Help Me With the Math

[Wendie]

I'm a total Disney Newbie and hoping to book our January Disney vacation this week.

There are three of us going on the trip - me, my husband, and our four year old. We are planning 4-5 days in the parks (four for sure, 5 depends on what time our plane lands on our first day in Florida) From the packages I've scoped out, the Disney Dining Plan will add about $800 onto our package price. That price boggles my mind LOL

I'm a picky eater (burgers, chicken, pizza, pasta), my husband will eat anything and is open to new things, and my preschooler is pretty typical for his age - he'd love to live off of pizza, chicken nuggets, and pancakes if we'd let him. I'd go with the quick service plan or no plan at all, but I'm wondering if doing 2+ character meals will make a dining plan worth it for us? This is likely our only trip to Disney for the next 5 years and I want to make a lot of great memories, but I also don't want to overspend. We'd be perfectly fine having cereal in our hotel room, getting a quick service lunch, and something basic for supper, but I'm worried that character meals will wreck our savings if we do it out of pocket.

Thoughts?

 

[Mikie]

If you do a character meal or buffet every day, the dining plan could save you money - especially since the kids dining plan is very reasonable but the buffet prices out of pocket are much higher. If you do 1-2 character meals or less, and based on how you say you eat, you'd likely save money by NOT buying the plan. This does not even mean that you have to eat homemade PB&J from a backpack or anything - even eating freely at counter service, a table service where your natural preferences are for the less pricey items, etc. you'd pay less out of pocket vs prepaid dining plan.

 

[sharonabe]

Have you tried booking with the play/stay/dine offer? I just tried it for a 5 night stay for Jan with your party make up and it was about $500 more than the room discount offer at one of the moderate hotels.

 

[Pfau]

this is a fun site with which to play!

http://www.distripplanner.com/

 

[Wendie]

If you do a character meal or buffet every day, the dining plan could save you money - especially since the kids dining plan is very reasonable but the buffet prices out of pocket are much higher. If you do 1-2 character meals or less, and based on how you say you eat, you'd likely save money by NOT buying the plan. This does not even mean that you have to eat homemade PB&J from a backpack or anything - even eating freely at counter service, a table service where your natural preferences are for the less pricey items, etc. you'd pay less out of pocket vs prepaid dining plan.

We plan on staying at Pop so a dining plan looks to add on $800 with S/P/D for us, which seems insane for 4 full days of food....

 

[tzeitel]

this is a fun site with which to play!

http://www.distripplanner.com/

Nice!

 

[AnneJEPC]

I've spent the last few weeks trying to make this decision myself. It's not easy! Do you drink soda? always have dessert with meals?

if you were considering the Quick Service plan, but wanted to do more than 1 character meal then it would probably be better to to go with the Standard plan. Because the difference of the $200 is almost paid for with just the 2 meals. But will you eat enough food overall to justify the $140 a day for the standard plan?

I decided what restaurants we wanted to eat at, looked at every menu-either at allears or on Disney website and wrote down prices of what we would order if price didn't matter (including possible desserts and sodas). The total came to just under what the dining plan would cost us. (that was a table service almost every day, including 2 signature ADRs, and 2 character meals) However- the kids and i drink water- DH prefers beer at his dinners, and barely ever eats dessert (he would prefer liquid dessert ). And my kids are very picky as well. Plus we tend to fill up on dinners and then eat desserts a little later instead of at the meal. So I've decided instead of spending $1600 on the plan (what kills us is my one DD is a disney adult) I would purchase around $12-1400 in gift cards. That way we can still not worry about price- because its "paid for already". And we can also use that money towards other things at Disney if we don't spend it on food.

 

[OasterP]

The website someone posted is very helpful. For our family I would never do the dining plan if I had to pay for it. We do "free" dining which isn't free, but obviously cheaper.

Pop century only has the QS plan, so you wouldn't be able to do the character meals unless you upgraded to the regular dining plan. Obviously you could pay out of pocket for them but then you are better off for sure paying out of pocket for everything.

 

[Wendie]

The website someone posted is very helpful. For our family I would never do the dining plan if I had to pay for it. We do "free" dining which isn't free, but obviously cheaper.

Pop century only has the QS plan, so you wouldn't be able to do the character meals unless you upgraded to the regular dining plan. Obviously you could pay out of pocket for them but then you are better off for sure paying out of pocket for everything.

What do you mean? I have the option of QS, Dining Plan, or Deluxe when I'm playing with the cart???

 

[supersnoop]

What do you mean? I have the option of QS, Dining Plan, or Deluxe when I'm playing with the cart???

During the "free" dining promotion, a reservation at a value resort includes the quick service plan. You can pay to upgrade to a higher plan. If you're paying the whole cost, you can certainly choose any plan.

 

[OasterP]

During the "free" dining promotion, a reservation at a value resort includes the quick service plan. You can pay to upgrade to a higher plan. If you're paying the whole cost, you can certainly choose any plan.

Yes I'm sorry! During free dining it's QS - you could definitely pay for whatever plan you wanted. We did upgrade from "free" QS to regular dining this time.

Sorry for the confusion!

 

[Wendie]

During the "free" dining promotion, a reservation at a value resort includes the quick service plan. You can pay to upgrade to a higher plan. If you're paying the whole cost, you can certainly choose any plan.

Ahhh, I see. Well we're planning our trip in January/February and as of now, there is no free dining offer, just SPD

 

[aaarcher86]

Ahhh, I see. Well we're planning our trip in January/February and as of now, there is no free dining offer, just SPD

SPD works the same way.

 

[txnana]

What do you mean? I have the option of QS, Dining Plan, or Deluxe when I'm playing with the cart???

We are doing a trip at Christmas with free dining and when checking the cost of staying at a value and upgrading to regular dining plan VS staying at a moderate resort and getting the regular plan included - the price for our group virtually a tie for cost, so be sure to compare all your possibilities. If I was not getting the plan for free, I would probably pay out of pocket and probably spend less than the cost of the plan.

 

[podgirl]

If you do a character meal or buffet every day, the dining plan could save you money - especially since the kids dining plan is very reasonable but the buffet prices out of pocket are much higher. If you do 1-2 character meals or less, and based on how you say you eat, you'd likely save money by NOT buying the plan. This does not even mean that you have to eat homemade PB&J from a backpack or anything - even eating freely at counter service, a table service where your natural preferences are for the less pricey items, etc. you'd pay less out of pocket vs prepaid dining plan.

I think this makes a lot of sense. One or two character meals would be fun and the servings are so huge at Disney that you could easily share some meals and walk away full. And don't forget to add in the cost of tips for table service meals, which could add over a hundred dollars to your tab during your stay.