Help me decide on dining plan or not

[WDWSuperFan]

We are going to Disney in December and currently have the Poly booked with tickets and the dining plan for 9 nights. I can't decide if I would be better off to book the room seperate hoping for a code or AP rate, or keep the package. With the package, I have rack room rates.

If I can get a room discount of some sort, I think I would get a better price to book everything seperate.

What do you think?
Thanks for any help

 

[tjmouse]

Well, you have until October to decide, so hopefully by that time, the discounts would be out and you could decide then. I wouldn't change until you had to (45 days prior) because that way, if discounts don't come out or they won't benefit you, you don't have to cancel your pacakage.

The Poly was very hard to get with the discounts this past December. Rooms went very fast and I don't think they released that many with the AP discount. Of course, that was with BRP so it might be different this year, only time will tell I guess.

 

[southernbelle_amy]

do you have triple AAA, depending on the season you could get 10-20% off the rooms plus the dining plan and tickets.

 

[byoung]

You will love the Dining plan.

 

[WDWSuperFan]

thanks tjmouse and southernbelleamy
I guess right now I do just have to wait. We are so excited to stay at the poly, this will be our first time to stay there. Our past trips we have always used a code or an AP rate. I'll just have to keep watching.

 

[WDWSuperFan]

thanks b young, I hope we like it. It seems so much easier with all this taken care of before we leave home.

 

[thelionqueen]

The dining plan is a must do for our family. The value, convenience and overall price cannot be beat. We saved over $1500.00 last time (of course it was free..but even is we would have had to pay for it it would have saved us over $700.00) Do the dining plan, it makes the Disney experience so magical!

 

[The Sweetness]

Heres my opinion. As a floridian, I may be entitled to specific discounts on things like resort and seasonal passes.

With that in mind, I must also consider that when dining out, my fam usually orders 1 ap, 3 entrees and 1 desert, and no one ever feels cheated in any way. At a CS lunch, we will order a meal for each of us, and again, 1 desert to share.

The DP offers too many deserts, which isnt great for me, as I have minimal will power, and type 2 diabetes (probably caused by the lack of will power )

The DP probaly wont work out for me, due to those reasons. If your fam will enjoy all the goodies, then Id say go for it. Esp if you arent entitled to decent discounts

 

[RuthLS]

I too am in this dining plan or not boat.

Right now I have a AAA room only rate ressie at CSR for MAY and am awaiting any codes that might come out. When I did the math figuring our own food budget vs. AAA package, vs. Disney package...we pretty much broke even within $100-$200.

It will be me, DH, DS who will be 3, and DS 18 months. For those of you with such young children..did you find that the dining plan was worth it? We've made TS ressies...but I won't know if TS is realistic until we do one or two. I don't know that they can sit that long. So we may not be able to do TS at all or apps and dessert with two toddlers. It seems that the dining plan is better for couples or those with older children.

Any thoughts? I do like the idea of not having to budget for food...but at the same time...it just might not save us money...especially if we can get a code.

Oh-and does anyone know if there is any method to the madness of AP codes. Do some resorts have more than others etc.? I noticed it was posted that it's hard to come by at the Poly. We are booked at CSR and might consider AKL. Historically-have there been good codes at either resort?

Thanks,
Ruth

 

[christinou]

If you can get an AP rate it might not be worth it, we are saving $700 with our AP rate for 7 days in February. so the dining plan really did not make sense to us.....

 

[Shugardrawers]

I'm debating doing the dining plan too. We are just 2 adults, no kids and one of us is and extremely light eater. We generally share most meals. On 1 had we can pool those TS credits and eat dinner each night at somewhere really nice and just share. OTOH, we'll probably wind up with quite a few CS credits left over. The $70 a day the plan will cost us is pretty much what I've already budgeted for food but it'll allow us to eat at places we couldn't normally go and try things we usually wouldn't order.

Also, how do I know what's actually available on the plan at each restaurant? Is there a list? The real test as to whether it's worth it for us is how many things they are offering that I'd actually eat.

 

[3from3]

We just returned and used the dining plan for 2 adults and 2 children (our youngest ate off our plan). While it was convenient, it did not work very well for us. We felt like we had to plan around eating and then were stuck eating what the plan required. We could not, for example, eat a meal and then go somewhere else for dessert. The kids were not always interested in the snacks that were on the plan but instead wanted pretzels etc. We ended up not using several counter meals. Whether or not the dining plan is for you will depend alot on what your eating habits are - we did not consider that enough.

 

[tammyandtommy]

let me see if I can help. we were a family of 4, m, d, 10 and 7. We used the free dining last august, we saved all reciepts. If we had paid for the food separatley we would have spen 1200 more than what it would have cost for the dining plan. This allowed us to have a nice relaxing sit down meal and it allowed us to eat comfortably and not worry about the prices, keep in mind we have two picky children and this gave me piece of mind that if they chose to not eat I wouldnt be spending anymroe money. We also shard some counter services, but didnt have the guts to share a table service. This next trip is for just Tom and myself. We looked at the price of the dining plan, the places we wanted to eat, and decided that we would get the plan again. The cost is about 40 bucks a person, thats 80 per day and we would probably spend more than that Out of pocket. Things are more expensive in Disney and for the most part we had no problems with the food. If you have any more questions feel free to ask!

 

[HayGan]

Another big fan of the dining plan here! We were on the dining plan during our 4 day Poly stay and we it! We saved over $450 with it! DH swears he won't do Disney without it!!!

BTW, the menu is the same no matter if you are paying out of pocket or on the plan. (Someone did mention that one restaurant said that you couldn't get a surf and turf special with the plan.)

 

[aviva5675]

From what I understand anything on the menu is availble with DP. I think the exceptions are the lobster at Teppanyaki and maybe one other place. If you like nice dining, especially if you want to go to 2 TS places a few times it should be worth it- your plan to split meals will save credits to use there.

 

[Alice Sr.]

From what I understand anything on the menu is availble with DP. I think the exceptions are the lobster at Teppanyaki and maybe one other place. If you like nice dining, especially if you want to go to 2 TS places a few times it should be worth it- your plan to split meals will save credits to use there.

San Kai is not included in the DP, that's not good? I am struggling with this myself. I have analyzed it every which way and it always comes out to just about the same $'s whether I get the DDE again or go with the DDP. On one hand I think we would become a slave to running to restaurants all the time (we are staying in a 2 bedroom and if we don't use the DDP we will eat breakfast and lunch and probably get most of our snacks and drinks from our villa); but I am taking to teenagers that aren't mine and it would sure simplify the funds issue. I guess I still have some time to figure it out. Good luck with your decission.

 

[kiddoc]

We just returned from WDW -- Me, DH, DD6 and DD4 -- on 7 day dining plan. Adding up our receipts we saved about $400 with the dining plan. We also had some really good meals. I plan to post reviews later! We would definitely do the plan again.

 

[Shugardrawers]

I keep hearing people say the dining plan kills their spontenaity. Are you required to have ADRs and eat at certain restaurants for certain meals? Like can we have TS for lunch if we want, CS for breakfast? I'm not understanding what these people are referring to

 

[d4est]

I think some people feel that to get their money's worth, they need to preplan every meal & make ADR's in advance. Then they would "have" to plan their touring around their meals. Some people like to wait until dinnertime & wherever they are, they eat. You CAN do this with the DP. The problem is that the DP has made sit down restaurants more popular & harder to just do a walk-up.

IMHO, with or without the DP, it is a wise idea to preplan your meals & make ADRs, unless you are going at the slowest times possible. Even then, you never know.