Dining Plan

[mcurran]

Can you save money on ddp vs oop? Yes.

Will you save money using ddp vs oop? Maybe.

Really consider if you would eat a meal and desert at your sit downs. Consider if you would buy a fountain soda if you are going to order alcoholic drinks. Will you use 2 snacks per day per person on average? If you were paying oop would you get everyone a meal at a qs or would you share?

I think the ddp offers a liberation to users to not think so much about wasted food or money spent. I don't think that a dole whip costs $5 or whatever - I think of it as a snack credit. That popcorn my kids want? That doesn't cost $5 either. It's a snack credit.

That link @cubed posted above is great. But there is more to the ddp than saving money.

Truly not trying to sway you one way or another. Just offering you that other perspective.

 

[cubed]

Ah yes @mcurran makes great points! We do not typically eat a dessert at every sit down meal per person nor are we soda drinkers, which is such a waste if you do get the dining plan. My boys are grazers and need to eat small snacks constantly, so we travel with ziploc bags full of Cheerios, Nutrigrain bars, etc. When they get older, I am sure we will eventually take advantage of the dining plan but not when they are 5 and 2.

 

[lindsayjs]

I'm a fan of the dining plan. We've only done ddp once mostly for character meals without cringing at the prices. QSDP suits my family much better since we don't like to commit so much time to eating. My favorite aspect above all else is having meals paid for in advance and that's one less thing for me to think about. I considered bringing gift cards instead but I think it would still make me over-aware of ridiculous theme park prices.

 

[AdamEfimoff]

Cannot get Dining plan at Four Seasons right?

 

[Tink_83]

I did it once and pretty much didn't like that the menu's for some locations (like the Chefs de France) is limited and to really either make out or at least break even on the plan I pretty much insisted that everyone order steak; which we like steak so not a bad option but you do start to think about maximizing your credits instead of just eating, IMO. Also, we are not big eaters (I can split a child menu item from a CS location with DD - 4) so lets just say we had A LOT of credits left over. In the end it was not worth it for us. Now if you do a lot of character meals (Dinner, not just breakfast) and/or like the expensive restaurants in Epcot and want to eat your body weight in steak by the time your done with your vacation then you may make money on it. Also, some people like to not think about food so they know it is already paid for, but keeping up with credits was also a bit of a pain... at least for me.

 

[scrapquitler]

Hi -

Are you getting the dining plan for your family or paying OOP for your meals?

I'm going back & forth on this.

Thanks!

Dining plan is definitely not worthwhile for us.

 

[Mousemommy1]

Cannot get Dining plan at Four Seasons right?

No. You have to be staying at a Disney resort.

 

[jvz82]

We got the dining plan this last time and I really liked it. We have 4 kids, but one was under 2 so he shared with us. All my kids are big eaters and love to have a dessert and drink other than water so it was worth it. I didn't feel limited at all and didn't need to worry about how much things cost, so that was nice.

Also someone mentioned that kids couldn't order off the adult menu, and that may be true for TS but at the QS places they did let my older two order from the adult menu. They prefer cheeseburgers and none of the kid options had burgers, but then I was told that QS credits aren't separated by adult or child so either person could order kid or adult meal. I wish I had figured that out earlier in the trip!

Anyway I don't know if we will always do a DDP. We'll probably stay off-site next time. But our experience was good.

 

[AdamEfimoff]

No. You have to be staying at a Disney resort.

cheers fs confirmed. That's fine. I might even return one day

 

[BLAZEY]

We don't do table service meals that often, usually 1 or 2 per trip. We eat breakfast in the room. Many times DH & I share an adult meal, or I order him an adult meal and DD and I will each get a kids meal. I find Disney portions HUGE. Not worth it for us as we couldn't eat that much food. Even the QSD plan would be too much.

 

[first time in forever]

We're getting the dinner plan. Most of our reservations are character dinners; we also have the Fantasmic and ROL packages. Our kids are older and pretty big eaters. I hope it's worth it.

 

[jpeterson]

We used the DDP last trip and are using it again this trip. For our 2 young ones, we use it for a lot of character dining. We also like the fact that it's a fixed cost and can easily be budgeted for. I'm sure paying out of pocket can save many if not most people money, but we prefer not having to worry about it.

 

[tralin]

We usually do not do the dining plan, but we just returned from our spring break trip this past Sunday and did use it this trip. I have three teenagers who are now able to spend some time in the parks without my husband and I present. We found it to be most helpful to have the DDP. The kids wanted to stay in the parks from open until close and my husband and I usually returned to the room for a mid day break. Knowing that they were able to have access to snacks and counter service meals by using their magic bands and pin # made life so much easier on us. We did enjoy a table service meal together daily. Yes, we ended up having several unused snack credits and three counter service meals left at the end of the week. We used the counter service meals to grab sushi to go at the poly and filled up our cooler with snack credits for the ride home. We probably paid more this way then if we had just paid out of pocket but for this particular trip the connivance of the DDP worked best for us and our touring style...We typically also stay in off site condos but again paying more to stay on site with my teens (18, 17 & 13) able to use the Disney transportation system made the extra cost worth it to us this trip.

Additionally with our teens, we've done one trip OOP and one on DP. Have to say the kids ate so much better on the DP as THEY didn't have to worry about how much money WE were spending or stay within a budget. That part was a surprise to us. How much more relaxed the kids were.

 

[Tk0021]

We usually do character buffets because my kids love meeting characters and then we don't use fast passes on meet and greets so the DPP works for us. It is more food than we normally eat and would seem like a waste of money if we were not going to the more expensive meals. We will more than likely change our habits when the kids get older.