How many go without a DP?

lokin4deer

Mouseketeer
Joined
Feb 24, 2006
Messages
213
Instead of going to Disney this fall we are having our second child:cool1:. This presents a dilemma we havent faced before. How do we eat? We have been going over all the scenarios and I am still not sure. I have the CS meal plan booked right now but I think I can do it cheaper out of pocket. Mostly by not buying the 42 snacks we would eligable for (2 a day per person by 3 people by 7 days). But now we are talking about just buying everything OOP. We have thought about the tips we have have to leave with TS DP and also the tax we have to pay for if we buy the CS meals out of our pocket. So does any one have any thoughts about this. Maybe something we havent thought of?? Thanks all :confused3
 
We go OOP and wouldnt consider the DDP. The thought of FOURTEEN desserts in a week EACH makes both of us :sick:. What overkill. If they did appetizers instead it would still be too much food, but might get us to consider it.
Of course we eat what we want when we want, have several ADRs. I have NEVER been one to chintz on restaurant food.
 
We aren't getting the dining plan, because I won part of this trip, so am not paying for park tix and all the nights in the hotel (only 2). Tomorrow is my adr date and I'm still not sure what we're doing yet as far as meals go. I like character meals because then dd doesn't care to wait on line to see characters she's already seen. It just makes it easier for us.

Oh well, I have a day to figure this out LOL
 
We are doing the dining plan this trip but haven't in the past. This is a special trip for us so be splurged on just about evertything including getting the DxDP.

However I am looking at going back within the next year or so with my older children and we most likely will not get the dining plan during that trip. In fact we are considering taking the younger two with us again as well (leaving DH at home) and staying in a cabin so we can prepare our own food.
 

We only did the DP once, when it was free dining last year. It did not work for us too well. I am not a big dessert eater (allergic to eggs) but eat appetizers. The plan was too restrictive that way. When it came to counter service it did not allow us that much flexibility. We learned how to work it, but I don't think we would pay for it.

We pay OOP and have Tables in Wonderland. That works best for us.
 
This question depends on how much you eat, and how old your kids are. We went last year on the DDP when DD10 was DD9. I thought it worked great, particularly since the cost was a lot less for my daughter. It allowed us plenty of character meals at a relatively low price. (My wife, on the other hand, thought it was too much food. I warned her that she didn't have to stuff herself, but she didn't listen. Even if she ate normally for her, I think we still would have made out well.)

However, this year, my daughter is considered an adult, even though she still eats like a kid. If we did any dining plan, she would be charged as an adult, yet still probably eating kids meals. At the character dining, she would be eating very little.

In any case, I think you gotta do your homework! Plan out your meals for your vacation and see how it works for you. Also, take into account that you can bring back snacks as souvenirs. We had about 20 left over snack vouchers that we used to buy snacks for my daughter that she used for her lunches once she went back to school. Certainly not wasted, and I think your DD6 would get a kick out of that!
 
We don't do the dining plan. I've worked it out and for how we do the parks and meals it is cheaper for us to do OOP.
 
the dining plan in the past and found it worthwhile. Of course the structure has changed since then.

We have not done it the last couple of trips and will not be using it on the upcoming trip. The change in the plan structure probably accounts for part of the reason, but our current dining habits don't mesh with it. Our kids are nine and five. They're at an age where spending too much time in restaurants is absolutely torture since there are so many things to do outside. So we sprinkle in a few TS meals during the trip. It's not enough to justify the DDP. I do the calculation every trip.

My wife and I have already agreed that on an upcoming trip, a couple/few years down the road, we'll have the deluxe plan and re-explore the signature restaurants.
 
For us it's just cheaper to pay out of pocket. But you have to check out the menus and guestimate what you would be eating.
I'm with a pp though and if appetizers were included instead of dessert we would be all over it.

We have 4 children and it's cost prohibitive right now as 2 of them are disney adults (but eat like birds)
 
We didn't do the dining plan and I'm really glad we we didn't. It just doesn't fit with the way we eat.

We had 3 TS meals for the 9 days we were there. the rest of what we ate was CS (usually shared) and snacks. We prefer to spread out our eating.

We ate a small amount every couple of hours and it really helped us with the long days in the park. We never felt hungry, but we were also never so full that we felt sluggish.
 
We do both, and it really depends on what type of vacation you want more than anything else. If you do'nt want to worry about the food budget, then do the DP. Either way, it honestly depends on what you want out of your vacation. We personally like to not have to worry about running out of money (silly shops taking all of our money) for food.
 
We have tried the DP twice now, and won't do it again. It's both limiting and too much food. :lmao: We almost always want an appetizer, but not dessert, and we split lots of meals.

That said, we always make ADRs at the places we regularly go.
 
I did the dining plan in 2007 when appetizers were included in the TS and that was the only time I thought it was worth it. We did end up stuffing ourselves silly though since dessert was also included.

After that we didn't do the DP since they changed what is offered in TS meals. Not worth it for us at all. I think paying OOP is definitely the way to go in our situation!
 
We have never done the DP. I think one thing to consider if your budget overall and your eating patterns of your family. We always pay OOP and I budget enough to take on this expense, however I know other people who like to have all of their trip paid for ahead of time so all they have is their spending money for souvenirs.

It's great that Disney offers so many options, but sometimes it does seem to get confusing too.

Mary
 
It depends on how & what you eat. DH & I eat almost exclusively at TS, but I often eat an appetizer for entree, we both like appetizers but often share them, we usually share a dessert if we have one at all. I've done price comparisons on each trip, and paying out of pocket is always cheaper for what we bought. We do use the Tables in Wonderland card.
 
We have never used it but have been going back and forth with our up coming trip. We finally decided last night that we are just going to skip it and pay OOP. Personally, it seems like to much food to me and I just don't eat dessert with every meal (even while pregnant!). I would rather just book a couple of ADR's at the places I really want to eat and then play it by ear. We kind of like to snack our way through the day instead of eating big meals.

Kristine
 
We have done it in the past, and we have mixed feelings about it. We 'saved money' on paper, but in reality we wouldn't have ordered CS desserts, and tend to share appetizers. On the past two trips, we had an AP and DDE card, and that worked out much better for us. We probably ate more snacks, less CS, and could order (and eat) less at the TS. If I didn't have the DDE/tables in wonderland card, I'd still skip the DP.

So I wouldn't fret about not having the/a dining plan. You get a lot more flexibility.

GB
 
We have tried various dining plans 3 times now and have done at least a dozen trips (since the dining plan) without doing it.

We prefer not to use it. I don't know if it would save us money or not; I'm an accountant and the last thing I want to do on vacation is count anything. However, I have found that when we did have the dining plan, we were too structured, I hated trying to track credits, we ate more food than we wanted and always spend part of the last day trying to use up snack credits.

Our most recent vacation two months ago, we took all of our grown children and their spouses (11 of us total) and we got the deluxe plan for everyone. Then several of them got sick on day 1 and for 3 days did not eat much, if anything. We wasted a ton of dining credits, and money, and this convinced me that I would never do another dining plan because you cannot predict when someone would get sick. So it's OOP and pay as we go from now on.
 
We are going for our first time in 18 days:cool1::cool1::cool1: and we are not using the dining plan. I wanted to but my DH said he would rather go and do the ADR's I want and then just go with the flow. He also said even if it costs us more or the same, doesn't matter to him as much as having a bit of freedom and choice.
 
We enjoyed the dining plan. First time on site and first time doing the DDP. DH said he would never go without both.

We save money on it. Two kids and lots of character meals, plus our CS and the kids love snacks so we use all of our credits without gorging ourselves. If we didn't want dessert we didn't get it. We spent what we were spending on one day of the DDP on just one character meal or dinner.

Money aside we enjoyed the convenience. THe 'all inclusive' feel of the vacation.

If it becomes to where we won't save money on it....we won't get it but I don't see that happening. We like to eat one TS a day while on vacation and we do one CS a day, eat breakfast in our room adn we like to get a snack during the day. We did this before the DDP so it works for us.
 


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