Disney Dining Plan vs .Disney Deluxe Dining Plaj

[MelDane]

Our trip is consisting of my self, my DW, and our DD(4). We are booked at CSR on November doing free dining. We are currently upgraded to the deluxe dining plan because we like the idea of the all-inclusive feel of the deluxe dining. There has been some concern about this because of the amount of food and time comment of eating at a bunch of table service. If we did not upgrade to deluxe dining it would make the option of upgrading to a deluxe resort more feasible. Any thought on the deluxe dining and how feasible of an option would be greatly appreciated.

 

[bashuck]

Also have a 4 year old and really enjoyed it. We did a 8 character meals over our 5 nights and my daughter loved them. It is more food than you need but if the reservations are well planned I didn't feel like we were 'slaves' to our schedule. I certainly preferred sitting at the table waiting for the characters in a climate controlled environment than some of the waiting at some of the other places. If you would otherwise only do 3 character meals don't get the upgrade. Probably will not again but that is because have a DVC contract in ROFR and will likely go with 1BR in the future and will cook some meals.

 

[lovewdwdvc]

The Deluxe plan looks like too much food for me. Also, I do not want to be tied to a meal schedule. WE are very happy with the amount of food on the DDP. Usually we end up with left over credits. Crunch the numbers though. It may make sense to pay for some thing out of pocket and go with the regular DDP.

 

[aaarcher86]

How are you planning on eating? We like the DXDP with 2 Disney kids. We always had a dining discount and upgraded and still saved money on the DXDP. I'd just plan out where you'd eat and price it up. See what it'd look like both ways financially and on a schedule.

We do a TS breakfast, QS lunch, and TS dinner. Most TS meals are character meals so we kill two birds with one stone. The hour it takes us to eat is offset by the hour we would have been waiting in line to see all those characters. With the TS in the morning and night we have the whole day open, so we don't feel tied down to a schedule.

The TS dinners that weren't character or buffet were a lot of food in one sitting since everyone gets an app, entree, and dessert, but we don't feel the need to eat every ounce of food on our plates. It was really a non issue for us.

 

[2girlsmomma]

We did DXDDP two years ago and it worked well for us on a three night, five day stay. We were able to use credits as soon as we checked in, and the day we checked out. Also did CRT, which is 2 credits. I think three sit down meals would have been too much, ours worked out to typically two table service a day.
This trip we opted to stick with DDP(free dining also) because when I did the upgrade math, it worked out much better for us to pay OOP for anything extra we might want. And with some highly recommended CS options(like Flametree), I don't feel like we are missing out at all.

 

[wdw&sonny]

Depends on how you eat. If you like 3 TS meals per day, then it is good. If you would normally eat at signature restaurants and/or character meals then it may be good.

For us, we like a TS lunch but also wanted to go to a couple of restaurants (Jiko, Narcoossee's) that were signature (2TS) so we decided to upgrade. Probably could have saved just a bit by paying OOP but we figured for this trip (also Nov at CSR) we would indulge a bit and have the dessert too.