Do you ever buy additional food when on DP?

[lisareneeo]

Has the basic dinning plan ever not been enough food?
We are considering doing the basic meal plan for the first time and am wondering if you end up having to buy extra snacks/drinks or anything?

Not planning to do any meals that require two credits.

Will be there for 6 days and 5 nights.

Thanks

 

[WDWCrazzyCunninghams]

The only additional food we had was breakfast in the room...cereal bars. fruit, bagels, and a case of water. We would take a water with us for the morning in the parks, then lunch, then the snack credit mid-day usually for another drink, and then dinner. HTH!

 

[septbaby]

We booked an extra meal before arriving at WDW, but canceled it during the trip and ate CS instead (just not hungry enough for a TS meal).

We did pay OOP for on child meal and one adult meal. We had a 2T meal and it was much cheaper to pay $6 for the pasta he wanted than spend 2TS credits. We paid for 2 adults at a character breakfast ($40 total) because we had used 2TS for one meal. We could have eaten CS for a dinner, thus avoiding the extra expense, but we weren't willing to give up a TS meal we had 5 TS credits (Narcoossee's, Coral Reef, Chef Mickey's, Boma and H&V Fantasmic pkg). We could have had CS the night of H&V, but wanted the Fantasmc seating so we kept that ADR.

Bottom line the pkg had enough food we just wanted certain TS meals so we paid OOP. We also had free dining at the time so $46 wasn't a big deal.

 

[catne]

we bought a couple of snacks OOP (Mickey bars!) But after the first day, we always felt the food on the basic plan was plenty. Our pattern was counter service for lunch, 1 TS meals for dinner. Since we left the parks for breaks every afternoon, we'd stop at a park bakery or resort bakery on the way back to room, & buy pastries for the next day's breakfast (kept them in ziplock baggies overnight to keep them fresh.) This worked out really well for us...we had brought cereal bars & such for in-room breakfasts, but ended up eating those as snacks on the way home (we drove.)

Our OOP expenses were a bit higher because we liked to have the occasional adult beverage, but other than those & a few Mickey bars, we didn't buy any extra meals or snacks. We did 2 ts meals in May and didn't think they were worth it, so in September, we stuck with 1 ts meals (and they are worth it. )

 

[suzimar57]

we're planning to pay OOP for any crabcake appetizers, since they're no longer covered on the basic plan - DH loves his crabcakes!

 

[3boys4me]

We really didn't spend extra for anything. The most maybe a drink here and there if dh was in line with the kids and I was thirsty. We thought it was a lot of food. We would get breakfast at the pepper market and it is huge. That would pretty much hold us until dinner. We would get a snack for the kids. We do not get up and out early so we would have a late lunch and dinner at 6 or 7. Yesterday after lunch we still had 11 snack credits and 5 counter service credits. we went to downtown Disney on our way home and used the snack credits at Goofy's and we were going to get some sandwiches from Earl of Sand. but the line was really long and dh didn't want to waitso we left with 5 cs left We are pretty big eaters and found that it is more than enough food.

 

[MainStMandy]

Sometimes...I won't use the DDP for buffets. I like doing Boma for breakfast so I will pay oop for that.

Oh and bottled water. I would MUCH rather use DDP credits for snacks

 

[pooch]

this has worked for the last three years for us. We share a CS breakfast (which I usually go get while DD gets ready. It comes w/2 drinks so we split a large OJ and save a bottle of water for later. Then we split a CS meal for lunch (except the pulled pork sandwich in DHS which DD insists on eating alone!!). This gets us to our TS dinner without being too stuffed. With the changes in the plan this year, we did spend a little on extras. Split appies at 2 of our TS and shared a huge plate of nachos at the ESPN zone one evening. Tips, alcohol and extras came to about $150 for the 2 of us for a week. After 3 trips in a row, we spend very little on souvies so if we want something not on plan, we get it.

 

[danielle782001]

We have been on the BDP five times now...We always end up paying for some food OOP...Usually the quick breakfast items that we sometimes opt for in the AM or some speical snack...We also pay for Rainforest Cafe because our kids love it and they do not take the plan...We also have paid for the HDDR twice because we wanted Tier 1 seating for 5:00 and we really do not like the idea of using two credits for one meal.

 

[BeckieSue]

We might buy a little snack sometimes at the end of a night. Usually the only extra thing we buy is any alcohol. (Beer or wine at dinner)

 

[bangzoom6877]

Here's what we did in July. We were there for 5 nights. It was DH, me, DS3 and DS1 (too young for DDP so he shared with us). We had a total of 7 TS meals on a 5-night trip (5 TS dinners, 2 TS character breakfasts). We opted to pay OOP for the character breakfasts and use DDP credits for dinners (breakfasts cost less than the TS dinners did). We did all you can eat meals for all our TS. DS1 was free at all the meals (kids under 3 are free at buffets and family style). We used CS for lunch everyday. My little guy shared with us (more than enough food to go around). We used snacks for actual snacks and not drinks. We bought a case of water before the trip and brought that to the parks everyday. The 3 mornings we did not do a character rbeakfast we had breakfast in the room (cereal) and we made coffee in the room.

So we paid OOP for: water (brought with us so this was cheap by the case); 2 character breakfasts; cereal in the room, milk, and coffee for the room.

The deluxe plan would have been way too much food for us, and would have cost MUCH more than doing what we did. We had 2 snack credits left on the last morning, and so we got some grapes and a rice krispie treat for the road which was nice!

 

[MainStMandy]

We might buy a little snack sometimes at the end of a night. Usually the only extra thing we buy is any alcohol. (Beer or wine at dinner)

Oh I forgot about that...definitely alcohol is oop

 

[lisareneeo]

Thanks for all of the responses. I just spoke to a good friend and she also said the basic dining plan was more than enough food. She did say at the beginning of their trip they did worry about it not being enough and did buy some snacks OOP but after they got the hang of the plan they realized they had plenty and did not really buy anything out of pocket.

We are leaning towards doing the dining plan. I am excited...we have always had annual passes and have never done the plan before. I think it will be fine.

Thanks again for your responses.
Lisa

 

[Wendi2000]

Not much, but an occasional bottle of water or soda or a kid's meal if we needed a little snack or something.

 

[NMW]

When we did the basic plan in 2006 we paid cash every day for our character/resort breakfasts. We also paid cash for a couple TS lunches. Also, we paid cash for 1 dinner so we could do a signature. Then in 2007 we used the deluxe plan. The cost difference between the basic and the deluxe was ...well, lets just say we would have saved quite a bit of cash if we had the deluxe plan in 2006.

Now we do the deluxe and even though tips are not included anymore, we still thin it's great for our family.

My brother and SIL just were in Disney in October and they only did the basic plan. They don't really eat breakfast and used almost all their snack credits at the F&W festival. For them, the basic plan worked well. Every family is different and WDW has different plans for different families.

 

[THicks863]

We have always used DDP, but may not in the future. We have come OOP for occasional breakfast-type food and for alcohol but it always seems like there's more than enough food. I always seem to gain weight on our trips! What I didn't like the last time was that I had a DS12 who didn't always eat an adult portion, and a DS9 who definitely ate more than a child's portion. It got surprisingly tricky to trade everything around so that everyone was happy. You would think that the elimination of the gratuities from DDP would have made the wait staff more eager-to-please, since their tips were not automagic. Quite the contrary - we got some of the worst service we have ever had in Disney restaurants. So that was disappointing. The next trip (March '09 - YAY!!), will be our inaugural DVC trip in SSR, so we'll have a fridge for breakfast and other mousellaneous things!

Tim (DH)
Angie (DW)
Matt (DS13)
Parker (DS9)

 

[beroh2253]

OOP only for water or soda in the parks and OOP for a beer at night (at Germany or England) to watch Illuminations. We went OOP for the HOOP this past Sept (paid this from our rewards card) this gave us the 2TS for elsewhere.

 

[DannysMom]

Has the basic dinning plan ever not been enough food?
We are considering doing the basic meal plan for the first time and am wondering if you end up having to buy extra snacks/drinks or anything?

Like PPs what we've spent additional $$ on was things like adult beverages & appetizers (not covered.) We also tend to schedule one or two extra TS meals than we have TS credits, so those are OOP. But it's not an issue of not enough food, just we tend to prefer sit down meals over CS meals. We're also not huge snackers, so many of our snack credits went towards bottles of water or powerade in the parks.

We're seriously considering upgrading to the deluxe dining plan for our next trip. But since we can't (yet!) make all our ADRs I'm not thinking that hard yet.