does anyone NOT choose the dining plan

[princess lovers mom]

we will be travelling outside of the free dining plan dates so would purchase it. We are looking at where we would eat, how much it would cost out of pocket etc and it seems like such a good deal I was wondering if and why other don't choose the dining program...can you eat for a day at disney for less than $39 (price of dining plan/adult)

 

[mill4023]

You can eat for less than $39. But it depends on what kind of eating you want to do. If you eat just counter service, you could get 2 meals a day for about $20. But if you like to have a nice table service meal once a day and you enjoy getting appetizers and desserts, the dining plan will probably save you money. Especially if you use it at some of the more expensive restaurants.
In my experience, it seems like for an adult, an average counter service meal with a drink runs about $10-$12. A table service meal can run $20 - $40 (without appetizers or desserts and not including tip).
The best thing to do is look at some of the menus at allearsnet and see what kind of meals you'd want.
The other advantage I've seen with the dining plan is that because there is so much food(appetizer, entree, dessert), you can share some meals and end up with extra dining credits. Then you can use these extra credits to do some of the signature dining experiences that require 2 credits. It seems like people who use the plan like this end up saving a lot of money.

 

[bicker]

We typically (without the Dining Plan) spend about $42 per day per person (adult) at Disney restaurants, eateries, and snack kiosks, total -- not including visits to signature restaurants. So the Dining Plan just barely saves us money. We always have at least one, and almost never more than one, table-service meal a day. So in a nutshell, Disney has done a great job pricing the Dining Plan. It is just barely worth it, as is.

For free, it's probably a good deal for anyone who cannot get a discount on their hotel room that exceeds to value of the Dining Plan.

 

[ehrn]

I'm excited to try it for free--I've always been skeptical of its value. I am more of a grazer--I LOVE to eat--but mostly snacky things throughout the day. The other benefit I see to it this time is that we are going with my Dad who might get a little uptight thinking about all the $$ we are spending for food and who has never been to Disney before so this will give us guaranteed sit-down breaks AND he won't have to fret about the cost of meals--not to mention getting to try some nicer places we might otherwise skip.
My friends went last year for free dining and though they hated the time of year, they LOVED the DDP so Disney will certainly see the benefit as they return in Peak season and purchase the plan this year!!!!!!!!

 

[sue1013]

We don't do the DDP for a couple reasons. Since we don't eat CS that part wouldn't work for us. While we do 2 sit downs daily it's not 2 appy, entree, dessert meals. I've never eaten appy, entree and dessert in one meal. Also we enjoy the signature restaurants we'd be out of TS credits very quickly! Our eating habits would not work with the DDP.

 

[mmcguire]

We've never done DDP, and unlikely that we ever will. We can easily eat for less than $39/person, and DH, DS13 and I are all pretty big eaters. We aren't really keen on TS meals anymore since the quality just isn't what it used to be. We normally eat breakfast in our room/rental. DD4 eats like a bird, so DH and I usually just share part of our meals with her. Of course, if she's really hungry, she gets her own, but only if we're sure she can eat most of it.

Since we never have appetizers, and rarely get dessert when we dine out at home, we'd likely end up eating way too much and be in a miserable food coma for hours just to feel we'd gotten our money's worth. CS works just fine for our family, and we've found there's a wide variety of offerings, including healty food; it's not "just burgers & fries", as seems to be a popular misconception on the DISboards. In a week at WDW we might eat burgers once.

We also value our time at WDW, and don't want to waste at least two hours in a restaurant each day. We do like to have one or two TS meals during our trip -- HDD and maybe a character dinner, so it's not 100% CS. Not doing it daily also makes those TS meals more special.

I do understand why some feel it's worth it -- especially if they have teenagers who eat a lot, or want a TS meal each day. It's just not for us.

 

[Iansmom]

when I was a kid, my mom would get the dining plan with our trips. It was quite a treat... but it was also a TON of food. And with it tied to our room keys, my parent's never had to worry that we wouldn't have the money to pick up a meal when we were off doing our own thing.

Now that I have to pay for my vacations, I've run the numbers for our family of three. And to be honest, DH and I really don't eat that much. It's our son that can pack away some food. So while DS16 usually gets his own meal, DH and I find that we can usually split a meal without going hungry. We're also not big breakfast people so that's lost on us as well. IF we DO eat breakfast, we can usually skip lunch.

So we do not get the dining plan.

 

[PlutoLuvr]

No DDP for us either. We enjoy staying offsite in our family's timeshare -- three-bedroom condo for a week. We'd have to give that up to stay in a WDW hotel room at rack rates -- or darn close to rack rates.

Plus, we enjoy eating at places off WDW property, too, namely Emeril's and Tchoup Chop

 

[GC&S]

Prior to the DP (as it is today) DH and I usually only did CS meals during the day. Sometimes a TS. What we found is that we ended up spending more during the day when we only did CS. We snacked a lot more and between drinks , CS meals and other goodies in between, we spent more than $38. Also, DH got to the point he didn't want "tray food" everyday. Some people don't want to be tied to ADR's and that's what happens with TS. But to us, the eating is part of the experience so we don't mind ADR's. Nice way to relax and be waited on at the end of a tiring day.

 

[Evil Genius]

I won't be doing the dining plan. It's way too much food and there is enough variety out there at the cs and kiosks that I won't miss TS. I really wish they had a dining plan just for cs.

 

[princess lovers mom]

thanks for the replies...I can't decide...it is a good deal if you eat all of that food but we rarely get an appetizer AND dessert and if we do we usually share...I am bummed now that I learned you cannot trade in TS for CS...that just seems odd..it is a trade down...

 

[Susan555]

We originally booked a 10 day trip to Disney with 10 days of DDP - we then switched to 3 days on site with DDP and 7 days at a timeshare. If I could go back and change the booking (it's too late now) I would eliminate the DDP altogether. Having to do TS meals those 3 days is turning out to be a hassle given our itinerary, and we could have eaten more cheaply, and at our leisure, off the DDP. We changed our park itinerary last week and now our ADRs are all at the wrong parks - and it's too late to get reservations anywhere else. We would do the DDP if it was free, but that's the ONLY way - and even then I think I'd prefer to stay offsite in a timeshare and pay OOP to eat.

 

[jodifla]

We never get the DDP. It's WAY more expensive than how we eat on our own.

It's one of the reasons we got DVC....so we could have relaxing meals in our room.

 

[momtris]

For us, I didn't want to be constantly be barking at my 5 kids NO NO NO you can't have that. This way, those snacks I typically wouldn't buy are paid for and I can go ahead and let the kids get them. It is nice to be able to tell them exactly what they are getting each day, and to plan for that, just like they get a budgeted amount of $$ to spend each day.

 

[mom2aredhead]

We are a family of 3 - including a picky 3 year old. We schedule a few character/buffet things during the course of the week (maybe 2-3), but do not do a TS meal each day. When we do, we generally do not have 2 apps 2 entrees and 2 desserts. Having done the math, it's maybe break even for us when I add up the food we will actually eat (regardless of how we pay for it not everything we can stuff in for $39/day)
Also, as someone else said, I don't like to give up park time to go eat. I'm sure the TS meals at WDW are good, but so are the ones at our local restaurants in NY (and the ones cooked in my kitchen for that matter), and eating really isn't the focus of my vacation. It's too much of a commitment for me to run to a restaurant whether I want to or not because it's already paid for.
I'm not even sure I would give up a room discount just to get DDP for free...depends on how good a discount it is I guess. Right now, we're going in May and saved $101/night on our room. If we switched to September for free dining, we'd have to give up our $606 discount to get a $540 dining plan for free...
If I had a larger family with older kids, I can absolutely see the value, but for us, it doesn't work.

 

[Merriwind]

Here's something I posted on this topic over the weekend...

We just spent six days at WDW. I agonized over whether or not to buy the DDP, doing analysis after analysis. In the end, we didn't and I am so glad.

A--we don't eat the way the DDP wants you to. Even though we usually do a TS, a CS and a few snacks a day, we NEVER order appetizers or dessert. Our afternoon snack is our lunch dessert. Also, DD and I almost always share one CS meal.

B--we shouldn't eat the way the DDP wants you to. DH is a Type I diabetic and does not need to be putting away an appetizer, entree and dessert at any meal. He would do so had we already "paid for it." DD9 has IBS flare-ups from time to time and overindulging is a sure way to get her GI tract unhappy. I am 5'1", 105# and want to stay that size!

C--we prefer to eat our biggest meal at lunchtime at WDW. The restaurant crowds are much smaller at lunchtime and we like to have the rest of the day to walk off our big meal. Lunches are less expensive than dinners, so that cuts into the value of the DDP.

D--We like signature restaurants and places not on the DDP, again cutting into the DDP's value. We have DDE, which can be used at these places.

E--We actually saved money not being on the DDP. Yes, I said we saved money by paying OOP--and we ordered and ate everything that we wanted.

Our meals included:
Tea at the GF Garden View Lounge
Lunches at Chefs de France, Brown Derby and Biergarten
Dinner at Boma
CS at Columbia Harbor House, Tusker House, Kringla, Main Street Bakery and some golf course food.
Snacks including Dole Whip Float, Schoolbread, a ton of water, some pretzels, a couple of sodas, jellybeans, chocolate covered pretzels.
The only item I wanted that I didn't get was one of those frozen adult drinks in France. We were in France only in the morning or when full, so that didn't work out, but it wouldn't have been covered by the DDP anyway.

Our total cost was $330 for food.
The DDP would have cost us $445, plus we would have had to pay for the Tea OOP, as it is not on the plan. We would have had to pay for something OOP anyway, as Brown Derby, Chefs, Boma and Biergarten would have used our TS credits up. The tea was $51 using DDE. So, our total DDP cost would have been $496. Not getting the DDP saved us over $150--nearly 50% of our food cost!

Would we have been able to get more food on the DDP? Absolutely! We could have added appetizers and desserts to each TS. We certainly would have had many more CS credits than we used and possibly more snacks too. But, in the end, we ate just as we like to, had a great time and saved money not having DDP.

Now, if we had a teenage boy, I am sure our calculations could have been very different! Each family is different. If DDP works for you, terrific! It can be a great value. If you don't see the value, then don't feel pressured to get it. It's not for everybody.

 

[NEVERENOUGHWDW]

we will be travelling outside of the free dining plan dates so would purchase it. We are looking at where we would eat, how much it would cost out of pocket etc and it seems like such a good deal I was wondering if and why other don't choose the dining program...can you eat for a day at disney for less than $39 (price of dining plan/adult)

We never use the DP.....It doesn't work at all for us.