DxDP or DDP+OOP character breakfasts?

[Stellapedia]

I'm trying to decide if it's worth it to upgrade to deluxe or to keep the regular and pay OOP for character breakfast each day.
The way we typically eat is breakfast around 10, and then dinner around 5:30. We rarely eat lunch. If we stay on standard, I'll be paying OOP for character breakfast each day (2 adults, one under ten) and then having dinner on the DDP. Lunch, well... we might pick up something small, at least for the kids. Or using it one evening when we skip to use 2 TS one night.
I considered TIW (we're FL residents) and while we dine at Disney a lot and it certainly would "pay for itself" so to speak, I am opposed to it for philosophical reasons, and therefore am unwilling to use it.

So, we come to upgrading to deluxe, and having three meals a day (most likely just having early breakfasts, late light lunches, and late dinners) some days (we only have one, maybe two, double credit meal planned) and on the chance we WANT three meals a day, we have that option. Or keeping the regular and paying OOP for one full TS meal a day (the breakfasts are non-negotiable, we WILL have a character buffet every morning and sit down dinner every night).

We don't drink soda so the mugs are worthless. We might get appetizers, might not. The snacks... yes, we can down six snacks a day between all of us.

 

[Colleen27]

I have a spreadsheet in the link in my signature that will help figure out whether the deluxe plan is cost effective based on your likely menu choices. It does take some time to go through, but for the compulsive planner (like me!) it is worth it to know for sure.

As a general rule, if you're using 2/3 of your credits for sit-down meals, whether 1TS or 2TS locations, the deluxe plan upgrade makes sense. The cost difference between the two plans is $32 per adult and $10 per child per night - $74/night total for your party. A typical character breakfast will run $60-70 for 2 adults and 1 child. So if you're planning breakfast every day or nearly so, the plan will probably benefit you.

 

[ljcrochet]

We ate very similar to you with the breakfast and dinner. We have the TIW card and priced out our meals for the deluxe or no dining plan. I think when we still had 4 credits undecided the deluxe was a better deal then TIW. And that didn't count the snacks. We are doing HDDR as well as 3- 2 credit TS.