HELP....Are the ADD-On vacation packages a good idea?????

[twinx4]

Hi

I've been to Disney World every xmas since 1999 with my DD (11 Yrs). We've always purchased our room separately and then purchased our tickets from the Disney store during the week of our departure. This has worked out for me financially, that way I don't have to pay for everything up front.

We have never purchased any of the packages, b/c I have read mixed reviews on them. This year we will be in Disney from 7 to 9 days. In the past we usually stay 5 days.

I was wondering has anyone found these packages (Silver plan, Gold plan..etc) to be useful, when staying a certain length of time? We don't swim, so we don't visit the water parks and in the month of December, Florida has been known to have cold days. So I felt that getting the Ultimate tickets was not worth it...

During our first two yrs the parks were still new to us, and we were still playing catch up with events that we had not seen, so the park hoppers were ideal. Now we want to venture out into other recreational activities....biking, putt-putt, Disney Quest and Cirque Solei.

So which route should I choose, a package or getting the hoppers and paying for disney quest and Cirque separately???

 

[DreAnna Clayton]

My DH and I have used the ad on silver plan for the last three years no matter the lenght of stay. We love the ability to hop from one park to another at any given time on any given day. Also we use our wishes for breakfast and dinner. I PS all charater breakfast and the most expensive resturants for dinner. Under normal circumstances we would not be able to eat charater breakfast and sit down dinner. Which can also include dinner shows, such as the hoop de do musical review. I hope this will help you.

 

[honeymo78]

I have gone on the gold plan for the last 4-5 trips and love it. We always spend more than we paid with all the food and recreation. I love not having to carry money with us for meals and the tours and recreation are great. Our trips have been anywhere from 4 nights to 11 nights. Packages aren't for everyone but if you feel that you will use the features in it then you can at least break even if not save money on it.

 

[Rxchalk]

We will be going with the Silver Package on our trip in October. I love the idea of not having to carry money around paying for every meal. Use the wishes on meals for the best value.

 

[Pyedog]

I posted my answer to this question on the restaurants forum. It's topic is something like "How is the silver plan a good deal?" For us, it isn't. We're doing some really expensive dining including HoopDeDoo, the Luau, a fancy dinner with my husband, several character meals, so I thought it might be worth it.....not even close!!

For us, the price of the silver add on was around $1700 for our family of 4 for 7 nights. I figure we'll only spend about $1000 for all of our meals....so we would be paying $700 extra if we went with the silver plan.

Go over to the restaurants forum for a meal by meal expense breakdown.

I realize that our meal plan doesn't take full advantage of all that silver has to offer, but my point is.....We're doing all that we really want to do for $1000; if we bought silver we would feel obligated to spend a lot more time eating (not something our kids are crazy about) or scheduling some activity like a scavenger hunt which might be fun, but wasn't on OUR list of what WE really want to do.

I guess it's just not for everyone,
Pyedog

 

[Pyedog]

Sorry!! My meal cost breakdown is on the RESORTS forum, not the restaurants.

-Pyedog

 

[twinx4]

Thanks for the good advice pyedog...I'll take that into consideration and I'll look for your other posting