Disney Dinning Packages ????

[cliveywolves]

Hi All,

1st time going to DW next year so all new to me so far....

In your opinions are the Disney Dinner Packages worth while ??

Me and the wife and DD who is 3 will be going

Any help would be great,.....

 

[Mr Stoat]

I think they are,

but to get the best out of them you need somthing like the Guide to Disney Dining 200X (watever year you are going in). Without this you will not find somee of the hidden Jems that lurk around un-noticed. One of my favourites is Olivia's in OKW, relaxed Florida style food and the only restaurant we went back to twice, worth going for the Pina Colada bread alone. We mentioned to our server that we had enjoyed it on our first visit, so she brought us a double helping, served warm an a hot ceramic board.

Most of the counter service meals are about what you would expect...........but most of the table service meals we had were surprisingly good. You can trade two TS meals for a "Signature" restaurant meal i.e. fancy dining. We did both Artist's Point at Wilderness and Jiko At AKV last time and already have ADR's for our up coming visit. In fact, we booked them 6 months ago!

 

[Pooh&friend]

Hi,
We prefer the Dining Experience. The only drawback to having this is that you need to be an annual pass holder.
As we go every year we make it work for us, when we buy an annual pass we always go earlier the next year so we can have two years worth of passes on one.
The cost of buying the Dining Experience $65 approx but this entitles you to 20% off all food and drink within Disney, and discounts in the World Disney of Store.
We find it more flexible than any other plan, it has saved us lots

 

[cliveywolves]

Hi,
We prefer the Dining Experience. The only drawback to having this is that you need to be an annual pass holder.
As we go every year we make it work for us, when we buy an annual pass we always go earlier the next year so we can have two years worth of passes on one.
The cost of buying the Dining Experience $65 approx but this entitles you to 20% off all food and drink within Disney, and discounts in the World Disney of Store.
We find it more flexible than any other plan, it has saved us lots

cheers for help....

im confused what is the dining experience $65 approx ???????? where can you buy this from, or do you need to be annual pass holder before you can buy this option ????

 

[Mr Stoat]

Now called "Tables in Wonderland" IIRC.

 

[wayneg]

For us no, we have not eaten onsite where we all like. Ate at Boma in August, I loved it, DS and DW ate meatballs and pasta, we have so many places offsite we all like that we have more or less given up with onsite dining.
If you are going to definitely eat onsite all holiday then maybe a package is worth it.

 

[Elise79]

We stay onsite now and love the DDP (Disney Dining Plan) as it does save us money. We have used it during free dining and paid for it.

I agree with Wayne that there are some great restaurants offsite but we found that going offsite every night to eat was time comsuming and not worth it to us.

The DDP is only good value if it fits how your family would usually eat - as we always have had a counter lunch then sit down dinner (we are not breakfast people!) it fits us perfectly and saves us a little bit of money and time! We also like to know that the bulk of our food is paid for upfront.

We do still visit some of our favorite offsite restaurants as we use 2TS credits for a couple of Signature restaurants.

 

[scottish mum]

We got free DDP this year and it was the 1st time we used it. Yes we liked the savings and we went to dinner shows that we've never done before and done more TS meals which were lovely BUT we felt slighty restricted we were always following a timetable and had to get to a certain place at a certain time. We are the sort of family who don't over plan our holidays we go where we want when we want. Not sure if we would use it again, if it was free probably but not sure I would pay for it.

 

[penlanspice]

We love the DP but a week max is the most i think we could do at a time. We hate being restricted and usually end up cancelling some ADR's when we're there as it's a lot of food. We have many off site site favourite restaurants and would hate being not able to visit these too.

If I were having it free I probably wouldn't mind so much!!

 

[cliveywolves]

CHEERS...

it not going to be a freebie for us as we are going in may/june so we will have to pay for it, just been trying to way it up wether it worth us buying a package or not, we will prob only use it for breakfast and lunch as like you all say there are so many nice places to go offsite and eat etc......just wonder is it easier having the DP as you aint gotta mess paying for stuff and breakfast and lunch time etc,, ??

 

[DjdBrit]

I used the DDP for our trip in April and will be using it again next May. I am not one of those crazy people who works out what they would eat at each place to see if it was I deal. I figured that it was a nice way to pay for food we would be eating anyway upfront. If you are doing any characher meals they are usually more than the kids package anyway. Then I only had to worry about tips and drinkies on my KTTWC when I left.

Happy Planning.