Do You Feel Limited?

[cajunprincess]

I think DDP allows us to eat in places we would have NEVER tried if we had to pay out the pocket for each meal when we were there. Once we pay for DDP, your food is *pretty much* covered for the trip. So you may as well go and try all the unique restaraunts!! Without the DP, I know we would not be eating a dessert w/ every meal. I think that may be why i like the DP the most... I just love my sweets!!!

 

[bigbabyblues]

We've used the regular dining plan 4 times and have never felt limited with it. That said, we're probably a target family.....kids are still Disney kids and don't really mind the kids' menus too much at the cs places; we share with them when they don't find something they want. We generally did one TS meal per day, sometimes two, but we just paid cash for the cheaper ones. If we want appetizers or whatever, we don't mind paying for it.

 

[eandesmom]

I really thought we would feel limited, we had some concerns going in but did the math and it seemed to make sense.

Honestly I don't think we will ever go without the DDP again. While we would likely not save as much next time (saved $450) as we will have one less kid on the kid plan (potentially two), it was incredibly liberating as many have mentioned.

We can go with 2 meals a day and had purchased breakfast items for our cabin at FW. Combine the two and we were stuffed, pretty much constantly. I could have ordered far less for the cabin food supplies. By choosing the plan it "forced" me to think about ADR's which we've not done in the past. And, as a party of 6 we can't just walk in anywhere. So this trip I did my homework, made my ADR's and we couldn't have been happier with our dining choices.

I was very worried about the app versus dessert debate, not being a big dessert eater. But never having to say no to my kids for 6 nights about dessert and one mid day treat? Wow, they felt spoiled and like it really was vacation. That would NOT have happened if we were OOP. I did not miss the apps and salads like I thought I would...I was just too full! And really given that you can usually switch a dessert for a side at a CS, I had enough of that elsewhere. All our buffets had salads so really with planning, I only missed that salad 50% of my dinners.

I can honestly say we felt truly limited a total of 3 times, with 6 people.

1. We wanted to eat at HOB. So that was OOP.
2. In Future world it was hard to find a smoothie at the time we wanted one for one of the kids.
3. In the world showcase we were saddened to find a lovely cart full of espresso items but none were snack credits and we didn't feel like hiking to france for an espresso. Epcot in general, for snacks (outside of sunshine seasons) was a little challenging unless you wanted to trek back to the WS.

All of those were annoyances...not deal killers!

From a meal standpoint, yes, we had one day of whining from the 9 year old about the kids menu. But realistically we often make him order from the kids menu anyway, his eyes are bigger than his stomach and many restaurants don't have decent mid size alternatives that aren't quite a bit more expensive. And I found the CM's to be super helpful in guiding the kids to mix up the sides with their meals to give them what they wanted and with some homework there is a little variety in those kid menus...if you look for it, and we did! We specifically tailored our ADR's to address this, if we were all adults it may well have been a different restaurant mix but it worked out really well.

As a mom, being able to say "yes" to a mickey bar EVERYDAY or that GIANT sucker that I'd never ever buy...or the piece of fudge as big as my hand well....the kids thought the plan rocked! And for a 16 year old to get carte blanche on a menu when he's used to only looking at the less expensive items...he thought that was pretty amazing. "Really?" ANYTHING? Yep dude, anything.

 

[Smiling Cheshire Cat]

We have not been on our trip yet, but I am excited about being on the DDP. We are going to eat at places that we wouldn't have considered before because we wouldn't have wanted to spend that much money. The only thing I'm afraid will be limited will be the space in my clothes after I eat all this food.

 

[buzznina]

I think the DDP's are great but not for everyone.
Over the past 4 years we have found that the DDP is not for our family for the following reasons. We do not do a lot of TS meals usually for a week stay I will normally only make 2 ADRS, we do not like working our day around ADRs. I know a lot of people are the other way and like having a schedule but I have to deal with schedules and deadlines at work so when we go on vacation we like to just wing it. Also; having a toddler (DD now 4) and another DD on the way it's just easier not having ADRs, you never know when she will get hungry or if she falls asleep or... We have only did DDP once and it was during free DDP time and truthfully it was to much food for us and I ended up over eating most of the time, we also felt like we had to use all the TS credits Since then I have drove my DW nuts because we will only use our room charge for food, so I can compare what we spent to what DDP would have cost us. On our last 5 trips we saved $ by not purchasing DDP. But if we get a package with free DDP we will definitely take it Now WDW came out with QSDP and we are going to try it out on our trip in 16 days, this might actually be a plan for us.

 

[Lily & Giny's Mom]

Free dining the last 3 years, I think we hit all the places that otherwise we would not have. This year no ddp, I think we will enjoy it more, get apps. instead of a entree. No dessert,ect.