Disney dining plan -- is it worth it

[HappyMomma]

It depends, if you always eat steak, drink soda, and eat dessert, then maybe. It USED to be worth it years ago. They have since removed prime cuts like filet from the menus of a lot of the DP restaurants. If they do have filet, it's a two credit meal.

For us it isn't a good deal. One: we can't eat that much food. It's a waste. Two: we generally like fish and pasta. Dh will only eat filet steaks. Three: We don't like soda. We drink water. Four: cupcakes!!!!, so freaking gosh darn sick to all heck death of cupcakes after our last trip on the DP. *barf* Five: snacks, you are limited on what you can get, and from where. I wanted a freaking waffle sandwich last time. Couldn't get one. Also, consider that now you'll feel compelled to order the most expensive items resulting in paying a higher tax and tip.

We won't have the DP this next trip and it feels so freeing!! My dh is going to do a comparative analysis when we return. But I'm pretty sure I know what the result will be.

 

[AliceIn]

FREE dining and paying for the meal plan are obviously very different. I've found that if paying put of pocket, the meal plan really only is a value if you tend to always order the most expensive things...sounds easy, but you will find yourself in a 95 degree day just waiting a ceaser salad and not a steak. Appetizers are not included, but desserts are...I'd rather have the savory app over the sweet dessert. You find yourself taking a dessert just for a few bites, but then realize you are expected to tip on the entire price of the dessert, not just the 2 bites you took.....

Even if offered free dining- you need to carefully consider that against possible room discounts. I'd rathe race a 30% discount on a deluxe resort and pay for my meals as I go,,,,

Our trip this may is under the Passholder discount, so our room was discounted pretty steeply. We got the passholder package with QS dining. I think the QS plan works for us, as two of my kids are eating MORE than adults at this point. My sons will be 11 and 14, and I cannot believe how much the two of them eat, it's incredible. My daughter is still on the child's plan this year. I took a look at how much the QS meals and snacks would cost us, then factored in how many iced teas, coffees, and drinks at the pool would run us. We really use the heck out of the mugs at the pool. The QS is not a huge money saver, as it saves only about 10% from paying OOP. The convenience of it is more appealing. There's no tips involved with QS, so what you pay is the total for the entire trip. The DDP is much harder for me to justify.

This trip we are staying CL, so our breakfasts are covered. We are doing a split stay, the first 7 days we are on the QS package, and the last night is room only. QS lunches are perfect for park days. I am going back and forth on whether we want to do some ADRs a couple of nights, and if that means I should upgrade the QS to the DDP. I am also considering canceling all of the ADRs and just sticking with QS just to have a more relaxing time this year. There are some really good QS meals available at the monorail resorts as well as in the parks. It's a tough decision.

 

[fairy oma]

We feel like it pays for itself with the character meals we do with the grandkids. CRT is 2 tickets and with a group of 9 that is a chunk of change out of our pocket. If it was just my husband and I going we would just wing it OOP and not use DDP.

 

[hsmamato2]

...maybe. If you are paying for the plan, then probably not. It's more of a convenience thing I think. Op's example 2A 1k, 180.00 per day.... say they eat cereal in the room, get a snack (4.00 pp),eat cs for lunch,big soda, cheeseburger plate, chocolate premade cake thing (approx. 17.00 pp) then eat at a character buffet every night Crystal Palace, (38-43 per person) then yes.... you will just about break even with oop costs, that is IF you intend to eat like that daily. but don't forget that at TS you add 18% for tips on top of food cost too.(We don't eat like this, so eating all of this daily just gave me a stomachache and we ended up wasting/tossing food)
OR you can get "free" dining by paying rack rate at a hotel, I think from a mod on up for that plan, but again, not your best deal b/c there are only 3 of you on the 'free' plan,so a room discount would likely be cheaper.(if you can max the room at 4-5 peeps depending occupancy rules, then that changes the "free' factor a lot)
OR you can pay oop and decide how,when,where,how much you all want to eat. Since you're not saving much by prebuying the plan in my 1st example, and many people end up just tossing food or wasting credits, then why use it? My BIL complained on his last trip that he missed the dining plan....in reality, overall he spent less paying oop, but he couldn't see that.....

 

[WDWOswald]

It is in NO way under ANY circumstances for ANY family of ANY budget "worth it." Anyone who disagrees with that statement lacks either information or wisdom. That's not a judgment on anyone whatsoever, but this isn't a gray area, it's a black and white issue of fact.

 

[WDWOswald]

YES!!!!!! Save about $900 if you get the quick service and 1 table service package. Am waiting for it to see if we can get it in September. Did it last September at CBR. Well worth it. And yes, make dinner reservations as soon as you can. You will enjoy it better than just winging it.

LOL save $900? If you can save 9 cents you're lucky!

 

[AliceIn]

It is in NO way under ANY circumstances for ANY family of ANY budget "worth it." Anyone who disagrees with that statement lacks either information or wisdom. That's not a judgment on anyone whatsoever, but this isn't a gray area, it's a black and white issue of fact.

Wrong.

There are spreadsheets out there that you can use to crunch the numbers to compare what the costs would be for OOP vs. Dining Plan. I crunched the numbers comparing what we'd order and buy and the QS plan saves us a bit more than 10% overall. It's not a huge savings, but I'll take it!

I understand why some may not agree with the Dining Plan, but you seem to really have strong feelings about it. Suggesting that people lack wisdom is not so nice, especially when there are those of us who dissect and analyze everything before coming to a decision.

 

[Kevin355]

LOL save $900? If you can save 9 cents you're lucky!

I compared it to getting 35% off for military at CBR and then with the DDP. Free dining saves us almost $900 when taking the 35% off of the room and meals for 3 people....51, 50, 21.

It would cost us almost $3300 for 7 days at CBR with $420 off of room with Military discount, then adding Dining and airfare. With airfare, no room discount, and free dining, it came to $2430. If we did 2 rooms at CBR with 35% military discount and DDP, it came to almost $400 more, than if we got 2 rooms at regular rate and free dining. We crunched the numbers.

 

[Turk February]

It is in NO way under ANY circumstances for ANY family of ANY budget "worth it." Anyone who disagrees with that statement lacks either information or wisdom. That's not a judgment on anyone whatsoever, but this isn't a gray area, it's a black and white issue of fact.

That could be the most inaccurate thing I've ever read on this board.

 

[Kevin355]

It is in NO way under ANY circumstances for ANY family of ANY budget "worth it." Anyone who disagrees with that statement lacks either information or wisdom. That's not a judgment on anyone whatsoever, but this isn't a gray area, it's a black and white issue of fact.

You know, I figured wrong. It is about $470-$500 savings. We like to do a sit down along with fast service. Depending on the meal, out of pocket versus DDP for sit down can save $10-15 per person depending on the meal you get. Multiply that by 3 people per day and you save $30-$45 a day. Multiplied by 7 is roughly $210-$250 + or - a week. Then add in the bottled juice you can get for free with the DDP and using the mug saves $5 a breakfast, multiplied by 3 is $15 a day, $105 for the week so that saves on the snack portion having the mug. Now we are up to $365. And with a fast service meal, you also get usually a fruit snack, that we always take back to the resort, so that saves another $5 per person, at $15 daily, x 7 is another $105. So you are at approximately $470 for a 7 day stay. Fast service meals are roughly the same price per person, but the refillable mug saves money, and the DDP sit-down meal can save you on entrees of almost 10-15 a meal. I miscalculated the $900 because I didn't figure in the snacks and such. So, it can still save you money if you eat 2 meals a day.

Now pray for free dining and you can save big bucks.

 

[leeannf]

Good info!

 

[leeannf]

 

[tasha99]

Not worth it for us. I'm not keen on having too many ADRs and I don't mind cooking while on vacation. Also, when we do eat out, we're likely to share several appetizers as a meal or do small plates. We're not light eaters, but I don't want any leftovers to carry around or throw away. If we get dessert, it's one for the table instead of one each. Plus, if we don't drink water, it's because we got wine or some other adult beverage, and they aren't included. All of these make the dining plan a poor value for us, but I might feel differently if my kids weren't teens/adults.

 

[nkereina]

Worth it is relative. I don't think the dining plan is meant to be a savings so much as it is meant to be a convenience. If you buy the most expensive entrees and would order dessert and non-alcoholic beverages at every meal normally, then you CAN save some money. But very few people actually eat like that, and very few people deliberately order the most expensive entree to squeeze every penny out. So as long as you are ok with breaking even or possibly paying a little extra for the convenience of it, then it could be worth it. For us, we don't mind paying more since we're able to budget it in and pay it off ahead of time. We also like that we don't think twice about ordering the $45 filet or trying a dessert, when we might normally re-consider if paying OOP.

LOL save $900? If you can save 9 cents you're lucky!

I think the poster you quoted was thinking of the free dining plan when they responded, which is a whole different animal than paying for the dining plan which I believe OP is inquiring about.

 

[Kevin355]

I think the poster you quoted was thinking of the free dining plan when they responded, which is a whole different animal than paying for the dining plan which I believe OP is inquiring about.

Yup, I misunderstood the question. But you nailed it with convenience and having the meals prepaid and not having to figure it in the budget.

 

[dmband]

Never worth it for us, so far anyways.
We generally eat qs, maybe one sit down a trip.
I have looked at menus and ran numbers of what I would order vs what it would cost at both qs and sd.
The room discounts have always been better. Free dining is only a plus if you can't get a room discount

 

[huntconn]

I don't care for the dining plan at all. With the counter service plan I think it's hard to even break even. The sit down plan can definitely save you money if you eat at the more expensive restaurants. Before doing the counter service dining plan I had read that one negative side effect for some dis'ers was that they ended up constantly ordering the most expensive things on each menu in an effort to maximize their value even if that menu item was not what they truly wanted. Even though I did not think I would , I found myself doing exactly that. It just became another thing at WDW to "over think" instead of just eating what I wanted.

 

[dmband]

I compared it to getting 35% off for military at CBR and then with the DDP. Free dining saves us almost $900 when taking the 35% off of the room and meals for 3 people....51, 50, 21.

It would cost us almost $3300 for 7 days at CBR with $420 off of room with Military discount, then adding Dining and airfare. With airfare, no room discount, and free dining, it came to $2430. If we did 2 rooms at CBR with 35% military discount and DDP, it came to almost $400 more, than if we got 2 rooms at regular rate and free dining. We crunched the numbers.

I don't think you did it right personally
We are going in peak season for ten days and the military discount has us at $1400
Even holiday season you are not going to pay $3300 I don't think

Edit, see your other post with adjusted numbers

 

[Sue M]

Our first time without the DDP we put what it would have cost us to buy the DDP on a gift card, and came home with quite a bit left. Can't remember how much was left over, but it was over $150. We ate 1 CS & 1 TS daily. And we bought resort mugs.

But the big difference I think is how we eat. We aren't soda drinkers and prefer water, so we order ice water with meals, we don't want dessert after lunch, and dinner. Sometimes we will wait awhile after dinner and go somewhere else to grab a dessert, sometimes we want to split a dessert. At Kona for dessert I wanted a Dole Whip from Capt Cooks downstairs! We also don't want a snack every day in addition to all the food. We will grab a snack some times, instead of dessert after meal. But never in addition to. When on the DDP we always end up with lots of left over snack credits so we use them up the last day buying things we can take home, Rice Crispy Mickeys, etc.

On DDP we were paying for items we didn't want.

For us the DDP isn't worth it. As others pointed out, it's not the deal it once was. I can make it work by reserving the TS that are on the high price end, and ordering the most expensive items, and having desserts after every meal, and stuff myself silly, but it's just not enjoyable for me walking around every day feeling stuffed.

 

[NormaG]

We usually get the DDP and for our family, it does save us a little. We enjoy character meals and the dinner shows. We also like the fact that we have everything paid for before we get there. But is it a good deal for every family, no, probably not. You just need to do your own research, look at the menus and the prices of what you would most likely get, add it all up and see if you think it would be worth it or not.