Help me do the math on free dining

[mill4023]

I'm making my head hurt trying to figure out the best way to run the numbers and see whether it makes sense to switch from off-site to free dining.

We are a party of 10 (5 actual adults, 3 disney adults, 1 disney child, and a 2 year old).

We have a 5 bedroom home booked from June 11th to June 25th.
It will cost $2050

Two of the adults(my brother and his GF) are only staying from June 11th to June 20th

We already purchased tickets through the YES program for all of us except my brother and GF. So if we switched to a free dining package, my brother and GF would get their tickets with the package and the rest of us would get the minimum 2 day tickets and save them for our next trip.

I priced out 3 rooms at a standard room at a value with an upgrade to the regular dining plan and got this:

Room 1 - 2 adults, 2 kids - 14 nights - 2 day base tickets- $3474
Room 2 - 1 adult, 2 kids, plus 2 yr old - 14 nights - 2 day base tickets - $2934
Room 3 - 2 adults - 9 nights - 9 day base tickets - $2112

So if we did that, we would have a grand total of $8520 to pay and we would have all the meals covered and we would have 7 2-day base tickets to save for our next trip.

If we stick with on-site, we would have to pay:
$2050 for the house
$600 for GF and brother's tickets
$150 to $200 in parking fees
all the food ????

I'm having the hardest time trying to figure out what we would spend on food if we stay off-site. We are planning 8 park days (5 for brother and GF). We usually like to have 1 TS meal each day we are in the parks.

The big advantage I see of having the dining plan is that we would be able to do lots of signature stuff, like CRT, HDDR, etc. because we would have 14 TS credits for each of us (9 for brother and GF) and we are only planning to spend 8 days in the parks.

Anyone want to try to help with the number comparison and estimates?

 

[mjohnson96]

I think allears.net or mousesavers.com have prices for table service restaurants you can look at. We used this info to decide if going from QSDP to DDP would be worth it. Since we only planned on one TS character breakfast and have the baby, which an extra snack would be useful for, we decided to go with the QSDP and not feel like we had to do to many TS meals

I personally like to have everything paid for prior to leaving for a vacation and do the dining plan makes this even more possible. But looking at your numbers, I don't think you are going to spend thousands on food.

I guess you have to ask yourself if you would rather stay onsite then?

 

[larryz]

I'm having the hardest time trying to figure out what we would spend on food if we stay off-site. We are planning 8 park days (5 for brother and GF). We usually like to have 1 TS meal each day we are in the parks.

With the in-park TS per day, I'd use a planning figure of $40 per adult per day, $35 per teen per day, $30 per child per day.

This assumes you're eating out for those other meals. You can drop that if you cook a few meals yourselves.

 

[kinggoofy]

We ran the numbers a few years back. we had a split "free dining" stay. 1st 5 days was on the dining plan and the last 6 was 40% room only.

Its only the 2 of us. no kids.

It ended up costing us $200 more to have "free dining" as opposed to the 40% off room.

With free dining..yes, we ate at resturants knowing that we could order "ANYTHING". Just remember...the tip is NOT included.
you pay the tip. So you can kinda see where this is heading. More expensive food...bigger tip.

For us...we are AP holders. We would rather have the 40% off room rate PLUS the 20% off Table and Wonderland Dining Discount. The 20% off dining discount INCLUDES booze.

Free dining...beer, wine etc is not included in the plan.

Also with free dining, it was really just way too much of a headache for us. We are on vacation and not on a time schedule.

If you dont have your ADR's all set way in advance..good luck finding a TS place to eat at a reasonable hour.

The "free dining" for 5 days eliminated our "just wing" it mentality.

PLUS....after 3 days, we were basically just sick of eating.

 

[larryz]

The "free dining" for 5 days eliminated our "just wing" it mentality.

PLUS....after 3 days, we were basically just sick of eating.

That's exactly right. Any comparison of FD to other discounts needs to take into account several factors, including:

size of your party
age of your party
resort you're staying in
your party's dining and touring habits
the value you place on TS vs QS dining locations.

OP's done a good job of breaking down the variables. All they need to do now is plug the numbers into a spreadsheet and do the totals.

 

[Sandisw]

Also consider what you will be losing in terms of being in a value room vs. a 5 bedroom off site house.

You will be losing a gathering place for everyone, you will be losing space, and I am going to assume you will be losing laundry.

How important is this for your traveling party? For some, it would be important--for others, it would not be.

Of course, on the flip side, you are also gaining some space to yourself which may be great since you will be there 14 days.

IMO, I would choose onsite because I like knowing exactly what things will cost and not have to worry about it. If you already know you want to eat TS each day, then I think the DDP becomes a deal worth it for convenience.

However, if you think you would find there would be days that you would not want to eat out, having a kitchen can be a blessing.

It looks like you are talking about $6000 in food. For a 14 day stay, with 9 paying customers that gives you about $450 per day to spend on food (and, in this case, I am not even counting the value of the unused tickets. Price out a day of meals, with all 9 and then with 7. If you find that you could reasonably eat for less than that, then free dining will cost more. If not, then free dining works in terms of cost.

But, I think it goes beyond that. We like being onsite for more reasons than cost and we do like the dining plan because we know ahead of time what our food budget will be. We also like knowing we can order anything from the menu. Even though we pay upfront, there is just something different about that aspect. I would think nothing of getting a $30.00 meal on the DDP but might hesitate if paying OOP.

I think the more important question is can you afford and are you comfortable with the price you would get with Free Dining? If you are, then I would try not to over analyze things.

 

[kinggoofy]

I think the more important question is can you afford and are you comfortable with the price you would get with Free Dining? If you are, then I would try not to over analyze things.[/QUOTE]

Bingo !!

As they say in gambling.."think long and bet wrong". !!!

OP....Dont over analyze it. I know you are coming here for advice and opinions, but you may come away even more dazed and confused after reading everyones input.

6 in one hand....half a dozen in the other.

 

[Amy&Dan]

When you figure in the cost of your meals, both full and counter you need to add tax (I believe its 6.5%). The DDP and QSDP will not have you paying any add'l tax. Tips, cocktails and appetizers yes, tax, no.

I would want the privacy of my own hotel room and we do love to be onsite. On the other hand, having a full house with its own laundry and a living area for everyone to hang out in would be nice. But I have found every trip that we did with others, hanging out at the pool and in the parks was plenty and at night, it was nice to go into my room, close the door and have some real privacy!

We really thought about offsite this time and what changed our mind was the transportation. I like Disney to the do the driving, we fly so the cost of a rental car cut into our savings and we have two teenagers so its nice to let them go off on their own a bit while dh and I relax at our resort or wander around World Showcase. Also, some nights our kids want to stay at the parks later, dh and I are fine with that because they can get on the bus and be back at the resort so easily. If we stayed offsite, we'd need to be doing the same thing all day and night unless we stayed at a place that had a really reliable shuttle and even then, I doubt I'd let my kids naviagate that alone, at night in particular.

So bear in mind that depending on how many vehicles you have, you may all have to be together most to all of the time, leave at the same times, to get to and from the house and parks. Whereas onsite gives your group a lot of flexibility to come and go as they please. It sounds like you have a diverse group, so if you just have one car for your offsite stay, that may complicate things.

I do agree that in the end, your cost/savings may be hard to calculate. So think about the overal experience. Space is nice (although even a home that size, you will be a bit crowded with that large of a group), so is prepaying for everything, having EMH, transportation and other onsite perks. It comes down to what experience you want overall. Cost is very important but when figuring offsite vs. onsite, I think its the total experience that is the biggest factor.

Good luck!

 

[mill4023]

We will have two cars.
We(me, DW, 5 kids) are driving from Charlotte, NC in our suburban and my mom will be flying in from Oregon and renting a car.
DW and the kids are very excited about the idea of having a house with it's own private pool and game room. I haven't talked to her about the free dining offer, so in the end, it may not even be a financial decision.
I just wanted to get an idea of the difference in cost first, so I could decide if it's worth having the discussion about switching.

For me, it's really tempting because I would love to be able to do CRT, HDDR, and some of the higher priced restaurants, but if paying OOP, it's hard to justify the cost for our large family.

Maybe I should try to simplify, take tickets out of the equation, and just look at the room cost and how much we think we'd spend if we aren't on the DDP. The tickets for my brother and GF have to be paid for either way, so that's not really a factor. And the 2 day tickets that we would have to buy could be saved for the next trip, so they are worth what we would pay for them.

 

[fairestoneofall]

do you have to buy two-day tickets now?

we still have one-day passes from where we did a split-stay with DDP almost three years ago. i guess we'll use them someday. but Disney comes out with offers, and we like our dining pre-paid. so, we still have those tickets (and we've been back a few times since).

i would stick with the house off-site. i just cannot imagine spending that much on your food to warrant the move onsite.

 

[Amy&Dan]

Having two cars is a good mark in the offsite column as far as I am concerned!

If you have the house and can prepare even one or two meals or eat offsite at some of the affordable options then maybe you can pay OOP for a few of the nicer meals and just eat counter service for everything else.

We are able to save quite a bit on food by sharing meals (portions are large and you can share at any cs place) and taking some snacks into the parks. Things like trail mix, payday candy bars, granola bars, little packets of peanuts, apples and crackers all help us to save some money but still eat out pretty much all our meals without breaking the bank. We stay onsite so can't prepare any meals, although we do a grocery order many times and make sandwiches to eat at the pool for lunch so that we can splurge with a sit down here and there.

We only do the DDP when its "free" because we go during peak season when its higher priced and also my 14 year old dd can't eat all that food. But I do love the DDP because its easy and we can order what we want. But not at almost $200 a day for my family of four for our 10-14 day trips!

You might be able to have the best of both worlds with an offsite house and a few really nice sit down meals. Its just important to keep the other meals in line. With a group the size of yours, preparing even just two or three meals for your long trip would go a long ways towards CRT and HDDR.

I do think taking the two day tickets out of the equation is not a bad idea. You can look at those tickets as your "already have money in the bank for our next trip". Kind of a buying in bulk method!

Good luck, my head about explodes when I am sitting down crunching the numbers and figuring it all out!

 

[mill4023]

do you have to buy two-day tickets now?

we still have one-day passes from where we did a split-stay with DDP almost three years ago. i guess we'll use them someday. but Disney comes out with offers, and we like our dining pre-paid. so, we still have those tickets (and we've been back a few times since).

i would stick with the house off-site. i just cannot imagine spending that much on your food to warrant the move onsite.

Two days was the lowest option it gave me when I looked online. It's extra money up front, but like I said, we will use the tickets in the future, so it's not really "extra" money.

I used Larryz's estimate of $40 per day for adults(and teens since they eat more than we do) and $30 per day for kids and the total I got for our whole party for the whole time we are there is about $4400.

So offsite:
$4400 - food
$2050 - house
$600 - tickets for brother and GF
$182 - parking

Total: $7232

On-site:
$8520 (includes tickets for brother and GF for this trip and 7 "extra" 2 day tickets for future use )

Of course, if we stay off-site at the house, we will be having at least some meals there, so my food estimate for off-site may be too high.

 

[CarrieR]

Two items:

1) You'll have about 1100 in "prepaid tickets," so the cost between the two is around $200.
2) You say brother/girlfriend are only going into the parks 5 days, but have 9 day tickets listed for them. I know it's not a big difference, but will they spend more time in the parks if on-site?

Assuming you can afford to front the 2-day tix, you'll need to decide whether $200 is worth staying offsite or not. (I deeply value onsite-ness, but I know that's definitely a personal thing. I would pay a HUGE premium for not having to drive, since I'm the sole driver for the group and getting people into the car is a huge time-sucker for us. Go figure.) When looking at $200 on an 8500 vacation, I would consider it a 'wash' (We did this with $50 on our 1k vacation, lol,) and choose whichever you'd prefer. As in -- if the cost was irrelevent, would you prefer 3 rooms a Pop, or a large house (including laundry and kitchen) for everyone to share?

Maybe present it to your family that way, and THEN pull in all of the complicated math. (BTW, is your mom going to be ok with three of your kids in her room?)

 

[rie'smom]

For a 2 week vacation space would be the deciding factor for me. I cannot imagine being in 1 room with 4 people for that long. Privacy and quiet time for both the adults and the kids will beocme more valuable as the days go by.
I think $40/day is a little steep if you're staying offsite. Here is the allears site, check the prices of the food that you think you would like and go from there.
Click on each restaurant for the menus:
http://allears.net/menu/menus.htm#mk

 

[larryz]

I think $40/day is a little steep if you're staying offsite. Here is the allears site, check the prices of the food that you think you would like and go from there.

Remember, OP said they want to do one in-park TS per day... I figure that's at least $25 per adult with app/entree or entree/dessert and drink, tax, tip...

That leaves about $10 for lunch and $5 for breakfast.

And it's a PLANNING figure, without taking into account any savings on mass meals cooked in the villa/condo kitchen.

 

[mill4023]

Remember, OP said they want to do one in-park TS per day... I figure that's at least $25 per adult with app/entree or entree/dessert and drink, tax, tip...

That leaves about $10 for lunch and $5 for breakfast.

And it's a PLANNING figure, without taking into account any savings on mass meals cooked in the villa/condo kitchen.

When I did the math, I was just multiplying the $40 by the number of days we are there. But we are only doing 8 park days in the 2 weeks we will be there. So my figure was probably a bit high. Plus, I realized that I didn't think about tip when looking at the numbers for an on-site stay with free dining.

So my off-site number was probably a little too high and my on-site number was probably a little too low.

But after thinking about it some more and talking to DW and the kids, we're going to stick with the house. For a 2 week stay with the group we have, I think everyone will be happier. I think it will be more relaxing for us.