Do you get the dining plan

[mrsp1030]

Yes or no. I can't decide. I've made a guesstimate on food/menus and wondering how many people feel it's worth it to do it.

 

[supergoofy]

I am a newbie to WDW and after looking at menus and pricing out what I feel we will eat paying OOP is a better option for us.

One of the big reasons is because many of the things we wish to eat are not on the plan.

We also wish to snack around Epcot and I don't want to be locked into what is a "snack" and what is not. Also have several other places that are not on the plan.

 

[dbramer]

We get it when we go just for the convenience of not having to budget separately for meals. We also get the DxDP so we can eat anywhere for any meal. It's vacation...we don't want to worry about those things.

 

[Crl1817]

We got the deluxe plan the first time mostly because we didn't want to worry about what we were spending on vacation. That part was nice, but it was too much food for us. This time we got a pin for free dining. Since we booked moderate we will have the regular plan. Not sure if we would go with the regular plan or not if it weren't "free."

 

[BigBlueWho]

I didn't on my last trip, but I will on the next; solely for budgeting purposes...

 

[DisneyObsessed87]

We got it last trip and have the dining trip for this trip. This time we got the free dining discount, but even if we didn't I would have paid for it. It's not that it is a HUGE savings, but it is nice having it already paid for and not worrying about money for meals while we are there. We are also doing a few character meals. Eating at the wonderful WDW restaurants is part of the experiance for us. Hope this helps!

 

[lucyem]

This comes up a lot here. If you do a quick search of the boards you will find lots and lots of discussions about it.

It used to be a deal, but for most it no longer is. You do find people who enjoy the convenience of it, but they are often paying for that convenience.

In general the DDP works out if you have children under 10 and do a lot of buffet/character meals. The only way to know for sure is to run numbers just like you have started doing.

We don't use it. We have a "disney adult" child, age 12, who is perfectly happy eating a kids burger and fries. But even when we had two under 10 it never worked out for us. We don't eat like that. We like to share meals or have an app for a meal.

 

[kmb584]

We don't. It's just too much food and I save a lot more money with my Tables in Wonderland card.

 

[jnscott4]

I have done the DDP and I have paid OOP. I only get the DDP when it is offered as a free promotion during my dates. Yes it is cheaper to get the room only discount, buy tickets from UT, and pay OOP for meals but I like the conveinence of the DDP. With that being said, I would never pay for it at full cost.

 

[GaBelle]

We always get the DxDP. My husband insists.
But we go during Free Dining, so its basically at 50% off.
He likes the convenience of it.

 

[worm761]

We have in the past but most likely will not in the future. The QS dining plan is no longer a deal since they took away the second snack. You will be lucky to break even on that plan. As for the TS dining plan, we are more likely to order an appetizer instead of a dessert. So it really isn't a good deal for my family.

 

[Aliceacc]

We didn't get it on the last trip-- we got YES tickets which precluded a MYW package. And I REALLY missed it. It felt as though we were hemorhagging money each time we ate. It got to where I would look at the prices before the entrees in a restaurant... NOT the way I want to spend my vacation! The DDP is absolutely worth it for my family in terms of making our vacation more like a vacation.

Then, just to add insult to injury, we spent more on food than we would have on the DDP. I did the math. For us, the DDP is a good deal.

I will add, though, that the sit down meal each day is important to me as a mom. It's not about the nutrition-- I would be happy letting them have ice cream for dinner at Disney World. (Hey, for us a vacation at WDW is a big deal. We can drop life's normal structure for 7 days.) But it's about the family time. Sitting down once a day in a restaurant forces us to just STOP. And talk as a family. And discuss our day. All without looking at our watches or worrying that the line at our next stop is getting longer by the minute. For me, that sit down meal is a priority in terms of family vacation planning.

But, again, that's me. You really need to do the math and determine whether it's a good deal for you.

As to free dining: we're both teachers. We're never going to get to WDW during a time of year when it's offered. But we did get a GREAT break on our room, thanks to the summer special-- we saved just over $1000 off the price of the package we had already booked. Nope, not as much as we would have saved with free dining, but that was never on the table anyway. So consider paying full price for the DDP if you can save elsewhere.

 

[mrsp1030]

Awesome advice. We squally rent points so getting free dining is not really an option. This time we have serval buffet meals planned and two on Thanksgiving so I am debating on the pricing. We have a 2 year old so we figured most buffet meals would be more accommodating like our previous trips with young ones.

 

[cruisingtwins]

We did when it was "free" we ended up with a bunch of extra credits at the end. Also I don't eat desert and only drink water so that was a bit of a waste. It just doesn't work for our family.

 

[Happyjen27]

I prefer the freedom of paying out of pocket.

I did DDP the first trip, and won't bother again. We did buffets and Hoop Dee Doo, and by my calculations we were about "break even".

However, I didn't eat an entree each meal, I enjoyed appetizers rather than dessert each time. I skipped entire meals.

So, in real life, not just calculations, we saved about $200.

We also enjoyed the freedom of cancelling a meal and not worrying about not "getting my money's worth" from the dining plan. One day, my kids were just tired, and I knew that we shouldn't be going out the next night, we should just chill at the resort instead, so I cancelled the meal. Great to have that flexibility and not feel like I'm losing money on a pre-paid plan.

 

[epsmith921]

We don't get it, but we like to stay in the deluxe resorts and go during the fall with 30% off the room. So I typically look at the per day savings on the room with the discount and then see if I would spend or budget that much on food per day, and we just don't spend that much in food.

I also don't want to worry about tracking credits or anything like that. We just get what we want when we want it and move on.

 

[Crl1817]

As to free dining: we're both teachers. We're never going to get to WDW during a time of year when it's offered. .

Our free dining pin this time included Christmas break.

 

[Ava]

This will be our first trip using the dining plan, because we're getting it "free." So I'll see how we like it. I did have fun booking a lot of character meals and buffets without having to worry about the cost. My only concern is being limited in our choices, having to pay OOP if we want an appetizer or an item that isn't a meal but that you can't get with a snack credit. I plan to carefully track the cost of our meals (i.e. the value of the plan) and how much additional we spend OOP.

I think whether or not it's worth the cost is relative. We'd break even on the DDP (if we were paying for it) on the cost of our TS meals alone for this trip. But if we didn't have the DDP I would not have booked a TS meal every day. I also probably would have chosen less expensive options for the few TS meals I would book when paying OOP. So for us I think it's more about a different way of eating than saving money.

 

[MandiC]

I don't think we'll ever go without, budgeting purposes mainly but it is nice to just have it prepaid and not have to worry about it. We got the regular dining plan, I wouldn't bother with the QS dining plan and we'd never eat enough for the deluxe. We are hoping to go during free dining next time but either way we'll get it. I do think we saved, it was nice not looking at prices on menus (the kids dining plan for instance costs $19/night, can you feed a kid in Disney for breakfast/lunch/dinner on $19? Probably but *that* was definitely a savings for the kids, we could have eaten for less than the adult plan but I didn't *want* to have to eat burgers and QS for every meal, I wanted nice sit down meals and character meals too). For us, it was just totally worth it. We did pay for 2 meals out of pocket I believe, because we went to 3 double TS credit meals (one we paid out of pocket, the other two on the dining plan and then one other dinner out of pocket). We wouldn't have had to without those double credit meals but I wanted those, so we did, next time we probably won't.
I sat down before our trip and literally planned out every meal. I didn't plan exactly what we'd eat but I looked at the menus and priced a 'range' based on what I know my family typically eats when we go out and did figure we saved (I actually did this originally to see if the deluxe was worth it for us with the multiple double credit meals, it wasn't)

 

[ZeroMyHero]

We have always done the standard DDP, but it really depends on what sort of a diner you are and what is important to you. Every trip, I've done the math to compare DDP with OOP, and the last two times the DDP just edged out paying as we go. For our earlier trips, DDP was an awesome value for us. Now not so much, but we like the convenience of knowing that everything is paid for and that every day we have a dinner reservation. My family needs to get away from the crowds and heat of the parks once a day to sit down and eat inside a restaurant. But that's how we roll. YMMV.