Disney Dining Plan or not

[JLitfin]

Help me decide!!

My DH and I will be heading to BLT for 7 nights this January. I'm having trouble trying to figure out what to do and thought if I got some suggestions it might help me decide.

1) Order the DxDDP and do 1 TS meal for breakfast/early lunch, snack in middle of afternoon and a signature restaurant for dinner. This would be lots of food, and will cost about $1000 for the two of us. It will give me a chance to try lots of signature restaurants.

2) Order the DDP and do Snack for breakfast, QS for lunch and TS meals for dinner. Not as much food. Will probably not do any signature restaurants with this plan.

3) Instead of doing the DxDDP or the DDP, use some of that money and rent a car in order to be able to food shop and eat out at some off property restaurants. I would still do a couple of ADRs at a couple of my favorite Disney restaurants.

What do you think? Help me decide.

 

[Dean]

Help me decide!!

My DH and I will be heading to BLT for 7 nights this January. I'm having trouble trying to figure out what to do and thought if I got some suggestions it might help me decide.

1) Order the DxDDP and do 1 TS meal for breakfast/early lunch, snack in middle of afternoon and a signature restaurant for dinner. This would be lots of food, and will cost about $1000 for the two of us. It will give me a chance to try lots of signature restaurants.

2) Order the DDP and do Snack for breakfast, QS for lunch and TS meals for dinner. Not as much food. Will probably not do any signature restaurants with this plan.

3) Instead of doing the DxDDP or the DDP, use some of that money and rent a car in order to be able to food shop and eat out at some off property restaurants. I would still do a couple of ADRs at a couple of my favorite Disney restaurants.

What do you think? Help me decide.

IMO, it depends on where you'd eat, what type of food you'd order and your personal preferences. I personally would not plan on eating up the credits on signatures either way, maybe one or 2 max but that's about it. Here's how we tend to use it but we're light eaters. We normally try to arrive early, check in and get our credits. Then we can use the credits for lunch on arrival and then we plan to use for lunch on departure. In the interim we tend to us snacks for muffins, danish, etc with a CS lunch and TS dinner. We often share a meal and pay OOP for a soup or salad or for a CS option use one credit and then use snack credits for soup, salad, fruit, etc.

 

[AirGoofy]

We did the DxDP in June and are doing it again in October. What worked well for us was a late breakfast (10:00 AM) and then a signature dining for dinner. For October, we are keeping the late breakfast and adding a couple of dinner shows (2 TS) as well as signature dining. We planned on using the snack credits for lunch, and we did eat ice cream sandwiches for lunch a couple of days - dds (8,6) thought it was the best - and with the refill mugs and big meals, really just weren't that hungry. And even though we could not finish all our meals, we really enjoyed the experiences and different food. By the way, we ended up bringing home 20 Mickey Rice Krispie treats.

For #s, I figured 5 ADRs for CRT (twice), HDDR, Artist Point, and SOA would cost $650 for 2 adults and 2 kids. The DxDP costs $930, so the difference is $280 for 5 nights or $56 per day for lunch breakfast. We could easily bring or buy groceries or pay OOP for much cheaper than $56, but its Disney World. So, we are going to have breakfasts with our favorite characters. The breakfasts will cost more than $56 per day, and you still get the snack credits and refill mugs. As an added bonus, the dds (8,6) will be really popular at school with all their Mickey treats.

 

[ToddyLu]

DH and I have done the DDP three or four times. When paying OOP we usually spend about $1000 for a 9-10 night stay. Last year we stayed 9 nights, used ddp for about $720. You may think that is a great savings but after doing it a couple of years in a row and now being DVC members, we found ourselves lurking around the room more actually enjoying the resort. No commando trips anymore. So I always try to book a TS ADR each day...on the days we do Brown Derby and Cali Grill, we use 4 TS credits each but find that the CS and snacks are used to off set this....We usually end up somehow with a least snack credits left over.

And DDP is (never done Dx DDP) kinda limiting in that you always get a dessert instead of appetizer. Dont get me wrong we love cheesecake but getting an appetizer suits us too. MIL decided she really didn't care for the CS breakfast, too much for her. I like a big morning meal and DH wants to graze all day. So the more we relaxed at the resort the more difficult sticking to the DDP was.

Soooo..this year we have APs and will purchase the TIW card , allowing us to eat many things we want with a discount and not wasting food or credits. We plan on getting snacks for the room, now that we have a place to put them and being a little more flexible in our choices.

 

[Sandisw]

Help me decide!!

My DH and I will be heading to BLT for 7 nights this January. I'm having trouble trying to figure out what to do and thought if I got some suggestions it might help me decide.

1) Order the DxDDP and do 1 TS meal for breakfast/early lunch, snack in middle of afternoon and a signature restaurant for dinner. This would be lots of food, and will cost about $1000 for the two of us. It will give me a chance to try lots of signature restaurants.

2) Order the DDP and do Snack for breakfast, QS for lunch and TS meals for dinner. Not as much food. Will probably not do any signature restaurants with this plan.

3) Instead of doing the DxDDP or the DDP, use some of that money and rent a car in order to be able to food shop and eat out at some off property restaurants. I would still do a couple of ADRs at a couple of my favorite Disney restaurants.

What do you think? Help me decide.

I like Option #1 as it gives you a chance to try things that you have not tried in the past. And, while the cost is $1000, how much less would the other options be?

For me, I don't want to have to do a lot of cooking on vacation so I would always choose spending a few hundred more not to--of course, I don't like to do a lot of cooking at home either!!!!!

 

[rentayenta]

One of the main reasons we like split stays is to be able to do the DDP for part of the time. We don't need that much food for 10 days.

 

[dsanner106]

This dilemma is one reason we book 2 studios rather than a larger suite now. The points are the same either way. We have teens and can easily split our group and it allows us to put the DDP on one room and not the other. We have points to try some special thing and do as we like the rest of the time. We use the points where they will save us money or for special treats. As for your situation, if there are places you would like to try and you know you will get good use of the points, do a plan and enjoy. We found some restaurants that are now family favorites while on the DDP. Paying cash we have skipped a them thinking they would not be worth the price. Now we return to them frequently whether on the plan or not. Start by making a list of the restaurants you want to hit this trip, see how many points you will need. Call reservations and make sure you can get your choices during your stay. Then see which plan fits for your trip.

Drew

 

[daisygirl902]

I went on a short trip last month and truly regretted not being on the DDP. I spent as much on food as I would have on the plan, and think I would have gotten more bang for my buck on DDP.

We are doing regular DDP for our wedding trip, and DxDP for the last 3 days. It should be fun!! We get to try out lots of signature dining experiences which is what I love about DxDP - that's the one I would recommend, although it doesn require a lot more planning!

 

[Brian Noble]

When it's just the two of us, we typically eat meals that together would require slightly more than one TS credit per night---so, we'd either have to drop down to DDP---this would be a *little* cheaper, but we'd have to cut out a meal or two---or we'd have to spend significantly more money to upgrade to DxDDP. I'd rather just eat what, where, and when I want and not worry about how to make it fit into the plan.

 

[Gowahoowa]

We always do the DDP. We are a family of 4 (now 5 but still an infant) and the "savings" amounts to $200-$300. I would recommend the DDP to anyone, but it still is personal preference. We enjoy doing 1 table per day and 1 counter per day. We love using the snack credits at Goofy's candy company, Main Street Bakery, or Aloha Isle for a Dole Whip!!

 

[disneynutz]

Are you planning on not going back to WDW for a number of years? You will have plenty of vacations to try all of the DDPs.

We now only do the DDP for short split stays. The price is too high, and the plans and menus have been cut with not much value left. It's cheaper to use the plan for one or two real expensive meals, and rent a car to eat off site or buy food from Publix or Walmart and eat in our villa.

Bill

 

[ChiSoxKeith]

Your plan sounds good but can you actually get reservations for all of the days?

 

[JLitfin]

Thanks everyone for your ideas and suggestions. Still not completely sure what I'm going to do except that I believe I'm going to rent a car so we can be flexible with going off property to eat or shop etc. Plus my DH doesn't really like being without a car. I believe if I decide on the dining plan I'll do the basic plan which will give us 1 TS a day. I'll still try a couple of the signature restaurants by doubling up on pts. leaving a couple of nights open to go off-property to eat on those days. I'll be making my reservations end of July so I'm really trying to figure this out.