Help me figure out how much OOP for food w/ Free dining

[Abibaby]

We are a family of 5 - 2 adults, 3 kids ages 9,7 and just shy of 4 at the time we go to disney ...we have free dining. We are staying 7 nights and have 6 TS meals planned (one being a two credit ) - about half of our TS meals are breakfasts. What is the easiest way to figure out how much out of pocket $$ we will have for our food...we like to eat -nothing fancy, but we typically eat 3 meals a day..but we have also never been on vacation so not sure how we will while on vacation vs at home. Just trying to narrow the budget down abit

cathy

 

[donnaf516]

Unless you're set on using your ts for breakfast, my suggestion is to try using your ts credits for dinner since its a more expensive meal. If you really want to use them for breakfast try making your adrs a little later so you can get a late breakfast/early luch out of them.

 

[lfigment99]

Don't forget tips. Those can really add up. You can save on out of pocket expense if you occasionally share meals. My wife and I only use one counter service between us for lunch as counter service portions are pretty large. This allows us to use saved counter services for breakfast at resorts.

No matter how much you think you will spend out of pocket, you will probably spend more than that.

 

[willeve]

We've had ddp twice and never spent any extra cash on food! We find it plenty for our family.

 

[jmhazlett]

We usually stop at a Winn Dixie & pick up some donuts juice & milk for breakfasts. That is the only OOP expense we have other than tips and the occasional bottle of wine.

 

[missmun52]

we generally do one oop TS breakfast, one cs breakfast and one oop CS lunch, we also buy two resort mugs so thats about $100 for a fam of 3.
We get free cups of water from the cs locations and put the flavor packets in them from home so we never buy drinks. We do share on just a few occasions and we use snack credits for breakfast a lot.

If your looking to save money I would not do as many TS breakfasts as this is the cheapest meal of the day. We do maybe 1-2 TS breakfasts per trip and pay oop for one of them.

So in general with the DDP we only spend around $100 or so on food. You also must budget for tips which can run about $150 with a 15-20% tip nightly depending on cost of food, amount of TS dinners, service and length of stay.

 

[lovndisney12]

The last two times we went we had free dining - basic plan - 1 TS, 1CS, 1 Snack.

We purchased very little OOP food. An occasional drink when we didn't want to use a snack credit early in the trip.

We didn't use credits for breakfast unless it was a late buffet (around 11 AM) which was to cover lunch as well. For breakfast we used snack credits or food we brought with us (granola bars, cereal bars, etc.). We did pick up some milk and oj from the gift shop and put in the frig in the room. We shared the large cinnamon roll from Main St. Bakery on several occasions - used a snack credit.

But, like the other poster said - don't forget the tips. The food prices are very inflated so on 6 table service meals we averaged a $30 tip (about 20%) for a total of $180 for the trip. Having gone before we were prepared for this but can be a shock the first time. But, we LOVE free dining and feel even at $180 for tips it is well worth it just to go to a restaurant and pick what you want and not worry about the cost.

 

[juliebean]

It's tougher to justify the longer the trip is, but we ultimately decided to upgrade to the deluxe plan for the following reasons -

-we needed an "extra" dinner to account for the night we arrived
-you get the resort mugs included
-my husband likes an appetizer or salad with dinner, and is going to order it anyway
-our older daughter (almost 9) is starting to outgrow kids meals and the buffets and extra snack will help with that
-not fast food people to start with, not that all the quick service we got last time wasn't bad, but most wasn't good. The mexican was particularly one to avoid. I can only try to find a clean table and stand in line for so long before I lose it.
-the use of multiple credits for the much desired princess meals for our 5 year old daughter...need I say more. With the deluxe, we can use snack credits for breakfast a couple of days, have an early buffet lunch and regular dinner.

On the negative side, I think it will cost you about $500 - $600 more(don't forget to consider extra tips), but if you think your out of pocket costs might be close to that, maybe consider the deluxe...I'm guessing it might waste some time, but if it's got AC and I don't have to clean my own/guard a table I'm fine with that. I also plan to not stand in line in the heat for signatures of characters we can catch at a breakfast. I can't tell you how many hours I did that on our first trip! Let you know after we trythe DDP in April. I cannot imagine spending extra monies out of pocket with the deluxe plan, so then you know exactly to expect. Also, with small kids, I think it's a hard concept to skip a meal by eating an early lunch, etc. - if they are used to eating 3 meals at home, that's probably what they are going to want on vacation too. Good luck!

 

[AlternateEgo]

I too have a family of 5. I based our tips on an average of meals that I thought our family would be most likely to order.

I figured up:

Sat Arrival QS / Narcoossee’s ($40 tip)
Sun MK BB Boutique / QS / Cinderella’s Dinner (tip included)
Mon DHS QS / Prime Time ($85 OOP including tip)
Tues DTD QS / Boatwrights ($25 tip)
Wed Epcot QS / Royal Banquet ($25 tip)
Thurs AK QS / O’hana ($25 tip)
Fri MNSSHP QS / Animal Kingdom / Rainforest Cafe ($120 OOP including tip)
Sat MK QS / Whispering Canyon Cafe ($25 tip)
Sun Depart QS

I will pack poptarts, cereal, and oatmeal for breakfasts. Will need to purchase a gallon of milk. ($5 - I have no idea the costs there)

Last trip, we were very thirsty and mostly used our snack credits on buying drinks. I am going to add in an additional $3 per family member for snacks per day. ($15 x 8)

So that's around $500 for food.

If I wanted to fork out an additional $800 I could get the DxDP I could drop off $330 and then all table service would be added $400 in tips.

So in total the DxDP would cost us approximately $1100 more.

As you can see most, if not all of my table service meals are Dinner. I would use your table service for dinner and then pay oop for breakfast. Check out the menus, make an average to decide how much money for each meal, and then use your quick service for lunch.

 

[DCDisney]

Is your 9 year old a big eater? When my son was 9 the kids meals were not enough of the protein portion for him (4 nuggets or 1 chicken leg) so we did spend $20 or $30 on buying extra food for him. He didn't eat fries though. Using the TS for breakfast makes it a bit harder. When we do that we try and do a CS meal that is bigger/better than normal like SUnshine Seasons in Epcot or Wolfgang Puck Express at DTD. A few resort QS have nice dinner options like carved meats at Port Orleans Riverside, homestyle meals like meatloaf at POP Century, Steak at Pepper Market at Coronado SPrings. Some days when we do TS breakfast we don't feel like much lunch and snacks cover it. Other days sharing 1 or 2 adult meals among the 4 of us was enough lunch since we had a big breakfast.

 

[3pletprincesses]

I went with my triplet 4 year old dds this past fall and we had the regular ddp. I did pretty much all early breakfast except for dinner at akershus and 1900 park fare. So 5 meals out of 7 were breakfast. with the heat and and snacks, we basicly were fine until about 3pm or so where we had counter service dinner. Oh and I had brought with us a few snacks from home. We only paid 1 qs each OPP because we arrived early the first day and left late on the last day. I am planning on bringing little money for food again in May now that I know that DDP is enough for us.

 

[tina.tina]

We decided to go with deluxe dining plan for our trip next month. We will pay about $832 (incl tips)& $ allotted for the rainforest cafe) to upgrade to the Deluxe plan. To eat at some of the restaurants we feel are must do’s & bring breakfast/snacks for our room, we would pay $611 (incl tips & $ allotted for the rainforest cafe) above the cost of the Regular DDP. I’ve had some concerns about the volume of food from reading different posts here. My kids don’t eat much at a time but they like to eat often. We eat 3 times per day & have snacks at home. They seem to take turns being very picky so we’ve scheduled a lot of buffets. They would not do well with eating the same things repeatedly at CS.

So, for $211 more, we can eat at the restaurants in blue rather than at CS or bringing breakfast with us (which I hate to do on vacation).

Saturday, 2/12 MK
10:30am Chef Mickey's
5pm Hoop Dee Doo Revue

Sunday, 2/13 DHS
7:30am Cape May Cafe
11:00am Prime Time Cafe3:40pm Hollywood & Vine Fantasmic! Pkg (latest time available)

Monday, 2/14 MK
8:05 Crystal Palace
12:50 Crystal Palace can’t get enough Pooh!6:45 Cinderella's Royal Table

Tuesday, 2/15 EPCOT
9:35 Akershus
2:15 Le Cellier7:05 Garden Grill

Wednesday, 2/16 Animal Kingdom
8:10 Tusker House
12:00 Yak & Yeti Parade/snack6:30 Rainforest Café- out of pocket either way

Thursday, 2/17 Probably MK
Breakfast- Snack Credit either way
11:50 Crystal Palace- we’ve got to eat, it may as well be with characters
6:20 ‘Ohana

Friday, 2/18 Check out day
9:15 Chef Mickey’s

 

[Bete]

AllEars.net is a great source for menus and prices.

First, you have to understand that the dining plan is based on the number of nights you are there and not days. If you have a partial day on arrival and/or departure you still have to eat a meal probably even if it's in the food court. This could be an OOP expense.

Breakfast and lunch will be a cheaper TS meal. Use your DP credits for the most expensive meal each day. Maybe, with buffet meals you could get by on two meals a day if you want to save OOP expenses.

Consider getting resort mugs for $14 a person; you might be able to share mugs with the kids. Anyway, by doing this you can save your snack credits for food and that can become a small meal if you do it right. You can get snacks that aren't just candy or popcorn and such. The food courts have B/F for $6 to $8 an adult. You don't pay tip there; so, if you need 3 meals a day I would do B/F at the food court OOP.

There may be TS meals or QS meals where you can share meals. As an example, MK has a place called Cosmic Rays where you can get a rib and chicken combo meal on QS which absolutely can be split between two people. If you do this enough then you will have some extra meal credits to get a 3rd meal in a day.

Doing B/F in the resort room is a way to save a credit or an OOP expense. You can bring breakfast bars and such and do it that way and maybe use you snack credits for a fruit, muffin, etc. to have B/F in your room.

You have to be a little creative, but you can manage with the regular TS plan and not be hungry if you are use to 3 meals a day.

Now, if you want to go all out then the deluxe plan would afford you up to 3 TS meals a day including an appetizer and getting a resort mug. You upgrade your free dining to this level and you can eat yourself silly.

Keep in mind, eating takes away from park time. The kids will get absorbed with all there is to do there and they may not care about eating as much. The adults could always get something on the run like the famous turkey legs which can be a meal onto itself.

It's typical to pay 15 to 20 percent on tips for the TS meal. This can add up very fast when drinks and desserts are included in the tab. Anyway, the less TS meals you have the less tips you have to do.

If you want to eat more have an extra QS meal without dessert and drink water where you don't have to tip.

We do the regular TS dining plan and we eat three, smaller meals at home each day and this is enough for us when we are on a vacation at Disney.

 

[juliebean]

Lots of good points on the previous post!

We picked to do the deluxe dining for the following reasons, even though it's going to cost us about $200-$300 more...

-Quality of the kids meals seems better on table service
-We are going in April, and had a hard time finding counter service tables (forget about clean ones) last time we went (also April). I hate trying to stake out a table.
- DH is going to order an appetizer anyway
- Daughters want to do the Cinderella dinner, but it requires 2 credits..no tips and souvenirs make that okay for me..but it means needing more credits.
- I tend to worry about money and I am hoping if it's prepaid and I put the tips in an envelope, that I will think about the ridiculous cost less, so I can enjoy vacation more. We do well financially, so it's not money we don't have, just grew up never having enough, so it's tough to spend as an adult even if we have it.
-We also need an extra dinner for the night we arrive, and will eat breakfast in our room one day to account for this meal - easier to do with the deluxe plan than the regular.

That's my thoughts on what we chose, maybe it helps? At the same time, last time we had breakfast at an off site condo, lunch and snacks either from a little cooler or back at the condo, and a counter service dinner at DW. I didn't feel like I was really on vacation, it was still a lot of cooking and cleaning for me, but we still had a great time and if money is an issue it's worth it to save several hundred that way.

Have a great time whatever you decide! Julie