Disney Dining Plan?

[catherine]

We've never used the DDP before and I'm looking for some opinions please from those of you that have used it. Do you think that it was good value for money or was it just too much food? Was it straight forward to use or was there a lot of hassle involved in the resturants? Can you also please let me know how you went about booking it.

TIA

 

[granmaz]

We thought it was excellent value for money, but it was an awful lot of food! You can share though and spread the meals out more.
It was great not having to take much money into the parks too. Everything is electronic, on your resort room key. You just give the cashier the key card to pay and sign. Your receipt shows you how many credits (of the type used for that meal) are left. You can always get a check on your total credits left (& a print out)at the concierge desk.
We hardly had to buy an extras, though we only used the plan for one breakfast, just buying smaller breakfast items for cash.
Negatives perhaps. Having to work out your Table Service ADR's 180 days prior and also perhaps fitting in your counter service meal so that you were not too full for the evening TS! Always my husband's problem.
We were there for 7 nights, so had 14 snack credits between us. We had 10 left on our last day, so bought water, orange juice, and Mickey Rice Crispy bars to take away with us.
I think we would do it again. It was so lovely eating at the Disney Restaurants and I think if we were not on the plan we wouldn't do that.
It must be booked with a package of Disney resort and tickets, or as a DVC member(& visitor I think), for everyone in the party for each day of your stay. Until it changes!!!!

 

[gilld]

We've booked it for our trip in September. It will definitely be too much food for me, but I like to try a bit of several courses and this way I shan't worry if I leave half of it. DH will probably manage more than me! We have also booked 2 signature restaurants that require 2 x table credits pp so for at least 2 days, we'll only eat counter service and/or snacks. I called MS and got it added to our DVC reservation - it's probably good value if you eat a lot or if like us you don't worry too much about the cost - within reason of course!

As for booking the ADR's in advance, I've booked those (5) that are likely to be difficult to get later, but last September, we were able to book all but one meal a day or so in advance so I'm leaving the rest until we get there.

 

[jjpenguin]

I haven't used it yet, but am planning to for our trip in May. It will be great to be able to order just what we want and try some nice restaurants.

We're planning on doing some signature restaurants using 2 credits, Jiko and California Grill! Also my neice will be visiting one day and then we can also treat her.

We'll probably try to do Counter Service for Breakfast and Lunch, splitting the portions as they're so big.

 

[princess jackson]

We used it last March and will be using it again in 4 weeks.

We loved it, yes there is a lot of food. We saved a fair bit, we kept our room receipt and most of our evening meals were over $80, and some of our meals were $110. and that was just our table service.

What we did and are planing to do,

Is for breakfast we tend to use 2 counter service, that fills all 3 of us.

Then for lunch we used the other counter service credit and this fills the 3 of us. Do not get us wrong we are not scrimping, just DD is a poor eater, and we tend to eat 2 meals a day, so rather than come back 2 stone heavier we tend to share.

On the evening we like to do the character dining, and we also used 2 for the BBQ, which was different.

The list has new restaurants since we used it, which is more appealing to us.

 

[catherine]

Thanks for all the info and your comments!

I think that we'll probably go ahead and do it, because we always do a lot of character meals, so I'm sure that it will work out much cheaper for us!