Dining Plan Quandry - Will this work???

[Dean]

Oh I totally agree it might not be a good value for everyone. But I guess I am baffled at the "too much food" comments.

I guess I am the only person that does not over eat just because its paid for. We treat the dining plan like we do a cruise, or all inclusive. I am not going to pig out, just because I can.

We just enjoy the convenience and it does save us money based on what we select.

Yes and no, we don't overeat either but we PLAN. Snacks for many breakfasts, higher end single credit locations, higher cost meals, etc. We basically don't do buffets unless we're stuck with the occasional character breakfast exception. However, from a $$ standpoint, every dessert you don't order, every meal you skip, etc; reduces the $$ value of the plan and fairly quickly gets it to the point where it's not reasonable to get the plan. IMO, one needs to either have a min savings of 20% and/or a min value added of 20% to make it even reasonable to consider. I arrive at that number by taking 2 issues into account, that a 20% discount is readily available with TIW for essentially all table service options and the knowledge that missing a single planned meal will rob a significant amount of value from the plan for a given trip. Special situations such as kids 3-9, short stays including split stays, arriving early day 1/leaving late departure day will all potentially add value to the plan. That's why a given person needs to look at their specifics to make a final determination.

There are 2 other issues that are related. One that the DDP tends to dictate the trip for many people and it does for us to a degree. That's OK with us because we enjoy exploring through food and aren't worried if we go to a park, eat, do 1 ride and shop around a little. The other issue is really one I don't understand all that well, that of letting the prepaid nature of the plan be the end all. The fact it's prepaid really makes no sense unless the plan makes sense for someone anyway plus there are other ways to prepay trip costs besides the DDP.

 

[Alexander]

We have found that the dining plan for more the 4 or 5 days just gets to be too much. We also hate having to make ADRs, but feel like we must if using the dining plan. We would hate to not be able to use those TS credits.

As for the DDP being too much food...I think that it was a lot of food when and appetizer was also included. That was way more food than we would be able to eat. Otherwise, I don't think a meal and dessert is too much for dinner. We tend to be a 2 meal a day family, so the DDP works well in that we don't usually need anything other than just the meal plan.