First time WITHOUT DDP, Tips and Tricks appreciated

[momof2mouses]

Myself, DD17 and DD13 will be traveling in December for a Dance performance. We are very excited about getting to see WDW all decorated for the holidays....But I'm nervous about going without a dining plan. We had to book through Varsity for my daughter to be able to participate, and I don't think we can add a dining plan. We'll be there 5 days and will have 3 CS credits each according to the brochure. So I need your budget minded tips and tricks for eating without breaking the bank!! Thanks in Advance!

 

[eliza61]

Actually the dining plan stopped saving my family money a long time ago when they got rid of the tips and appetizers.
So first, check out the menus either here or at allears.net and it will give you an idea of what a ts might run you.

I generally go in August which is really, really hot so we don't have a sit down meal every night.

the biggest money saver for us is water instead of soda.

 

[hcipi]

I will say it over and over again...use this spread sheet by 'seeyareelsoon' it sets it all up for you and shows you the way!!
We stopped DDP a few trips back, just wasn't saving us the $$.

http://seeyareelsoon.wix.com/seeyareelsoon#!dining-plan-calculator/cxc0

 

[My3Princez]

I agree with the others - the Dining plan just doesn't save money.
My tips:

• Drink water instead of soda
• You can order JUST THE ENTREE (or just the sandwich) even though the only thing displayed on the menus is a "meal". If you don't need the fries, or whatever the side item is, you'll save a little bit.
• At some places, the meals are big enough for 2 to share easily. Or, since there are three of you, you may find that 2 meals will feed all three. If not, you can always buy a little something else.

 

[cjnix29]

another anti dining plan person here. Just doesn't save us money at all, and we never eat that much food! Take a look at the restaurant menus on allears net. Gives you an idea of pricing. I usually get gift cards, and use those to pay for meals, so I can keep track of it. One year, I put the amount the dining plan would cost us on gift cards, and I came home with over $500! And we even bought souvenirs at the end!! A lot of times, I will order a kids meal, simply because it's enough food! You can always pack granola bars or some other kind of breakfast food in your suitcase to eat on the way to the park.

 

[bantha09]

Bringing snacks is a key, and the biggest one is that if you still wanna do a sit down meal do it at lunch, you can cut you table service cost by alot with lunch over dinner, and you get out of the heat.

 

[TravelMommy]

We too, don't use the Dining Plan, we used it once, but it is no longer a good deal for our family. We buy discounted WDW gift cards via the Target Redcard. We get water snacks/food delivered from Garden grocer-we are big water drinkers and don't drink Florida water (yuck), the savings on one case of water is enough of a savings for us to justify any fee. We often split meals. Bringing in our own water/drinks saves us big $$. Earl of Sandwich and Wolfgang Puck Express in DTD/now Disney Springs are delicious meals that are really good values. Have a great trip!

 

[JimmyBean42]

Question are the three CS meals each per day or for the whole trip? They should have at least given you a CS per day but that's a different point I guess.

I'd say definitely have some things delivered like water, snacks, fresh fruit if you want it. Amazon will deliver as will any number of online grocery stores. That will start saving you a lot. Another question I have is where will you be staying? Will there be a fridge or microwave accessible? Maybe a mini kitchen area? Those factors would help on some tips too.

 

[MegMac]

Myself, DD17 and DD13 will be traveling in December for a Dance performance. We are very excited about getting to see WDW all decorated for the holidays....But I'm nervous about going without a dining plan. We had to book through Varsity for my daughter to be able to participate, and I don't think we can add a dining plan. We'll be there 5 days and will have 3 CS credits each according to the brochure. So I need your budget minded tips and tricks for eating without breaking the bank!! Thanks in Advance!

We rarely do the DDP unless it's free. It's more convenient for large groups, but I don't think it's ever saved us much money. Most of the meals are huge and can be split. We love the park snacks - popcorn, ice cream, pretzels - so we always split a meal to leave room for more!! We also buy gift cards at Target to save 5%. Just look at menus (I use AllEars) and get a guess for what you'd spend. Have a great trip!

 

[StitchBuddy]

We haven't bought into the disney dining plan going on 8 years now. It really doen't save money for us to do it anymore. I usually plan on $50 per day for each of us. We eat breakfast in the room and eat mostly counter service the rest of the time. We only eat 2-3 sit down/character meals on a 7 day trip now. So $50 a day person is about what we spend on average, usually not even that much. Good luck! Like someone else mentioned, bring snacks. We always bring one or two backpacks full of snack/breakfast items. Then we can bring back goodies in them.

 

[Echo queen]

So would you all say that free dining is a good deal/savings? So if the dining plan is not a deal for say 2 adults, does free dining make it a true deal? Thanks

 

[DisMom829]

I just went in June and didn't use the dining plan for the first time. I was nervous as heck. I cancelled the dining plan the Monday before we arrived, ended up saving $599. Love the Seeyareel soon calculator. It was a huge help for me. Also check into Garden Grocer, we had an order delivered to our room. If you order 60 days in advance, there is a discount also if you go over a certain amount, there is a discount. It was so nice to call bell services and have our water and snacks delivered to our room. I hear if you are Amazon Prime, you can order a Pantry box and it's free shipping. Don't be nervous, we still ordered what we wanted and the kids had tons of Mickey bars.

 

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

Band trip to Disney World - I gave my son an extra 20.00 a day spending money for food. I was glad I did because he would get hungry between CS meals. Towards the end of the trip one of his friends ran out of CS meals and had no money to eat so my son bought his friend lunch and dinner with his extra money because he didn't spend a full 20.00 each day on snacks.

He told me about it later and I told him I was glad he did that. Those trips are tough enough with the early hours and long hours without being hungry too.

 

[momof2mouses]

Question are the three CS meals each per day or for the whole trip? They should have at least given you a CS per day but that's a different point I guess.

I'd say definitely have some things delivered like water, snacks, fresh fruit if you want it. Amazon will deliver as will any number of online grocery stores. That will start saving you a lot. Another question I have is where will you be staying? Will there be a fridge or microwave accessible? Maybe a mini kitchen area? Those factors would help on some tips too.

I think It is a total of 3 CS meals for the trip and a buffet breakfast on the last morning. We are staying at CSR, so if I remember correctly we should have a fridge but no microwave?? As of right now, we are planning to drive so we can bring snacks/water etc. with us. We have always had meals planned out with ADRs on our previous visits. I just need to take the time to budget out any meals we plan on buying. Thanks for all the advice!!

 

[dhardawa]

So would you all say that free dining is a good deal/savings? So if the dining plan is not a deal for say 2 adults, does free dining make it a true deal? Thanks

It often depends on where you're staying and what other offers there are out there. We usually stay at a value where room discounts only save us about $20 a day. In that case, yes, it's a good deal because I can't feed us in the parks for less than that.

 

[Ngwira]

We are staying on a convention rate- $292.00 per night at the Grand Floridan. As such, there is no dining plan allowed. So OOP this trip. Last trip we had the deluxe dining plan. I think we will be fine OOP because we are not huge eaters. It will be interesting to see what happens.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I'm also doing a convention rate for the Poly so we are doing OOP for food.

We are planning on trying some CS I've always wanted to try. Also going to places we've previously paid OOP or not booked since it wasn't "worth" a DDP credit.

Some of these places are Kona, Trail End's, Beaches and Cream, Plaza and Via Napoli. Just to name a few.

 

[stayhomemom77]

Some tips I can offer are:

Order ice water (if desired add mio, crystal light etc) to save on beverages

Share if possible (many places offer at least one entree large enough to do so for light to moderate appetite people)

Bring non perishable and portable snacks with you to help between meals (granola bars, trail mix, pepperoni sticks, apples, oranges, bananas, raisins, other dried fruit, fruit cups, fruit snacks, fruit roll ups, muffins, applesauce cups, cereal bars, rice krispie treats, cookies, dry cereal, chips, cheesies, crackers, etc)

Look up menu info on AllEars and check out budget friendly entrees and ones that will give you the most bang for your buck

Find the Confirmed Snack thread for the Dining Plan (it often has snack items listed with prices that don't show up on AllEars)

Eat outside that parks when possible (if you can't/don't wish to go "off campus", then even trying to eat at the Disney resorts can often result in more bang for your buck between the food courts and the "grocery" areas found in most shopping areas of the hotels

Order a pizza to the room (can find deals from offsite, but also most food courts have a large cheese pizza for about $18 which would feed 2 people over 2 meals at least!)

Earl of Sandwich is a great value at DTD

Ice cream for dinner (or lunch, we generally do this once each vacation and a sundae or milkshake can be surprisingly filling)

And finally...

They are a bit old, but the posts at the bottom of my signature about dining on $40 or $50 a day might be worth a look to see how people eat on a budget!

Good luck and I hope you have a great trip!!