How much more can Disney cut the DDP?? I won't do it again....

[gorkt]

I never did the dining plan simply because I don't eat in such a way that maximizes the value of the plan. The first time I went to WDW when they had the plan, I added up all my meals and I actually came out cheaper paying out of pocket. This was back when the plan included appetizers and tips. I just don't eat big meals most of the time, preferring to graze on smaller meals, and if I do eat a larger meal, I prefer to do it at lunch time. My DH and I like to split meals also.

I also really hate all the restrictions that have on kids meals now. My Dd can only eat so many chicken nuggets.

 

[qtsugarangl]

I may be the minority here (especially since we don't have kids) but DF and I always get the DeluxeDP when we go, although we do some signature restaurants. The first trip we saved almost $500, this last trip it was about $350 that we saved and we had left over snack credits.
We love the fact that we don't have to budget for food while we are on vacation and we can eat where we want and what we want and not have to worry about only having x amount left for food. Is it a lot of food? Absolutely! But we are on vacation and we don't care haha

 

[disneyholic family]

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Hi there. If I may I ask you a question. YOu spent $29,000.00 for a trip to Disney for 6 people? Why does that sound expensive to me? Where did you stay? Hope you had a great time...

Thanks! Brunette

our flights cost $16,000 (we live overseas - flights cost a lot of money)..

the rest was for the resort/food/tickets/car rental

we stayed at the pop century...we had 3 rooms for 14 days.
plus i paid for DDP
plus i had a minivan rental
plus i bought us premium annual passes (at a cost of $4200 for 6 people)...

 

[brunette8706]

our flights cost $16,000 (we live overseas - flights cost a lot of money)..

the rest was for the resort/food/tickets/car rental

we stayed at the pop century...we had 3 rooms for 14 days.
plus i paid for DDP
plus i had a minivan rental
plus i bought us premium annual passes (at a cost of $4200 for 6 people)...

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Hi! Thanks for the detailed information. I guess everything really adds up, especially if you have 6 people with 3 rooms and premium tickets, car and your stay was 14 days.

Did you like PoP?

It's a shame you couldn't get the FREE dining when you were there, maybe on your next trip. I think they are offering it next year too..

Hope you had a blast!

Brunette

 

[disneyholic family]

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Hi! Thanks for the detailed information. I guess everything really adds up, especially if you have 6 people with 3 rooms and premium tickets, car and your stay was 14 days.

Did you like PoP?

It's a shame you couldn't get the FREE dining when you were there, maybe on your next trip. I think they are offering it next year too..

Hope you had a blast!

Brunette

the paid dining wasn't much more than free dining - i had a 40% discount on the rooms, so adding on the DDP didn't add up to much more than the free dining offer (which wasn't available for the 2 weeks we were there).

yes, i liked the pop century - i thought i wouldn't..

in the past we've stayed at the various deluxes and enjoyed them..

but i just couldn't afford to do that for 3 rooms...

and DD had stayed at the pop and really liked it (on a trip a few years ago with her best friend)..

so i reserved the pop century...as i said, i wasn't expecting much, but we really liked it...
they have non-stop activities all day long at the pool...

and we thought the food court was pretty good - we ate most of our counter service meals there....

given the amount of time we stayed in the room, it would have been throwing money away to stay anywhere else...

 

[mickeysbestfriend]

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Hi there. If I may I ask you a question. YOu spent $29,000.00 for a trip to Disney for 6 people? Why does that sound expensive to me? Where did you stay? Hope you had a great time...

Thanks! Brunette

curious as well....thats some big bucks!

 

[brunette8706]

the paid dining wasn't much more than free dining - i had a 40% discount on the rooms, so adding on the DDP didn't add up to much more than the free dining offer (which wasn't available for the 2 weeks we were there).

yes, i liked the pop century - i thought i wouldn't..

in the past we've stayed at the various deluxes and enjoyed them..

but i just couldn't afford to do that for 3 rooms...

and DD had stayed at the pop and really liked it (on a trip a few years ago with her best friend)..

so i reserved the pop century...as i said, i wasn't expecting much, but we really liked it...
they have non-stop activities all day long at the pool...

and we thought the food court was pretty good - we ate most of our counter service meals there....

given the amount of time we stayed in the room, it would have been throwing money away to stay anywhere else...

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Hi Beth!

Glad you liked your stay at PoP! Sounds like you had a good time. I'm just thinking maybe next time have you tried looking at off site VILLA's!? They are a fraction of the price of a Disney Resort. You may have saved some money that route. Just merely suggesting, you may just love staying onsight only. It's nice to have a food court on the property too, Deluxes don't have that option.

Do you plan on coming back in the near future? We LOVE it there!

Brunette

 

[hotcarib]

I get the pre-paid benefit by buying a $25 or $50 Disney gift card every month or so before my trip at Kroger while doing my regular grocery shopping...a plus for me since I get 2x or even 4x the Kroger gas points and I use those giftcards for our WDW food. Another plus is that we can eat what we want...if I want an appetizer as my main meal at a sit down then it does not mess up my DDP because I have my OWN DDP...called giftcards I pre-paid for myself...lol

DDP or not, that's a brill idea
That's a painless way to save for your trip~TY for sharing

 

[papamouse1]

Just back and the ddp is just NOT what it used to be. For those who always complained that is was too much food...well it certainly isn't anymore! It seems there are no good deals or hidden gems in the dining plan anymore. Just a few things I noticed that changed from a couple years ago...

-no more ice cream cookie sandwich at Main Street Bakery for a snack credit

-no more milk shakes with the kids meals at Sci Fi

-Kids lunch at Le Cellier was a joke...my kids ordered the pizza...and it was a thin, small pizza brought out on a mickey head plate with Nothing in either ear! I thought it was a mistake and asked shouldn't fruit/veggies/something be in the ears?? She said no?? Um...okay.

-No more juice and water for breakfast

- No more make your own creation at Goofy's candy Shop

- No more bottled water at Earl's...have to get a fountain drink and can choose either chips or desert..not both...

Bascially...it really isn't a whole lot of food anymore...and I just don't see the worth.

... well just when we thought they couldn't make it any worse, they just anounced (at least with DVC... don't know about cash ressies) that you can no longer book segmented/split stays. We have to fly in late and leave early because of our airport location, so for last 3 years we booked split stay and only got DDP for part of the stay... no more.

So I wonder what will be next?

 

[disneyholic family]

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Hi Beth!

Glad you liked your stay at PoP! Sounds like you had a good time. I'm just thinking maybe next time have you tried looking at off site VILLA's!? They are a fraction of the price of a Disney Resort. You may have saved some money that route. Just merely suggesting, you may just love staying onsight only. It's nice to have a food court on the property too, Deluxes don't have that option.

Do you plan on coming back in the near future? We LOVE it there!

Brunette

i worked the villa numbers before this trip - calculating the cost of a sufficiently large villa (minimum of 3 queen bedrooms and 3 full baths) plus the cost of food for 6 adults....
while it came out slightly less expensive than 3 rooms at the pop with ddp, it was enough to offset the loss of 'magic' by being offsite.

My DD is not a typical children's meal eater and chooses more "adult-like entrees" (i.e., salad with grilled chicken is her staple). I chose the QS and TS restaurants based on what we like to eat as well as places where children's meals have more variety. I did not have any trouble choosing locations for both QS and TS that had the variety that my DD would appreciate

a friend of mine changed her daughter's birthday, so that she would be considered an adult for the dining plan - so that she could order off the adult menu if she wanted...

 

[Harlemgirl720]

I usually get the dining plan because I have a growing 11 year old son and 4 year old grandson. I try to stick to buffets so they can eat what they want. The kids menus on menus are a joke. My son is an adult so no worries with him but with grandson its not enough food for him.

 

[akayek31]

Our first onsite trip was in May 2009. We had the buy 4 get 3 free deal. If we added the DDP it would have been almost $900 so I didn't get it. We stayed at Pop for 7 days and then stayed offsite for 7 more days and went to Universal. We ate at 50's, Sci-fi, Le Cellier, ect and still only spent about $500 for the 17 days we were on vacation. In February we used a gift card and did a DVC tour and got $45 in GC plus I had gotten gift cards to offsite places and those worked well. This time I am struggling to figure out how DS and I are going to use 40 CS meals and 40 snacks (between the two of us) and still eat at some TS that we enjoy. Looks like we will be eating breakfast out everyday which we rarely do when we are in WDW. So I am one of the I will take the plan for free people.

 

[disneyholic family]

Our first onsite trip was in May 2009. We had the buy 4 get 3 free deal. If we added the DDP it would have been almost $900 so I didn't get it. We stayed at Pop for 7 days and then stayed offsite for 7 more days and went to Universal. We ate at 50's, Sci-fi, Le Cellier, ect and still only spent about $500 for the 17 days we were on vacation. In February we used a gift card and did a DVC tour and got $45 in GC plus I had gotten gift cards to offsite places and those worked well. This time I am struggling to figure out how DS and I are going to use 40 CS meals and 40 snacks (between the two of us) and still eat at some TS that we enjoy. Looks like we will be eating breakfast out everyday which we rarely do when we are in WDW. So I am one of the I will take the plan for free people.

i see you're staying at the pop century - DD started getting up early to have a CS credit breakfast there - she really enjoyed doing that.

 

[BerrysGirl]

My DBF works at CBR in Old Port Royale and says the DDP is slowly becoming the bane of existence. Constant confusion, constant complaining, and not worth the money unless your meticulously plan every single meal.

 

[Aunt Bee]

I get the pre-paid benefit by buying a $25 or $50 Disney gift card every month or so before my trip at Kroger while doing my regular grocery shopping...a plus for me since I get 2x or even 4x the Kroger gas points and I use those giftcards for our WDW food. Another plus is that we can eat what we want...if I want an appetizer as my main meal at a sit down then it does not mess up my DDP because I have my OWN DDP...called giftcards I pre-paid for myself...lol

Now that's the most sensible thing I've read in this entire thread... What a great idea for paying ahead of time.

We are NOT dining plan people, although we've tried to make the DDP fit us more than once. Every time we ended up focusing on whether or not we were getting our money's worth and bemoaning the fact that we hadn't used all our credits and then forcing ourselves to eat meals we weren't really hungry for... It was really distracting, not to mention Over Filling.

It's really all about individual choice and what suits YOU. We're spontaneous people, not the eat 3 meals and 2 snacks by the clock types.

For us, the DDP is a waste of money, time and worrying. Now we just eat what we want whenever we are hungry with some ADR's at places we really want to eat thrown in. And, we're much happier doing it.

Aunt Bee

 

[DisneyCher]

I never got the allure of the DDP because I just don't eat in a way that makes it worth while. I don't eat dessert at every meal, I actually prefer appetizers to desserts at most restaurants, and I like to drink on vacation. And I am not concerned with getting a high CC bill the month after getting back from vacation - I can pay it off in full no probs.

If you like the convenience of pre-paying, why not just take the $$$ you'd spend on DDP and buy gift cards and whip them out anytime someone wants a meal or a snack? That way, you've already budgeted for the food and won't have sticker shock when you get home.

I understand that for larger families, it can be a better value to get free DDP over a room discount, and I might consider looking into that if/when the option ever presented itself. But it would still take a lot of calculating to see if it would even be worth it, given how I like to eat/tour WDW.

 

[Colleen27]

Now that's the most sensible thing I've read in this entire thread... What a great idea for paying ahead of time.

We are NOT dining plan people, although we've tried to make the DDP fit us more than once. Every time we ended up focusing on whether or not we were getting our money's worth and bemoaning the fact that we hadn't used all our credits and then forcing ourselves to eat meals we weren't really hungry for... It was really distracting, not to mention Over Filling.

It's really all about individual choice and what suits YOU. We're spontaneous people, not the eat 3 meals and 2 snacks by the clock types.

That's really what it boils down to.

We don't worry about getting our money's worth out of the plan, but I know myself well enough to know that no matter how much I budget for dining I couldn't just ignore the menu prices. It is one thing to figure the cost of a dining plan (DxDDP for us) into the total package cost, but quite another to sit down and order a $3 iced tea and a $16 crab cake followed by a $35 piece of fish... I know I'd be drinking tap water and skipping the appetizers and balking at my light-eater middle child wanting to try "exotic" items off the adult menu when I know she'll eat about 1/3 of what she's served. Having the plan is freeing for us; I do enough math before we book to be reasonably sure we're making the right choice for the way we like to eat on vacation, and then I don't give a single thought to prices or value while we're actually at WDW.

 

[disneybound31]

Now that's the most sensible thing I've read in this entire thread... What a great idea for paying ahead of time.

We are NOT dining plan people, although we've tried to make the DDP fit us more than once. Every time we ended up focusing on whether or not we were getting our money's worth and bemoaning the fact that we hadn't used all our credits and then forcing ourselves to eat meals we weren't really hungry for... It was really distracting, not to mention Over Filling.

It's really all about individual choice and what suits YOU. We're spontaneous people, not the eat 3 meals and 2 snacks by the clock types.

For us, the DDP is a waste of money, time and worrying. Now we just eat what we want whenever we are hungry with some ADR's at places we really want to eat thrown in. And, we're much happier doing it.

Aunt Bee

Why, thank you for that! I never thought I would get such a thrill out of being called "sensible", but I loved it!!

It just really works for us- and since every reciept prints out how much is left on that particular gift card there is no guess work involved or calling the 800 number on the back to check (which I still do sometimes anyway after everyone else has gone to bed and I am organizing for the next day! lol)

Another bonus for me is that I just love buying something with a cute Disney character on it every other week or every month...I get a different one each time- I love Snow White, DD loves Pluto, I get Mickey or Donal for DS and so on...they like to look through my stash to see who I have 'saved' up fo rour trip.

Right now I have a Toy Story 3, Disney Princesses, 2 Plutos and a Rainforest Cafe/Landrys (that last one is $65 I earned for free thru MyPoints emails-took about 5months, but hey, it gets me and DD9 a free lunch at Yak and Yeti AK AND a free dinner at Rainforest Cafe AK!)

 

[crostorfer]

That's really what it boils down to.

We don't worry about getting our money's worth out of the plan, but I know myself well enough to know that no matter how much I budget for dining I couldn't just ignore the menu prices. It is one thing to figure the cost of a dining plan (DxDDP for us) into the total package cost, but quite another to sit down and order a $3 iced tea and a $16 crab cake followed by a $35 piece of fish... I know I'd be drinking tap water and skipping the appetizers and balking at my light-eater middle child wanting to try "exotic" items off the adult menu when I know she'll eat about 1/3 of what she's served. Having the plan is freeing for us; I do enough math before we book to be reasonably sure we're making the right choice for the way we like to eat on vacation, and then I don't give a single thought to prices or value while we're actually at WDW.

 

[crostorfer]

I tried the gift card thing one trip, instead of the DxDP. My daughter and I went for 6 days, just me and my abnormally tiny 8 year old. I put $500 on a Disney gift card. We had 2 character breakfasts for TS reservations. That's it. We blew through that card in 4 days. Now, we ate 3 meal and a couple of snacks a day people, and you can see from my avatar pic, we aren't large people either. It was after that trip that I decided I would never go without deluxe again.

Kudos to the poster who didnt spend over $500 for a couple weeks or however long it was. We spent nearly $700 for 6 days, just the two of us on mostly CS.