For those who have used the magic your way plan..read this

[TLPL]

Hi Hopefully. There will be just 2 of us for 6 nights/ 7 days, arriving at the MCO 5PM on a Monday and leaving on the Sunday flight out at 5ishPM. The travel agent talked me into getting the 7 days passes and the dining plan. We have been to WDW several times but this will be the first time stay on property. I do want to get in the park on the arriving night, so I am thinking either EPCOT or MK which open till 9pm. Maybe have dining in the park and just have a relaxing night watch the firework show. should we have a full sit down dinner? or will we be too exhausted to enjoy/spend a TS credit? what to do..what to do......

 

[eeyore45]

eeyore45: I am interested to see Yours spread sheet, maybe it will give me an idea how to make sharing meal work.

I am not a "techy" I take a piece of paper divide it into the days of our reservations... I head it by the days - - down the right side I put time lines (Parks, then an emh, then bkfst, morning, lunch, afternoon, dinner, evening, then another emh... I also provide a line for "Best Days"... I mark which parks have emh morning, and evenings, then I plan on visiting parks that have the "Best Days" for attending that park from www.touringplans.com website... )

Then I make a page of what our "must do's" are... last visit my dad wanted to do Richard Petty, we wanted to eat at Cinderella's Table, do Fantasmic, etc... so I tried to "plot our must do's... (we were there for the Halloween Party and Food and Wine, so that made certain days at certain parks inevitable)

So its not high tech by any means, but I like to have it in my hand, and use a pencil and erase, and debate... then when I did make my adr's I made adjustments to our park days...

My final copy I just add stickers to it - to brighten it up!! I remember seeing a spreadsheet online, but I couldnt figure out how to make changes to it - I mean I typed my stuff onto it, but when I "printed" it, it came out with the "owners" stuff, none of my stuff made it!!

Have you checked out this website for planning sheets? http://www.themouseforless.com/tripplanning/links/PlanningTools.shtml

Good Luck!!

 

[hockeybabe]

It is worth it if everyone in your party eats, unless it's the $10 kids who aren't eating much, and then it is still worth it. My dd is a very picky eater, and will be over 9 the next time we visit, so we are on the fence about the plan next time. This past time, both dd and ds were kids on the plan, and even though we had the plan for free, we thought it would have been an awsome deal if we had paid for it. However, we will be considered 4 adults next time we go, and if dd is still a fussy eater, she will never eat her $35 worth. So we might as well go oop, and skip things like appetizers and some desserts, and get really great snacks like Dole whips and funnel cake when we do need to get snacks.

If everyone in your party eats off the regular menu, though, I think it is a great deal. You will eat like you haven't before, with appetizers and desserts at every meal...good thing that there is so much walking at Disney!

 

[Lulu's Mom]

Hi Hopefully. There will be just 2 of us for 6 nights/ 7 days, arriving at the MCO 5PM on a Monday and leaving on the Sunday flight out at 5ishPM. The travel agent talked me into getting the 7 days passes and the dining plan. We have been to WDW several times but this will be the first time stay on property. I do want to get in the park on the arriving night, so I am thinking either EPCOT or MK which open till 9pm. Maybe have dining in the park and just have a relaxing night watch the firework show. should we have a full sit down dinner? or will we be too exhausted to enjoy/spend a TS credit? what to do..what to do......

I would use the TS credit the night you arrive and save the CS credit from your first day on your departing day so you can have lunch before you leave. A nice late dinner at Epcot would be nice. You could hope for a Rose & Crown outdoor seating and watch Illuminations while you eat.

To your original question.. the dinning plan is so worth it, especially if you like TS meals. My DH and I split a lot of our CS meals, especially at the Pepper Market because the meals were so big. If you guys are more of a CS type people, nothing wrong with that, then the dining plan would not be worth it.

 

[Tinkerbell10403]

The dining plan is DEFINATELY worth it! You get SO much food for the money that you pay. Plus, you get to choose the entrees that you want. It is a steal of a deal!

 

[patsal]

I wasn't sure if it would be worth it or not, so I added it to the package we had from Dec. 14-19th. Our party was considered three adults and one child (the ages are 14 and 9) the total for the Dining was $115 per day including tax. We ate at Crystal palace for dinner, Garden Grill for dinner, Prime Time for dinner, Breakfastasaurus (obviously breakfast) and Cap'n Jacks-- to keep the experiment rue I just let evryone order whatever they wanted and if they didn't want dessert or apps I didn't force it. Most of our TS were around $155.00 including tax and tip(breakfast obviously less)--we went with extended family so the tips were calculated at 18%. We had a lot more food with counter service than we are usually used to with the plan--normally we order 2 counter service meals, no dessert and an extra side order or two. On the plan we ordered three meals with desserts per CS occasion--the average cost with tax was around $55.00. We didn't always use our snacks as we were not always hungry--all those desserts with CS really kept us filled up. On the last day we had 10 snacks to get so we had Mickey bars at the park, and took home 4 mickey rice crispy treats and 2 bags of chips. Not a bad, and I would push the beverages more if it had been summer so it was fine. By my calculations we saved approximately $107 per day (or $535) using the plan. If we had used the DDE--which we have--we would have not saved at most counter service since it is not valid where there is a sit down option or at any CS in the parks except AK. We would have only saved the portion of the bill that was the tip so about $30 per day or $150 total. Now that we will be able to use this with DVC stays it is obvious that the ding plan is worth it for us--even though DD will have to pay the adult price in July we will still save $$ and the value may be even greater since she will be able to choose from more options at CS and at the TS. Even with the cost closer to $155 per day it will be like free snacks and free CS.It worked well for us and it was and it will be nice not to have to limit the kids choices to keep prices down.

 

[bigmerle1966]

I am another one in favor of the Dining Plan, mainly because it was great to be able to go to more sitdown restaurants and eat dishes I normally would not be able to afford. On a normal trip paying OOP I could have only gone to maybe 2 or 3 TS restaurants and would have had to eat CS for the rest.

One thing I ended doing because it was so much food was to not eat all of the food on my plate. Like at Sci-Fi I had the barbequed chicken sandwhich and didn't eat all of the roll, so I could enjoy all of my appetizer and desert. I kind of came up with that one when the roll started to come apart. I would also eat the entire portion of the meat, fish, chicken and not all of the side dish. And sometimes I would take the dessert to go and eat it later at the room as a late night snack.

The most expensive meal was at Wolfgang Puck Cafe in DTD that came to almost $120.00 for my cousin and I and my neice. And let me just say that although the food was good there, the prices were outrageous.

 

[TLPL]

One silly question: Do people take their left over to go? sounds like they serve you tons of food with the appetizer/desert on top of the main couse. It's enough for lunch for the next day, better then waste it. or am I too "country bug"?

 

[Big Daddy Incredible]

One silly question: Do people take their left over to go? sounds like they serve you tons of food with the appetizer/desert on top of the main couse. It's enough for lunch for the next day, better then waste it. or am I too "country bug"?

After our first day in the parks, we had our dinner at the Mara at AKL. Our family of 4 had half rotissirie chicken, a double cheeseburger with fries, two orders of chicken strips with fries, 4 beverages, 4 desserts (zebra domes galore!) and 4 appetizers which included a caesar salad, garden salad, bag of chips and something else. We had plenty of leftovers so we took them back to our room.

The leftovers stayed in our refrigerator untouched for the next 6 days. We would always be so full from our meals the following days that there was no need for the leftovers.

I'm like you. I can't stand to throw good food away. But we certainly were not going to force feed ourselves to prevent it.

 

[Big Daddy Incredible]

This is what I explained to my wife in deciding to go with the Dining Plan. We have a 2 year old so I only had to pay $90 per day for my family of five. This is $35 per day per adult and $10 per day per child three years of age or older. If we really tried to watch what we spent on food per day, I figured that one counter service for the five of us would probably cost about $40 - $55. Throw in some snacks and drinks at the parks and you can add about another $10 - $20 per day. By the way, I consider those numbers to be conservative estimates.

After I explained that to my wife, I presented my final pitch this way. We could either pay $55 - $75 per day eating CS and snacks or we can pay $90 per day and get the TS, CS and snack. For the small additional costs, it was a no brainer for us. We loved the plan and would do it again in a heartbeat.

 

[TLPL]

oh i hate wasting good food.

 

[twinsmamma]

so i was wondering if those who have used the plan with the dining option felt like it was worth it...we are planning on being there probably 8-10 days and i was trying to figure out the whole plan...we usually do 3 or so character meals and we eat at chef mickeys and maybe a few other sit down restaurants like prime time 50s cafe...crystal palace for lunch...and a few others....so with that being said would it be worth it for us ??

we used the plan last week and i thought that we would have to buy an extra meal a day; however this was not the case. it was myslef and 12 yr old twins, both big eaters. the plan payed for itself in the sit down dinner alone havent really figured out my savings yet but i am sure it is substantial. this is our week:
day one: 3 cs at pop centry, 3 ts at le cellier
day 2: 3 cs at pop, 3 ts at planet
day 3: 3 cs at crystal palace, 1 cs at pecos, and i ts at cindarellas 2 kids meal out of pocket
day 4ut of pocket at sci fi( would never go here agian)
day 5: 3 cs at tusker house, 3ts at alfredos
day 6: 3 cs at pop, 3 ts at chef mickeys
day 7: 2 cs at disney quest 2ts at councourse, one kids out of pocket
day 8: 3 ts at 1900 park fare
we had 5 cs meals left and 7 snacks last day and got meals for trip home and souviner mickey rice krispys for snacks
we were never hungry
i did bring break fast bars and s=nacks but did not use many of these either

 

[TLPL]

how come you only used 18 ts credits total (3 + 3 + 1 + 0 + 3 + 3 +2 + 3), if you stayed 7 nights (8days), shouldn't you have 3 x 7 = 21 ts credits??

 

[twinsmamma]

how come you only used 18 ts credits total (3 + 3 + 1 + 0 + 3 + 3 +2 + 3), if you stayed 7 nights (8days), shouldn't you have 3 x 7 = 21 ts credits??

we did not use all the credits because we found that we were not hungry on some days due to big lunch at ts rest. or still full from day before or just had a snack or shared a cs meal. it wasn't that we did not get them we had 21 cs 21 ts and 21 snacks. we did have 5 cs meals left at last day and got sandwiches and pre packed salads with prepacked desserts and drinks to tkae home or for int he airport. we had one cs left which we did not use because i figured that we would not eat so why waste we did get the dessert for it and they did not charge us. also found that we did not necessarily get desserts at every meal because we were just too full.

 

[twinsmamma]

One silly question: Do people take their left over to go? sounds like they serve you tons of food with the appetizer/desert on top of the main couse. It's enough for lunch for the next day, better then waste it. or am I too "country bug"?

i too am a huge proponant of not wasting and took home left overs a few time which once the kids ate for breakfast but later did not because they were not going to eat it too much foodso jsut did not get desserets or not app but was such a grreat deal even with not eating all because this way you get to et real food instead of eat cs all meals and it was about the same price. I hope disney never gets rid of the plan.