DVC Dining Options

[DizGirl20]

Help! I am leaving on Monday and need to make a quick decision! I am wondering... which option below best describes how you dine?

A. Eat in your Villa most of the time
B. Purchase a DDP
C. Purchase TIW card
D. Pay OOP

We are planning to eat breakfast in the Villa, lunch CS and dinner TS. We have AP's from our last visit. Never considered TIW until recently. Anyhow, please don't answer on what you think I should do. Please answer what you typically do. Thanks so much everyone!

 

[tgropp]

I find that the DDP works best for us. I don't want to cook while I am on holidays

 

[GrumpyBelle]

We usually do some cooking in the villa. We like breakfast in the villa so the kids can eat while we are getting ready and ensure they will be off to a good start. Usually just try to stick with 1 cs meal in the park and pay OOP. This year, however, we opted for the dining plan. DH plans on tracking what we would have spent if we paid OOP to see how it compares.

 

[sweetdana]

I love the DDP. It makes me pick what ever want on the menu and never look at price.
I would never pay 59$ even with a TIW to eat at Cape May for dinner but I SURE LOVE the rest. The DPP makes it seem like it costs less. (True or false I guess is based on where we eat the rest of the day.)

I also like segmented DP. 1st night nothing, then 2 nights DDP then 1 night kip and 2 nights on again. Seems perfect way to cut out a few $ and save a few.

I also like to plan more, and pick cert ressies.. that are not always walk ups too.
If this is for Easter week, and you do not have ressies booked, I would not pay for this option. If you have them booked this is 100% what I would do.

(and am doing in May and AUg). : )

 

[2binak]

We pay OOP for our meals. I don't like being tied to an ADR and if something should happen where we can't make an ADR, I loathe the thought of having to make it up elsewhere or lose the money. We usually end up breaking even by paying OOP.

We usually have a quick breakfast in our room and pack a few snacks & waters to take to the parks with us.

ETA - this year, we will be adding the DDP for 2 days of our trip, the 2 days we plan to have TS meals.

 

[Brian Noble]

We just pay as we go. We have never, not once spent more out of pocket just eating what, where, and when we want as the "appropriate" dining plan would cost. That's usually because we don't eat quite enough sit-down meals to average one per day, and when we do, invariably some of them are less expensive, lighter meals because we don't want to eat that heavy for that many days in a row. In fairness, we don't care what the prices on the menus are---we just order what we want. Other folks don't do this, and for them the DDP can be liberating. Segmenting could save a few bucks, I suppose, but in the words of a good friend, it sounds like "too much sugar for a dime."

If we have more than one trip that falls in a calendar year, we buy APs and the TIW card. But, I don't lose a lot of sleep if I don't have it for any particular trip. The 20% sounds nice, but because the card has a cost, the effective discount isn't quite so generous.

 

[palhockeymomof2]

We always purchase a TIW card.....since we have 6 adults who don't usually eat dessert but do enjoy appetizers and adult beverages...

 

[henderkm]

We tried the DDP at Christmas for the first time and found it to be too "confining" for our family. We felt as though we were scheduling our trip around our meals.

We are going to WDW on a budget in June and plan to only do two table service meals and counter service during lunch. We're paying OOP so we'll have the flexibility our family likes.

For the first time, I'm planning to cook 3 dinner meals and all breakfast meals in our villa.

 

[spiceycat]

have the TIW card - but do eat alot in the studio.

the TIW card is more for when I have guests

 

[capttigger]

We split between eating some in the room and eating in the parks. Then again we must go to O'Hanas once every trip and Beaches and Cream every trip. So we like to split it up.

 

[dsneygirl]

We have had TIW the last couple of years and love it. I have done the math and we come out ahead every time.

We usually do breakfast in the villa every morning.

 

[DizGirl20]

Wow, I can't believe how much TIW is ahead... so far no contest!

I did just sit down and run a few hypothetical meals. I am leaning towards TIW for these reasons:

1. DH likes a beer with his Dinner
2. We much prefer appetizers to desserts
3. I have a very picky 10 year old who I could never justify spending $45.99/day on food
4. I am just plain curious to see how the math adds up at the end of the day (versus DDP). If we choose TIW I will try to come back and update you when we get back from our trip.

Again, thank you for all your comments and keep 'em coming. I just noticed this is my 1,000th post and can I just say how much I have learned from this online community. You guys are the best!

 

[JimC]

TIW card works best for us. But we live near WDW and use the TIW card for day trips and special TIW events as well.

 

[JenSop]

For us, it's DDP all the way!

We don't have kids and the dining is a big part of the WDW experience for us. I love just ordering whatever I want on the menu without looking at the price! (I can tell you, if we paid OOP, we would be much more concsious of price and end up buying the cheaper entrees.)

But I love planning all aspects of the trip - including having my ADR's ready to be booked at 180 days! So fun!

We usually do our TS meals for dinner, so we don't actually ever feel "Tied to a schedule." Since we go in the summers, we always leave the parks after lunch anyway to escape the heat. Then it's just a matter of leaving the pool in time to get ready for dinner wherever we may be going each night.

 

[Bill and Jen]

We used to use the dinning plan, but have found that our eating habits do not match with the plan and that we are really not saving money, just getting more desert or the most expensive thing on the menu.

We now vacation once a summer but we make it work that the trips are 11months apart one year and 13 months apart the next.

This way an AP covers 2 trips and we are able to get the TIW card and use that for 2 trips.

So we now do all breakfasts in the room (except for Crystal Palace pre-park opening hours)

We look at what Table service meals we want to eat at and book as many for lunch as possible.

For us it works best becuase after a 1pm lunch we like to head back and relax at the hotel and swim or what not, so eating our sit downs in the park at lunch with the TIW card makes the sit downs the least expensive. For dinner we do a combination of Sit Downs, Quick Serve and In room meal.

Looking at our up comming trip the dinning plan would have been 1300 but doing only the meals we want in the parks and leaving extra possible counter meals we will spend ~ 800 .

 

[HotdogDncrs]

DDP for us now. We tried doing the TIW, but didn't find that it saved us very much money over the 2 trips we used it for. We used it when our son was only 2, so we were not ordering him his own meal every time. We thought that we would fare out better than being on the DDP, since like many others we don't need desert with every meal, and sometimes prefer to have a "lighter" meal that you don't necessarily choose when on the DDP (because you want to feel like you are maximizing the value you paid).

I can see how it would save you money if you ordered alcohol or if there were more than 2 adults.

I also like paying for the DDP before I leave for holidays instead of feeling like I am constantly charging things back to the room!

 

[murcor]

We pay OOP for our meals.

We usually have a quick breakfast in our room and pack a few snacks & waters to take to the parks with us.

Same here, dont want to plan our vacation around eating X amount of TS and X amount of CS........

 

[Buckeye Fan]

If you have an AP, TIW was the way to go for us! Our card paid for itself in less than 1 trip. Plus, we didn't have to worry about where we ate or feeling as if we were leaving money on the table if we decided to eat in. When I played around with our habits and the numbers using DDP vs. TIW, we came out way ahead with TIW.

 

[DopeyDave]

We get the TIW card when we get our annual passes. We then do about 3 10-day trips during the year of our AP/TIW, so the card is paid for during the first visit.

We typically eat breakfast (usually coffee and breakfast buns from BW Bakery) in the room while we're getting ready, and then have one good TS meal (often an early dinner) later in the day. We pick up snacks (rarely) as necessary. We think the DDP would "force" us to eat a lot more food than we really want. Plus the TIW also provides discounts off a glass of wine or martini with dinner!! (BTW, this is actually even better than Cast discounts!)

I will be spending 5 nights alone in September for the F&W festival. I've been thinking of trying the DDP at that time, just to see how it would work for us. I think you can use some of the credits at the food booths, but I'm not sure exactly which credits are valid.

 

[Sandisw]

We actually will be doing all this summer--the QSDP for one night, the DxDdP for another, TIW for all the sit downs and then OOP for everything else. The only thing I won't ever be doing at Disney is cooking!!!