Dining Plans

[HarleenQ]

Sure, anyone can make the DxDP plan work. But the question is, what would have cost less? It's rare for it to save anyone money
And I'd say if you ordered meals and didn't finish them you did indeed have too much food.

We only do it with a FD or SPD upgrade, so it's always been cheaper than our OOP anyway. At full cost we would have been better paying OOP, but since that wasn't the question that's not what I worried about answering.

I wouldn't have finished the meals anyway. I can't finish a QS meal and no one in my family will share with me. The times we ate at a non buffet were pretty rare. I didn't walk away thinking 'this plan is just too much food for us.' Disney portions are big regardless if you're on a DP or not.

 

[Novakm]

My family also eats hearty. The portions at DW are smaller than most restaurant chains, like the 99 or Chilis. At many of the sit down places, the entree by itself is not enough by itself, and I would need an appetizer or desert. The Wave has the smallest portions. Roaring Fork is an exception, with huge entrees.

I'd stick with the plan you have, and use the cash you save over the DDP for lunches, so 3 meals a day.

 

[ncurley]

We always get the regular DDP, and we do get some snacks and breakfast stuff for the room through Garden Grocer. We have no trouble using up our table service credits, but we tend to have a lot of QS credits left over. If you plan on a lot of signature meals that require 2 table service credits, the DDP may not be the best option for you. Otherwise it's plenty of food even for big eaters.

Last time I spread a little pixie dust at the Contemporary quick service restaurant (Contempo Café) by offering to purchase the quick service meals of a few people behind me in line. I also used some of them at Starbucks in the parks since you can get a latte and a light breakfast and that counted as a quick service credit.

When I was at the Food & Wine festival at Epcot last year, the CM's would ask if I wanted to use a QS credit or snack credit to pay for some of the food. I thought to myself that would be a terrible use of a QS credit, and could not fathom why someone would purchase a snack that costs $4-7 using a QS credit. We try to use up our snack credits at F&W festival since it's such a great value to do that. One thing that I learned recently though is that you can use a QS credit to purchase THREE items that qualify as a snack - i.e. they need to have the DDP logo on them signifying they qualify as a snack. Has anyone done this successfully? I read about this on a Disney related blog and thought this was a great tip. I can see using this for dole whips at Magic Kingdom and lots of other snacks, and definitely at F&W!

 

[AngiTN]

We always get the regular DDP, and we do get some snacks and breakfast stuff for the room through Garden Grocer. We have no trouble using up our table service credits, but we tend to have a lot of QS credits left over. If you plan on a lot of signature meals that require 2 table service credits, the DDP may not be the best option for you. Otherwise it's plenty of food even for big eaters.

Last time I spread a little pixie dust at the Contemporary quick service restaurant (Contempo Café) by offering to purchase the quick service meals of a few people behind me in line. I also used some of them at Starbucks in the parks since you can get a latte and a light breakfast and that counted as a quick service credit.

When I was at the Food & Wine festival at Epcot last year, the CM's would ask if I wanted to use a QS credit or snack credit to pay for some of the food. I thought to myself that would be a terrible use of a QS credit, and could not fathom why someone would purchase a snack that costs $4-7 using a QS credit. We try to use up our snack credits at F&W festival since it's such a great value to do that. One thing that I learned recently though is that you can use a QS credit to purchase THREE items that qualify as a snack - i.e. they need to have the DDP logo on them signifying they qualify as a snack. Has anyone done this successfully? I read about this on a Disney related blog and thought this was a great tip. I can see using this for dole whips at Magic Kingdom and lots of other snacks, and definitely at F&W!

While I haven't done it as we don't do the DP I do know this can be done. It started last year. It's a bad use of the credit as the F&W items are only about $5 on avg and a QS credit's value is more than $15. Can't use them on alcohol. And you must do it at 1 booth at one transaction. This is also a hinderance. But, if you are going to waste them otherwise and find 3 things at 1 booth you want then it's possible. I think Mexico can be a bit of a PITA about it. They are an outside vendor and guess they get to make their own rules. Not sure of how many others are also. Maybe Japan and/or China? Since their pavilions operations are odd all the way around.