDP meet that value, you're one of the cases where the DDP may save compared to OOP, or at the least not create a loss. In that case, I'm not including the tips because they're a wash if you would have ordered the exact same way off the plan.

Basically, you need to want to eat at places that are expensive enough to be worth it and you need to want all the food you get with the credits. It's very easy to eat cheaper at Disney than the cost of the DDP, even if you don't want to split meals and eat at QS restaurants every day.

 

[mello]

We used to love the DDP, back when it included appetizers, and when the kids' meals were real food - just smaller servings, and when the cost was reasonable. It would be so much better if each person could choose an appetizer or a dessert, and if the kids had better choices. My poor dd got so tired of uncrustables & grapes for lunch and mac n cheese for dinner on our last trip.

Usually when we eat out for special occasions, (ie; "Table Service") we might share an appetizer or two for the table, and may or may not do the same for dessert. When we go to a fast food place (rare), we never get their packaged, fake-sweet desserts. So, even at WDW the counter service desserts wind up wasted on the DDP - especially if you factor in the daily snack credit that might be used on an ice cream bar or krispy treat too. Just so many sweets! And I even like sweets lol, but really, one a day is enough. Yeah, we don't have to eat them all, but it's so hard now to break even on the plan, that leaving things out makes it a losing proposition altogether. That and the fact that we always wind up with unused snack credits at the end.

I usually look at the menus, figure out what we might eat, and run a rough comparison. This time around, for the first time ever, OOP actually won slightly, in a direct comparison (ordering exactly what the DDP would allow). And that included ordering the most expensive items on the menus.

In an apples-oranges comparison (figuring what we would most likely really order if we were paying OOP - ie; appetizer instead of dessert sometimes, or perhaps allowing for someone to get meatloaf or salmon instead of filet mignon), OOP won hands down.

So, for the first time since 2005, we are not doing the dining plan. I'm actually looking forward to the flexibility and to not feeling like we have to try so hard to get our money's worth!

This will be an experiment. What I'm going to do is budget exactly what we would have paid for the DDP, tell everyone they can order whatever they want, and put everything we eat or drink on our room charge, so I can add it all up at the end and see how we did. It should be interesting.

 

[mello]

I will say, though, that I would be willing to banish the dining plan altogether if Disney would go back to the clever, unusual, and unique foods that were offered before the dining plan came along. Lots of homogenization since then. The difference between then and now is like eating at a local fine dining restaurant, or an Applebee's.

Indeed!!!

 

[Iloveyoumost]

If I were not going during a time with free dining we would consider OOP. However we are going for 10 days and the room only discount would be $500. I cannot feed 2 adults and 2 children for $500 for 10 days. For us free dining is way worth it! Even 2 QS without drinks would put is over the $500.

 

[ALD85]

Sorry I didn't read through the thread, but have you checked out the DP calculator? It's extremely helpful. We went on FD last year and I used it to determine it's cheaper for us to pay OOP.

 

[Gemm01]

We were fortunate enough to get in on the free dinning last year. We usually pay out of pocket so I was excited to get the chance to see how this would work for us. In the end the DDP was just to much food for us. We both got tired of having to stop what we were doing to make an ADR. We were not always hungry when it was time to eat. We were there during the F&W festival and we missed out on some of the things we wanted to try because we did not want to be full when we went to eat. One of the days I didn’t feel to well and didn’t really want a meal. If we had paid for the plan I would not have been happy to lose the value of that meal. I actually believe the QSDP would work well for us but would only choose to do that during free dinning.

 

[wendybeth75]

I had replied before about crunching the numbers but I also wanted to add this, sometimes it isn't about the numbers./value. If it brings you a sense of freedom and piece of mind then you should get it. That is something that you can't put value on. For me it always helped with the sticker shock and worrying about how much we were spending as it was paid for. Whichever choice helps you have a more carefree vacation is the right answer!

 

[luvsJack]

I had replied before about crunching the numbers but I also wanted to add this, sometimes it isn't about the numbers./value. If it brings you a sense of freedom and piece of mind then you should get it. That is something that you can't put value on. For me it always helped with the sticker shock and worrying about how much we were spending as it was paid for. Whichever choice helps you have a more carefree vacation is the right answer!

100% agree!

We went on a trip one April with dd's choir. No dining plan and all but one meal in the parks. Talk about sticker shock!!! I guess I had never really paid that much attention to the prices before. So, I found all of us looking at the menu for what was cheapest, not what we wanted. I don't like doing it that way at all.

 

[eliza61]

100% agree!

We went on a trip one April with dd's choir. No dining plan and all but one meal in the parks. Talk about sticker shock!!! I guess I had never really paid that much attention to the prices before. So, I found all of us looking at the menu for what was cheapest, not what we wanted. I don't like doing it that way at all.

Hey luv,
Lol we were the opposite. We had waaay more freedom without the plan. What happens to me is that we stress that we have to get the most pricey thing on the menu just to make sure we weren't "wasting" points.
For example there were days when dh and I only wanted an appetizer and of course we ordered steak simply because we had to get the maximum.

Last week it was 88 degrees so there were two days when we cancelled our adrs because we knew we wouldn't want a heavy meal. Had we been or the plan that would have been almost 200 bucks blown.

So for us it was opposite, we got tired of choosing meals based on what was the supposed best value

 

[mello]

Hey luv,
What happens to me is that we stress that we have to get the most pricey thing on the menu just to make sure we weren't "wasting" points.

LOL! I was just thinking that it really has gotten that way, hasn't it?
Last trip I actually found myself cringing internally when somebody ordered the least expensive thing on the menu. Ironic, isn't it?

 

[luvsJack]

Hey luv,
Lol we were the opposite. We had waaay more freedom without the plan. What happens to me is that we stress that we have to get the most pricey thing on the menu just to make sure we weren't "wasting" points.
For example there were days when dh and I only wanted an appetizer and of course we ordered steak simply because we had to get the maximum.

Last week it was 88 degrees so there were two days when we cancelled our adrs because we knew we wouldn't want a heavy meal. Had we been or the plan that would have been almost 200 bucks blown.

So for us it was opposite, we got tired of choosing meals based on what was the supposed best value

Its funny how different people think differently in similar situations!

For us, we don't try to figure out the biggest "bang for our buck" on the ddp. We just order freely what we want.

If we do eat somewhere with appetizers that we want, we order them and pay oop for that portion. Anywhere else, everyone orders what they want and I couldn't really tell you if they order the most expensive or the least expensive.

The first time we used it, we did make the mistake of thinking we should only use the snack credits for things of a certain price (wouldn't use it on a drink, for instance) so we ended up with a bunch of extra credits at the end that we used on all kinds of snack foods to take home. The next time, we used the credits first--dd for her pretzel, me a mickey bar or other snack or sometimes a drink, dh usually gets a drink. If we used them up, we were prepared to pay oop. I figured I would rather use the credit on something less expensive (like a drink) than buying a bunch of junk at the end that may not get eaten at all.

But, I know that if a steak is on the menu, that is what dh will order every time and most likely what dd will order at least half the time. So many times they are ordering in the higher range.

You mentioned the heat though, and that is something we haven't experienced so that may make a big difference. We are always ravenous when it comes time for our ADR's.