Dining plan?

[wisconsinmama]

Going to WDW in September with husband and three kids. Looking for advice on the dining plan. If we decide to go without it can we charge meals to our room card? Do you need to have the plan to do character meals? We plan to do maybe two character meals. Thanks
AlA

 

[GaBelle]

I'm going in September, too!
You can charge meals to your KTTW card if you add a credit card when checking in for charging privileges.
Dining plans depend on what type of eaters you guys are: do you eat 3 regular meals a day? Do you want table service type meals? If so, do seriously consider a dining plan. Crunch the numbers to see if it makes sense money-wise. DDP per adult is about $55.59 per day and DxDDP is $99.97. (I'm a budget minded person, can you tell? )
You can find current menus and prices at Allears.net
You will not need a plan to do character meals.
My DH loves the DxDDP because everything is pre-paid before we arrive and we have the convenience of ordering anything on the menu with out considering the price.
Let me know if I can answer any other questions! Hope this helps!

 

[TDC Nala]

1. Yes.
2. You do not need to have the plan to do character meals. The dining plan is only an alternative method of payment (prepayment). It has nothing to do with whether you have access to the restaurants.
3. In order to save money on the dining plan, you would probably need to commit to at least one table service restaurant every day of your trip. If you only want to do two character meals on a longer trip, the dining plan is not what you want. You must compare what you get on the dining plan to where you plan to eat and what your family might spend if you did not have the plan.

Moving this to the dining plan board as that is where the dining plan information is.