Disney Dining Plan..yes or no...

[iwrbnd]

I think we could probably eat cheaper w/out it but we always end up getting it. Why?

1. I like the convenience.

2. I like knowing what my vacation will cost before and having it paid.

3. I like not stressing over the price on the menu while I'm on vacation. I do that enough the rest of the year.

4. I don't like to cook!

One of these days I might be brave enough to go w/out it!

 

[Robo-Daddy 3000]

We found the ddp is cheaper for us than cooking in our villas. The price of the groceries was very expensive. We went to the grocery store that was closest to downtown Disney.

That grocery store is really overpriced. We made the mistake of going there for groceries one time when we were staying at OKW and I would never shop there again. There is a Publix market close to the the AKV which is much more reasonably priced.

 

[Anal Annie]

I think it depends on your family size & eating habits.

The math simply doesn't work out for us. We eat breakfast in our villa and plan for about 3-4 TS meals during a week long trip (don't like all the restrictions of having to plan to be somewhere at a certain time every single day - we prefer to wing it a couple of days and do whatever we feel like doing). ALSO, our DS (12, almost 13) does not eat enough meals from the adult menus to be worth paying the full adult price for him. It depends on the menu and what's offered...but it is likely still that he'd rather get a personal size pizza or mac & cheese than most of the adult entree selections. He may order a quesadilla from the appetizers as his entree. Why would I want to pay $42 a day or whatever it is for him to do that?! There is no value in the DDP for tweens with limited appetites IMHO. Now one day, when he's 15 or 16 & eating like a small pony then maybe. But for now...the fact that we'd have to pay for it for everyone for all days is not a value at all. I priced it for our March trip but after I'd made our ADR's and it was too late to add any more (spring break - everything booked up). We only have 4 ADR's & it is not accepted at Rainforest Cafe...so it would've been a waste of money.

We tried the TIW card a couple of years ago - since it's a percentage discount and we're only a family of 3 who plan just a few TS meals & DS eats little for the most part - it took us 2 trips to break even (and that's back when it was only $65). The TIW card is not accepted everywhere we eat either. I looked into it for this past year but it's not taken for the Fantasmic packages nor is it accepted at T-Rex or Rainforest Cafe...and I think Wolfgang Pucks wasn't on the list either...

So we will use our DVC or AP discount at Rainforest, Restaurant Marrakesh, San Angel Inn & Sanaa ETC. and will just make do with whatever discount we can get without having to pay anything extra to get it. We can simply eat cheaper on our own.

 

[TLPL]

The DDP is too expensive, both financially, and calorie wise for us. We love food, and love to cook. We also love to try the various Disney restaurants, but the DDP is just too much food. We have never spent as much for groceries, and a few times eating out as the DDP costs. For our way of dining, or just plain eating, the DDP is not for us.

I agree totally, too much food you don't need for too much money you don't want to spend.
But if you weight over 200lbs, than this probable doesn't matter to you.

 

[Anal Annie]

What is the Tiw card?

TIW stands for "Tables In Wonderland" and it is a dining discount card available to AP holders. (It used to be called the Disney Dining Experience or DDE but I think they changed the name as it was getting confused with the DDP). Anyway, as DVC members we can get the card for a discount - I think it costs $75 now and it is good for 1 year. It gets you a 20% discount off of food & beverages (including alcohol) at a limited number of restaurants for up to I think 10 people at your table...but you have to plan to eat at those restaurants on the list for it to work out. It takes too much planning for us and is not always accepted where we want to eat. And being a smaller family it takes a LOT of TS meals to recover that $75 investment. However if you have a large group and DO eat a lot of TS meals you can recover the investment in only a couple of meals. Being that is is a percentage discount a party of 6 or 7 adults with drinks can "make it back" with one meal at Boma.

 

[helloconnie]

We do the DDP as well. We usually have a couple of signature meals either with kids (CRT, Hoop-de-Doo) or as Parent's Night Out (Citrico's, California Grill). Plus, we use whatever left over snack credits to load up on goodies to take home, usually from the MK Confectionary.

You do save money. Plus, it is easy to use and my DH is a number watcher. It is much easier and less stressfull for all of us if he knows up front what food is costing him. The one year we did not do the plan, we ended up changing most of our dining reservations because as soon as he saw each meal cost indivudually, not to mention no discount, he wasn't too happy.

 

[Anjelica]

We do DDP as well. We actually did the Deluxe over our Christmas Vacation in 2008 because we decided to make it a more "meal/restaurant/show" centric trip than say another time of the year. We did this with the expectation that Disney would be quite a bit busier than when we go during low to moderate crowd times of year. We LOVED the Deluxe Dining Plan and would use it again especially during busier crowd times (i.e. Easter, Christmas).

 

[rb5505]

w/o the dining plan...we would split one table svc meal (since they are so large) and we would both get a counter svc meal & snack each of the 5 days......

200 table svc x 5 split meals ($40/each)
120 counter svc x 10 ($12/each)
40 snack x 10 ($4/each)
360 total not on dining plan (5 days)

420 dining plan for 2 (5 days)

to us, we believe it will be worth the $60 extra to get the plan and to not have to think about how much each meal is. plus on the plan, we each get our own entree that we could share with each other and double the meals we each try.

 

[sweetsusannah]

We love the dining plan. For us eating good food that I don't have to cook is part of vacation. We are not over 200 lbs. (as one other poster mentioned you might need to be) but we find that we can eat a good bit of the food since we walk so much each day. We do end up with leftover dessert often but hey that's ok with me... a little taste is all I need. I also really like that I can just order whatever I want and so can my husband and daughter, no one has to split anything or make any compromises. I would probably watch the prices a lot more without it and that takes away some of the fun of dinner. I also am a planner so I actually enjoy planning and making ADR's to try out all the different places particuarly in Epcot.

 

[Donna M]

We tried the plan this past Feb for a 2 night stay. We did go to Le Cellier and had a great meal that we haven't tried before because of the price. But we weren't able to get a good reservation time, ended up with 2:45, which is something to cosider.

I don't mind cooking really simple meals in the villas, and we always have breakfast there. We don't like to eat every dinner out either (believe it or not!) I like the flexibility of not having to be at a certain place for the resservation.

The plan was just too expensive for us especially if we would have to get it for a week.


Now if we didn't have cooking facilities I would get the quick service plan. And if you don't want to cook or worry about prices than it would come in handy.

 

[Vickis3js]

We actually use both. We get the TIW card to use for apps if we add them or drinks/wine with dinner. We did the DxDDP just last week and man was that a ton of food. We saved over $200 though and did a few signature places and skipped dessert more then once. We also used one credit at a CS place just because we were having too much fun to leave and go to our ADR so we canceled and just kept on going. That was with just DH and I. When we went with the 3 kids and they were all kids under the plan we saved a lot more.

Not sure when DS and DD #2 turn 10 if we continue to use it since neither of them eat a lot at all. They would be happy spliting a meal and still having extras.

 

[TheThomsLuvDisney]

Thanks for the TIW info!

 

[HeyMoe]

We have always done the dining plan in the past and find that you definitely save money. However, I find that you end up getting way more food then what you would normally order and a lot of times order more expensive items to maximize the value of the plan instead of getting what you really want. Sometimes you may feel like a $10 salad for your meal but feel that's not a good use of the plan. Instead you order a $30 steak. Also, everyone gets a dessert with lunch and dinner. This is too much for us.

For our upcoming trip in August we've decided to pass on the Dining Plan and go with the TIW Card. There are a couple of reasons for this. First is we can now order want we want without feeling bad about not maximizing the value of the dining plan. If we want the $10 salad, that's what we'll order. The second and probably more important reason is that my oldest son (10 years old) is now considered an adult by Disney's standards. I'm not paying $42 a day for someone who is going to want to eat off the kid's menu. Last year when it only cost $12 for him, the Dining Plan made a lot more sense.

Not sure if any of this helps you with your decision. Good Luck!