Does anyone ever get the dining plan while staying at FW?

[Sonoma]

NOW, on another note, if you get the FREE DDP then I can see it being worth it for most everyone...still have to weigh the cost of purchasing a package vs. if you are annual passholders, AAA discounts, Disney Visa discounts, etc., etc...

This is what we are doing this September. We originally had 20% off the cabin price, so in my mind we are only paying $400 for the 6 of us to eat for the week. In reality, we would not have eaten at a TS each day, but now we can and I'm sure that we would have spent that $400 on CS meals alone. We're looking forward to trying some new places and going back to a few of our favorites.

 

[lovemy4sweeties]

I think it was sooo worth it for us. A family of 7. The cost per day was about $135-$140. Our trip in 2005 our only meal out was Chef Mickey before the MNSSHP and that cost us over $200. Another trip, the kid's first, we had 1 counter service, with each of the kids getting a hot dog and DH and I each a hot dog and drink, and that ran us $63. That said together $263 vs $140, I'll take the meal plan I realize the days that it is cost effective are few(until it cost us $280/day). Once the quads reach 9 and we have to pay adult fare for them, it will not be worth it. It will be a long time before any of my kids could eat that much food in 1 day, let alone every day of our trip. We did end up with 42 snack options left at the end of our stay, so we hit the bakery on Main ST and came home with a "bag" FULL of the rice crispie treats. I think we still have 1 or 2 in the freezer.
Loretta aka momoffive

I have 4 kids and they will be 7, 5.75, 3.5 and almost 2. So, we'll only have to pay for 3 of them and it's the child rate. I figure it will cost us about $100 a day and we do want to do as many of the character meals as we can. This will be our first trip.

Kerri

 

[chief19spixi]

I think we're all on vacation when we're at Disney World

But for us, the DDP would be an idiotic choice because we would be wasting money...we rarely cook and paying out-of-pocket is a better choice for us. If your kids are 9 and under then it could be worth it, especially if you do a lot of character meals. But DS out grew that a few years ago

I hear so many times, "I'm on vacation, I'm not cooking, therefore I'm buying the DDP." It makes me wonder if some people think you have to purchase the DDP to eat at Disney restaurants

NOW, on another note, if you get the FREE DDP then I can see it being worth it for most everyone...still have to weigh the cost of purchasing a package vs. if you are annual passholders, AAA discounts, Disney Visa discounts, etc., etc...

DELETED IT.. HOPELESS DEBATE

 

[auntie]

We used the meal plan in December 2005 (first and last time we camped at WDW) and at the time, people thought we were crazy. We actually had to go through AAA in order to get the plan because CRO didn't want to sell it to us. We spent most of our time in the parks and not at the RV, so it made lots of sense. It also meant that we didn't have to bring lots of food and make a special shopping trip or order food deliveries. It was also great because everything was pre-paid, so DH was not worrying about the bill at each meal and he could order exactly what he wanted. Win-win for all of us!

BTW, we haven't camped at Ft. W again due to vacation schedules and the prohibitive cost of gas. When I budgeted our 2005 trip, our previous travels had shown about 15 mpg for our '96 Four Winds Class C. So, I budgeted accordingly. We actually got 12 mpg, and it cost waaay more than I planned. (It was much less expensive to fly the 3 of us the next time.)

I was looking forward to trying it again, but with the conversion of the loop we liked to Premium and with our vacation schedule being limited to during Christmas break, I'm not so certain.

Not trying to change the topic..but you might consider what we are doing and that is renting a 5th wheel from someone here on the board. We are from NY, and as much as we love FW...we really don't want to tow our tt there. Just don't have the time needed, and with the gas prices being what they are now..well, that doesn't make the case for towing to Disney any better. TinaH is a member of the camping forum and she rents out her 5th wheel. We will be using it in August and there are several other members here who are renting from her. Whenever I see a post like yours..it just reminds me of our situation and thought I'd put it out there as something you might want to
consider.http://www.campatthefort.com/index.asp

 

[Tent Camping Mom]

DELETED IT.. HOPELESS DEBATE

Hmmm....am I missing something? You quoted me and said "Hopeless Debate." I was answering the original OP. She asked if it was worth it and I told her my opinion...not debating. I'm glad people purchase the DDP (like I said before, I have a financial interest in Disney, Disney knows how to take your money and they do it well ) but I don't like people being misled, thinking that it will save them money and that they must purchase it to eat at Disney restaurants...that's misleading. It's not worth it for everyone. I will reiterate....I answered the OP, I was not debating.

 

[Shannone1]

We were all set to to the deluxe dining plan. For my family of 5 it would cost us $300 a day. Times 12 nights at it was $3600 !! Since we started planning the trip 15 months before we are going, we figured saving the money wasn't a problem. Now that they took away tips and appetizers and you only have one snack with the basic dining package, we figured if we got a dining package at all it would be the deluxe so we'd get 3 meals and 2 snacks each day.

But then I starting writing it all down and I realized that all of my days are going to be planned around my ADR's for lunch and dinner. There really won't be much flexibility at all. We will have 2 dogs back at FW that we need to come back and let out on park days...and that will have to be worked around ADR times too. And we are getting park hopper tickets but then we really couldn't do much hopping unless I planned out all of the meals. Sigh.

In the end I think we've decided to NOT do ANY dining plan.

1- We can do breakfast at the motorhome with maybe a few mornings OOP at Trail's End or Chef Mickey's.

2- Lunch we can do counter service somewhere if we are at the parks, at the motorhome if we are at FW, or off property if out and about somewhere else.

3- I will make ADR's for dinners on the nights we will be at the parks and we will just pay OOP. As soon as the Dec hours are released I can do that. We do want to have some nice meals in the parks and I know they will be super busy on the holidays. On the nights we are not in the parks we can be spontanious and either eat at our site, or go off property.

We are not fancy eaters and after looking at some of the "nicer" restaurants I realized we wouldn't eat much off of the menus anyway. So when you take away the signature dining it wouldn't financially make sense for us to pay $300 a day for the DDP.

And this way we can pick and choose our parks based on how we feel that day and just make sure we are where we need to be for dinner. We can do MK early in the morning, go back to FW for the afternoon and then hit Epcot for our dinner ADRS. And I don't have to make as many of those decisions 6 months ahead of time.

What really made me realize how crazy it is was when my MIL told me she is moving to FL this summer. She and my FIL want to come visit us one day at FW while we are there in Dec (we won't see them again until then). I told her that if we were on the DDP I would need her to tell me in June which day she wanted to come see us so we could add them to our ADRs. She was like "I have to tell you NOW ?? What if I am not feeling good that day, or it's pouring rain "?? When she said it like that, it did seem crazy. Now we can just tell her which days we aren't going to be at the parks and she can come see us when it works for her.

 

[Tent Camping Mom]

Do you find it's worth it? We're thinking of staying 7-10 days, but I think we'll only spend about 5 of them at the parks. We're also going in January so it looks as though 2 of the 4 restaurant choices at FW are closed for the season. We also plan to do some day trips off of Disney grounds. I know for convenience factor the dining plan would be good, but I'm wondering if it will actually save us money since we may not need to use it every day.
Kerri

I would like to offer a few tips that helped me in deciding if it was worth it or not:

1) Create a spreadsheet . I can create a sample for you, if you are interested (finance is my line of work so it won’t be a problem ).
2) Look at the menus and prices here. Jot down the prices on the spreadsheet of items you would normally eat.
3) On the spreadsheet, jot down the cost of the DDP and add 15 percent (tips are not included in the cost of the DDP)
4) Compare the two.

Take into account the ages of your children. Remember, kids 10 and older must pay the adult price. In my experience, 10 year olds can eat off the kids menu at most of Disney restaurants but not buffets (I say most because we haven't eaten at all restaurants on property but the ones we have, DS was always offered a childs menu). Also, if you drink a glass of wine with your meal, that isn't included either. As another poster said, you will need to purchase the DDP for every night of your stay so if you do any cooking, that could put a dent in your pocketbook. It's the little things you will need to consider.

Again, it isn’t worth it for us but it can be for some people. Just let me know if you want that spreadsheet. I can throw one together this weekend (Sunday night, I'll be tied up all day on Saturday), so just let me know.

 

[Tent Camping Mom]

I have 4 kids and they will be 7, 5.75, 3.5 and almost 2. So, we'll only have to pay for 3 of them and it's the child rate. I figure it will cost us about $100 a day and we do want to do as many of the character meals as we can. This will be our first trip.

Kerri

Oh, I just saw this. Then it may be worth it even if you cook one night. I would hit every one of the character meals, especially with those little ones.

 

[auntie]

You can't feed kids anywhere for $10.00 a day...I think it's very worth it when little ones are involved. Even if you don't make the most of it..so what, it's not that big an expense.

We did the Dining plan for the first time last year..and I've got to say we really enjoyed it. We always plan at least one sit down meal anyway, so we thought we'd give it a try. I was pleasantly suprised at how much we enjoyed it. I didn't think I'd want to be tied down to the ADR's..but then realized we always make two or three prior to the trip anyway, so what was the difference with adding a couple more. We even did change our plans while there, and had no problem getting into Kona Kafe one morning for breakfast..just a walk up. I think going during free dining is probably another issue. I found that my younger son, ordered things, and tried things he might not have, had we been paying out of pocket. Since we are all adult eaters, and almost any entree at a table service meal is around twenty to thrity something...we knew we'd be spending more than that if we went out of pocket. I mean lunch for 5 is at least $50.00. I would advise that you pull up the menus..that's what I did. I anticipated what we might order..and how much it would cost..and compared that to the price of the plan..and it made sense to go with the plan.
Now, we have a trip planned in August just the two of us..and I'm not so sure if I would use it at that point. I think it really depends on who is going and where it is you would plan to be eating.

 

[lovemy4sweeties]

I would like to offer a few tips that helped me in deciding if it was worth it or not:

1) Create a spreadsheet . I can create a sample for you, if you are interested (finance is my line of work so it won’t be a problem ).
2) Look at the menus and prices here. Jot down the prices on the spreadsheet of items you would normally eat.
3) On the spreadsheet, jot down the cost of the DDP and add 15 percent (tips are not included in the cost of the DDP)
4) Compare the two.

If you still think I should do a comparison, I would love for you to create a spreadsheet for me. That is so nice of you to offer.

Does anyone happen to know which of the restaurants on the dining plan list are character meals? I know if you click on them individually, it says if it's a character meal, but there are so many, I don't want to miss any of them. What are the best ones? Or maybe there's a better spot for me to ask this quesiton??

Thanks to everyone who has answered my questions .

ETA, that's weird, I thought I quoted the top part, but it's not in yellow . I tried the little quote box at the top of this post. I'll see if it works.

 

[lovemy4sweeties]

I found the list of Character meals, but can anyone suggest the best ones?

 

[lovemy4sweeties]

Okay, I found the list here: http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining/dininglist.cfm

But, I'm not sure how to figure out what is included in the dining plan.

 

[lovemy4sweeties]

Oh, one more question (well, I can't promise just one more, but one more for now LOL). Since we're going in Jan 09, this doesn't apply to me, but can you get the free dining offer while staying at the Fort? I'm just wondering for future reference.

 

[Shannone1]

Does anyone happen to know which of the restaurants on the dining plan list are character meals? I know if you click on them individually, it says if it's a character meal, but there are so many, I don't want to miss any of them. What are the best ones? Or maybe there's a better spot for me to ask this quesiton??

There is a Dining Plan Plan board which would probably be the best place for information. They talk extensively about the pros and cons of the DDP, and the participating restaurants. It's under the trip planning forums.

 

[lovemy4sweeties]

Thanks Shannone .

 

[VACAMPER]

We liked Donald's Breakfast Safari & Crystal Palace. Both had good food as well. If you have little girls they would probably like CRT. Our least favorite was Liberty Tree Tavern. Food us good but its really loud and crowded.

 

[Laurabearz]

I wanted to suggest, to those with older kids.

Disney now allow's AP holders to buy the Disney Dinning Experince (DDE) card, where you get 20% food and BOOZE.

http://www.allearsnet.com/din/dde.htm

The above link has all the details and a complete list of places to eat.

Just thought I would toss it out

 

[AuburnJen92]

I wanted to suggest, to those with older kids.

Disney now allow's AP holders to buy the Disney Dinning Experince (DDE) card, where you get 20% food and BOOZE.

http://www.allearsnet.com/din/dde.htm

The above link has all the details and a complete list of places to eat.

Just thought I would toss it out

Just don't forget that you have a mandatory gratuity placed on your bill regardless of size when you use it. This is the reason we are not renewing it when it expires this summer.

 

[Laurabearz]

Just don't forget that you have a mandatory gratuity placed on your bill regardless of size when you use it. This is the reason we are not renewing it when it expires this summer.

It's a 18% gratutiy(Which 99.9% of the time we leave anyway so I dont see what the big deal is about that and FYI if your service sucks you can have that 18% reduced, so I am not sure why people have issues with it

And I rather have an Auto tip figured in, rather than be force to have a dessert I dont want, and then have to pay OOP for an appitezer I do want... Or when I prefer to eat a few appitizers in lue of a big meal, which you can not do under the DDP... And that glass of wine at dinner goes down even nicer knowing it's 20% off.

Just trying to let people know there are other options for dining deals at WDW other than the "plan"

 

[Tent Camping Mom]

If you still think I should do a comparison, I would love for you to create a spreadsheet for me. That is so nice of you to offer.

Does anyone happen to know which of the restaurants on the dining plan list are character meals? I know if you click on them individually, it says if it's a character meal, but there are so many, I don't want to miss any of them. What are the best ones? Or maybe there's a better spot for me to ask this quesiton??

Thanks to everyone who has answered my questions .

ETA, that's weird, I thought I quoted the top part, but it's not in yellow . I tried the little quote box at the top of this post. I'll see if it works.

You probably don't need to do a comparison, especially with all those little ones. Financially, it would be a wiser decision to do the Dining Plan and do a Dinner Character Meal every night.

I have some free time this morning so I'll do a quick spreadsheet and post it by this afternoon just in case anyone else wants to use it.