Do you find DDP worth it

[ELMC]

Keep in mind that a lot of the potential savings of DDP that can be had by taking kids to character meals is erased by using your adult credit for the same character meal. Whether it be removing appetizers, gratuity, changing menus or making restaurants two credits, Disney has closed just about every loophole that can be used to make the DDP a true value.

 

[bobbiwoz]

We book it for our NYE trip, since NYE and NY day itself are black out days for TIW. Then we always book a Fantasmic dinner package using it, since TIW also isn't usable for that. Last year Fantasmic was cancelled on "our day" but what the heck, we tried.

 

[BEASLYBOO]

No, it's not designed for how, where, when and what I like to eat while on vacation!

 

[Irishmom23]

When traveling with my adult children, we prefer the dining plan as it is prepaid, and as college kids, is easier on their planning and budget. An important part of our WDW experience is dining. I also have a TIW card which pays for any appetizers and alcohol which may be ordered. We also have done breakfast with a sit down credit and then paid out of pocket for a sit down meal. I feel it is good for us as my daughter has done a cost analysis after each trip. I do not think it is a good plan if you have children in the 10-13 age group that are picky eaters but you still pay the price of an adult.

 

[karrit2000]

To me I don't think the DDP is worth it. If it was still the original plan where everything was included I'd say it is worth it but all the changes & limitations they've put on it over the years make it not worth it to me. I did the QS plan last year and felt I got my $$ worth out of that but now that they took one of the snack credits away I won't even be getting that one. I don't care for the desserts at most of the QS places in the parks and would not normally buy any of them so they ended up going to waste for me. Of course the food courts at the resorts have some wonderful options you can choose from for desserts so it's worth it if you're eating at one of them. When I did do the regular dining plan I made every attempt to get more than my money's worth out of my TS meals. I love Steak & Shellfish so it wasn't hard to pick from the more expensive menu items for me. I also would use my snack credits on pricier items and pay out of pocket for the cheaper stuff like bottles of water. But I found myself overstuffed most of the time & it can get to be a drag being tied down to ADR's for dinner every night. I also don't tend to normally purchase an appetizer or dessert when I eat out so that was making me eat more than I normally would under the dining plans.
I get the TIW card for TS & make an effort to eat at some of the resort food courts that also accept it. I also try to remember to use my AP discount on water & stuff like that in the resort gift shops to save a little.

 

[DizBub]

Not any more. We love sit down breakfasts. I am NOT going to use a table service on DDP for breakfast and that includes a character buffet.

Also, if you do use DDP you MUST make ADRs. If you don't, you risk losing credits. I'm at the point that I hate scheduling my day/activities around ADRs. There are plenty of opportunities to do walk-ups especially if you are at a resort or DTD instead of a park. TIW all the way.

 

[DreamChasers]

To find out whether or not it is a good deal for you, go to a website that has all the Disney menus. Then, figure out where you might want to eat, add up what you would get (including drink, desert, and don't forget the snack credit!) for however long your trip is. Compare your eating costs to the cost of the DDP. It might take awhile but it's worth it to find out!

For me, it is worth it. I did the above process and it came out that I was spending 5 dollars more on the dining plan. But, i didn't include taxes on all the meals, so really I was saving! Even if I spend a little more, the dining plan would be worth it for me because I like knowing something is already pre-paid. Without the dining plan, I probably would skip lunch or not order desert even if I really wanted it. So, yes, it is worth it to me.

I did the math as well. I compared where we would eat and what we would eat, not an easy task when you want to do character meals or buffets and they give you a price range. After figuring out what it would cost I found that if I paid out of pocket and didn’t try to save money on quick service meals it cost about the same for the dining plan as it would to pay out of pocket. However, if I paid $100 for TIW I would end up saving about an additional $100 compared to the dining plan. However, because for our trip we had to split up our stay, it gave us the opportunity to have the dining plan for different days. What I ended up doing was getting the deluxe dining plan for three days, but since the dining plan is good from the day you check-in to the day you check-out and our trip was split, we ended up with nine table service credits over five days. We are using these for mostly character meals and we will be using almost two credits a day and will have to do all of this during the first five days of our 10 day trip. However, we ended up saving about $50 over if we bought the TIW card and will have the opportunity to use six snacks and can be extravagant for our few trips to real restaurants.

In the end my situation shows, you can save money with the dining plan, but it takes a lot of work and a unusual situation. I would say most of the time it is not worth it, unless you go out of your way to order the most expensive thing on the menu.

 

[ovalhead96]

We have not done the DDP because we feel it is not a good deal for our family and how we eat. We have a TIW card.

I completely agree!

 

[epcotized]

We used the DDP plan in May and saved the receipts. When I came home I calculated what we would have spent. It was so close to being a toss up. Since they allow you to get a mug that accounted for the difference so we could try to convince ourselves that it was worth it.

The TIW card is tempting if you can go more than once per year.

 

[brendasol]

We love the dining plan and have used it every trip!

DH and I love making dinner ressies at our favorite restaurants and the kids' favorite character meals. (Because we have already figured our savings) When we eat we don't worry about carrying enough cash, or what the cost of the food is that we're ordering each meal.

Even IF we only broke even, we would still buy the DDP because the convenience of it is FANTASTIC!

 

[Feckless]

I did all the work and added up all the numbers, and where we were staying CL, it seemed like for us it would cost more to add the DDP. In our circumstance, we have one child that is a "Disney adult" but is still more interested in the kids' menu. When that changes, my opinion might change. We had one TS reservation for each day, and on the days where our TS reservation was a character breakfast (we had two) or a lunch (we had one) we ended up adding a TS dinner anyway. We had the advantage of eating most meals with another family that traveled with us that DID order the DDP and had the same family configuration, so we could really compare.

First, at every restaurant except for buffets of course, my DD 11 ordered off the kids menu and we paid the lower price. The other family did not want their DS 10 ordering off the kids' menu since it seemed like a "waste of a credit". It seemed like they wanted to make the most of the money they spent on the DDP, and I totally got that. However, they would order adult meals for their DS and he didn't want them. On two occasions, they ended up ordering a kids' meal for him anyway and paying OOP (since he already ordered and didn't eat the DDP adult meal). They always ordered the dessert, whether or not anyone wanted to eat them. They had a fridge filled with desserts at the end of the trip! I think that even if we could have saved a few dollars with the snack credits and the QS meals, we appreciated having the flexibility of not having the DDP in the end. We didn't feel cheated if we just had a snack instead of a meal on the go, and we didn't have to calculate things like, "Is this bottle of water the best use of my snack credit?" like we saw the other family doing. I wanted to get the DDP because I thought it would reduce my stress, and sticker shock at meals, but ultimately after seeing the parallel experience of the other family, I think it reduced my stress not having it. FLEXIBILITY RULES.

HTH someone.

 

[DizBub]

For all the people here who favor the DDP because of the perceived value and freedom of having your meals prepaid, how do you tip? Do you use cash, put the tips on a credit card, charge to your room or do you tip at all? Do you figure tipping in your cost comparisons? No judgements, just curious.

For the record, when we did use the DDP we usually tipped with our credit card.

 

[CHD New York]

It might benefit some but I never get it after doing the math to me it's to much and normally it includes more food then we would order like dessert but still spending over $700 in just food for 5 nights to me is just ridiculous and to costly.

I normally rent a rental car during our trip and only eat one disney quick service meal daily and only one or maybe 2 table service meal during our stay.

I guest in order for it to be cost effective you would need to only eat at on Disney property, without a rental car and would order that amount of food. I know alot people end up with credits left after the end of their stay which might make the dinning plan a waste

 

[triciari]

For all the people here who favor the DDP because of the perceived value and freedom of having your meals prepaid, how do you tip? Do you use cash, put the tips on a credit card, charge to your room or do you tip at all? Do you figure tipping in your cost comparisons? No judgements, just curious.

For the record, when we did use the DDP we usually tipped with our credit card.

I always charge drinks and tips to the room so I can remember exactly what was spent. I also charge all souvenirs to the room for this reason. (it's always more than I expect!)

We find that while the regular dining plan isn't a savings, the deluxe plan is. We have 3 Disney kids, so with one character meal a day, we've made up their portion. Then we typically do signature dinners or HDDR. Once my oldest turns 10, we'll get the TIW card. Maybe we'll even get the need for character meals out of our system by then!

 

[MagicalMawMaw]

We find the Dining plan worth it to us.

The Deluxe plan adds $86 each per day if I looked the price up correctly.

I added up 2 of our days & the things I'll eat:

LeCellier lunch...mine would be $41.
Flying Fish supper...mine would be $60.

Total that day is $101 for me plus I get 2 snacks also.

The other day we have CP breakfast...said up to $59 for buffet..I figured lower at $45 as don't really know price....Breakfast $45
Grand Floridian Cafe Lunch..$33
Narcoossee's Supper ....$84

Total 2nd day my food is $162 plus I get 2 snacks.

Sure...if we didn't get the dining plan I would not get those items. However, Disney dining is very expensive & we enjoy getting to eat without watching the prices. However, the way we eat...steaks & seafood we save $ doing the plan.

 

[Missyrose]

We've done the Deluxe Dining Plan and also the TIW and we much preferred the TIW card.

We like appetizers more than dessert (most of the time anyway) and being two adults, we like a cocktail with dinner.

With any of the dining plans, you have to use them in a very specific way to get any sort of savings over OOP. But with TIW, you order what you want and automatically save 20 percent.

Now that we're DVCers and will renew our APs for another year (with two more trips planned), the TIW becomes a no-brainer for us.

 

[Sandisw]

I think that you can make the DDP work in your favor compared to what that food would cost you OOP.

However, what we found, that in most cases, our savings were based on things we might not have gotten had it not been for the DDP.

So, that QS lunch would not have included a dessert all the time--however, if I calculated that as part of the equation, then yes, we saved.

Since we now have the TIW card as an AP holder, we use that for the TS meals and drinks we have. What we like about it the most is that we eat the way we want and don't have to worry about making our eating fit the plan.

This upcoming trip, we are doing TS only 3 of the 5 days. No DDP works with this schedule so for us, having TIW makes more sense.

 

[Deb & Bill]

We did it the first year it was available to DVC members. It was about $35 a night, included the appetizer and dessert and the tip. We thought it made us eat too much and too often. We usually only get a few table service ADRs for a week or longer trip. We'll have a counter service instead of a TS on the other days. And we'll eat in the villa.

We don't find it cost effective for us.

 

[CruznLexi]

I find the deluxe dinning too much food . It is mostly just hubby and I so the plan works great. We charge the tips and I have extra Disney gift cards used for that and I will add those at the end of the stay. I do like it being prepaid. We eat at very few menu places. We eat at Boma, Biertgarten, LTT.

 

[marynvince]

I never understand the prepaid argument?