Dining Plan Questions

[honeymo78]

Anne - here is our plan for Feb. I know that many people don't spend any money outside the dining plan but we plan on eating like we normally would (with the addition of some CS which we don't generally do) and it still will save us money, just maybe not as much as others. A TS, CS and a snack definitely would cost us more than $37 if we were paying for each out of pocket.

We have 12 CS to use - we'll do one each day for lunch except for our Epcot day
We have 12 TS to use - LTT, Spirit of Aloha (4), Biergarten, Le Cellier, Concourse Steakhouse
We have 12 Snacks to use - a mickey bar or beverage in the park each day
The rest we'll pay OOP - Narcossees, Shulas (valentines' day), Donald's Breakfast, 2 Chef Mickey B'fast, 2 CP B'fast, Ohana B'fast - we're estimating an extra $400-$450
And we're getting strawberries and champagne for the fireworks from our balcony for Vday so I have no idea how much extra that will be.
And of course new refillable mugs - finally some coke slushy in my mug

Obviously we aren't giving up how we like to eat and we don't like to share either so you can easily spend much less money for off plan meals.

 

[tinagirl]

We're doing it the same as huskies.

half trip at all stars with dining plan/half at dvc without.

We felt this was an exceptional plan for the money, and splitting the stay was a way to make it work extremely well for us, especially since we don't eat that much. That way, we have 4 full days to eat 3 days worth of food without having any counter service or table service left over.

We are disneyland folk, and are used to splitting meals (especially counter service) so we were worried that we would waste food or have unused credits. Now we know that it will be great for us!
-Tina.

 

[disneyjunkie]

We used the plan last April (teen son and I).


The plan was great, but I still spent about $50-$75 extra on snacks.

As much as we love Mickey bars, we didn't want one everyday.


The good snacks aren't included in the plan, so those were the items I paid cash for. Cookies, funnel cakes, caremel and candy apples, soft serve ice cream, cheesecake, fudge....

 

[bigmac5]

We went in Aug/Sept and were on the dining plan. We bought our resort mugs. Since we drove we brought in a case of water and some muffins for breakfast. We ended up eating some deserts from the night before for breakfast. The dining plan was great. There were 5 of us(kids counted as adults) and our bill would have been $1,688.00 and we didn't eat at the most expensive places. And we didn't buy any other food.

 

[MOMOFMNM]

here was our bills:

CM 125.00
Ohana 95.00
Sci Fi 129.00
CRT 130.00
snacks: 60.00 even had 10 left at trip end!!
CS at:
Capt Cooks: 49.00
Capt Cooks:45.00
Seasons:35 shared some meals
Flame Tree: 59.00

We had about 11 CS credits left over when we left


Extra:
we spent about 100 on a few alcoholic bevies, some pretzels, churros and camera batteries and ice cream, not bad for 5 people for 6 days actually!!

The good thing was:it was free and obviously it was soo much food I do not know if I would do it again because look at how many credits I had left over!!! We ate SO MUCH food and we really missed a lot of park time with the ADR's and long waits...we only had one day at each park and 1 1/2 AT mk thanks to EMH at night. If I had paid for all those credits I may have been mad that we did not eat enough, WHICH IS TOTALLY STUPID!!! I hate the thought of buying food just because we can!! On the other hand, with 5 of us, if we wanted to do a TS once a day, we would already be saving 30 bucks and that is just on ONE MEAL!!! (and a few are buffets so you can not split meals btw) so next time I do not know what I am going to do...I feel like 100 bucks for 5 of us is super cheap at WDW...but then again if we did only CS we could save $$$ but then again I liked the fact that it was prepaid and all inclusive (pretty much!!) I did not like that some items were not available as a snack like Churros or pretzels, I mean they were not that expensive, I don't know why they can't go by price instead, esp for a snack...so obviously I am conflicted too!!

I would suggest considering things like:
where are you eating?
are you big eaters?
Do you like to be stuck to ADR times??
How many in your family and what ages?? (when my dd 9 turns 10 I can see how it is not that great of a deal for our family...we do not eat a lot of food!! there were several days we shared 2 pretzels and a churro and called it a lunch!!! )
all in all I liked to order wo price worries and I liked to have a little dessert on my vacation without feeling mad about spending 6 bucks or 5 bucks on a slice of cake...

It all depends IMO

I would say for most it is probably a good deal but not for others!!

 

[Disneynutbsv]

I went in September for the free dining plan and yes, it was a lot of food. But, I am paying for it when we go next August. I'm trying to make it was easy as possible and prepaying for as much as we can. I think my dh would enjoy being able to order what he wants more than deciding on what he's going to have because of the price. Plus everytime he's gone down he's only had counter service or pizza.

 

[Hopefully]

We used the Dining Plan on ur trip 10/16 - 10/23. We are 3 adults and it cost us $735. Our total food "bill" was $1168.84, so obviously we saved a lot of money. We had an ADR for a TS each day, but we enjoy one sit down meal a day. We ate where we wanted and ordered what we wanted, not necessarily the most expensive menu item. Once I made the decision to buy the plan, I did not worry about "maximizing" it, but rather focused on enjoying ourselves.
We were there during the F & W festival, so we were able to use our snack credits for food samples - a great surprise. Since we were saving our snack credits, I did pay OOP for 3 drinks each of the 2 days we were in the MK - so I bought 6 drinks total. That is the only thing we paid extra for.
I am going in April with DS and his family, and I have recommended that we use the Dining Plan.

 

[jennafo3]

Ok, still trying to decide if we should go with the dining plan...4 adults, 2 kids (4,6) and 1 2 year old (free) - totals about $1400 for 7 days... that seems like a lot, but with three little kids, not really sure if we'll get our monies worth with TS?? (they may not sit that long) - We're going in January!! Just booked...

 

[bigmac5]

Another thing I liked about the dining plan is that it was pre-paid, so we didn't feel like we were shelling out money all the time. I guess it was just the feeling of an all inclusive type of holiday--less worries.

 

[granmaz]

We're going in February and wondering about the dining plan. I know I did see some changes for next year's plan, but can't find them now! Does anybody know what the changes are?