How would u eat w/o DDP?

[OurDogCisco]

I love Disney food. Oh, I've found a few exceptions. (putting on flame-retardant suit) Like Boma. Not my cup of tea, but when people start praising it, I just go to the next post.
On eating off-site: The most valuable commodity in all of Florida to me is park time. Going off-site means loss of park time. I always make time to eat at at least 1 resort, but usually on AK day or near the park we're at that day. But as much as I love NY Pizza in Kissimmee, I'll make do with the decent large pizzas at POP.

Exactly... I totally agree. I was just trying to sympathize with that person. I've never had a problem with the food except a few meals. I definitely have my favorites and least favorite restaurants but there is no way I would waste park time to hunt for better food. So, I totally agree with you so no need for flame retardant suit from me. Personally, I think, the reason people go offsite is because they can't stomach the prices. But I'm from California so a lot of these prices seem normal to me, unfortunately.

 

[cymbaldiva]

Another problem with eating off site is the fact we would need to rent a car. Car rentals are very expensive in Florida. Not sure why. In fact it is cheaper to rent a car in Hawaii than Florida. I'm not going to pay $400 plus for car rental so I can eat off site. One time we stayed off site and getting in and out of MK took a lot of time.

Not sure what your length of stay or party size are, but BFF and I always rent a car - we stay on property but dealing with Disney transportation is too big a waste of time! We rent a midsize car for about $150 for the week - we've never used it to eat off property, but it's worth it just to not have to deal with the buses; even helped with us to make our resort restaurant ADRs

Back to the OPs question - DDP isn't something I like to do because I don't want to waste park time waiting for a ehhh meal at a TS restaurant. Also, I wouldn't order dessert at most CS places so there's no value there.

There are a couple of TS places I like - love the fried chicken at 50s Prime Time, still a fan of both Boma and Ohana. Otherwise? I'm fine with breakfast in the room, counter service and snacking thru the trip.

 

[Mamu]

We have never done the DDP or FD. When staying on site I always choose the discounts over dining.

We do an adult trip in March with friends and stay at Westgate. We usually have our dinners at one of Disney's Signature Restaurants.

We stay on site with family and usually do CL and choose a discount over the DDP. We were their in September with 8 of our children and grandchildren and stayed at Sugarloaf. Discounts for that trip were over $3000. Rooms and food. We have Annual Passes and a Table in Wonderland Card.

We ate breakfast every day at the lodge, have TS lunches (Crystal Place, T-Rex, Sci Fi, Rain Forest Cafe and Via Napoli) in the park and CS for dinner. We do return to our resort for the afternoon. We swim or rest while little ones nap. We take advantage of the evening offerings then head to the park thats open late for resort guest and will have a counter serve meal at the park. We keep very late hours at Disney so were slow movers in the morning.

We will be returning in May with my DS and his Family and we are staying at BWI CL so the same plan for meals will apply, although I did book a few dinners this time besides lunches.

 

[OurDogCisco]

Not sure what your length of stay or party size are, but BFF and I always rent a car - we stay on property but dealing with Disney transportation is too big a waste of time! We rent a midsize car for about $150 for the week - we've never used it to eat off property, but it's worth it just to not have to deal with the buses; even helped with us to make our resort restaurant ADRs

Back to the OPs question - DDP isn't something I like to do because I don't want to waste park time waiting for a ehhh meal at a TS restaurant. Also, I wouldn't order dessert at most CS places so there's no value there.

There are a couple of TS places I like - love the fried chicken at 50s Prime Time, still a fan of both Boma and Ohana. Otherwise? I'm fine with breakfast in the room, counter service and snacking thru the trip.

I've never seen a $150 for week. WOW... what a deal. The only time I can get a really good deal if I use Hertz located at Shades of Green but it is such a hassle getting to and from there. We usually travel Summer, Thanksgiving or Christmas week. Please send me a link to the $150 deal because I must be doing something wrong with my car rentals. Our trips are usually 10 days plus.

 

[Planogirl]

We prefer to eat TS for lunch and then CS or whatever for dinner. I doubt that we'll ever get any of the dining plans though because I can't eat that much and DS would eat only CS if he could. We don't eat appetizers or desserts so that part doesn't matter so much.

We also drive so we can eat wherever we wish offsite too.

 

[eliza61]

I've never seen a $150 for week. WOW... what a deal. The only time I can get a really good deal if I use Hertz located at Shades of Green but it is such a hassle getting to and from there. We usually travel Summer, Thanksgiving or Christmas week. Please send me a link to the $150 deal because I must be doing something wrong with my car rentals. Our trips are usually 10 days plus.

ODC, try Kayak.com. I just booked a 9 day car (Hyundai accent or Ford Focus) for 210 bucks including tax. We are going the last 9 days in August. the 23rd until the 31st. That's a little less than 30 bucks a day.

http://www.kayak.com/r/e_Qaud

I may also try price line, name your own price.

 

[2binak]

We usually have a TS ADR everyday, but we don't get the dining plan. We've found that we would just break even if we did. We don't normally eat desserts with our meal and we like the flexibility of being able to cancel an ADR if need be without the pressure of having to make it up on another day or lose the money.

 

[Bradsdadg]

I'm having the DDP dilemma for our next trip in August. We have never tried it before, but were thinking about it. Crunching the numbers we would be right around the same or have to pay a little bit more on the DDP. So the only reason for us to do it is the convienence of paying ahead of time. Though I don't think they include the tip. Another problem I have with the DDP is that 3 of the places we want to go to, 2 are double credit meals, which would not be a good value at all. And one isn't on the DDP so it would have to be OOP.

We keep going back and forth with this, but I think we will end up not getting the DDP yet again. Maybe someday it will be worth it, I don't know...

As far as how we eat, we pretty much just get a meal and eat. No apps or dessert. Maybe once or twice that week we will get dessert, but we aren't big on those. It would change on the DDP since it is included.

 

[OurDogCisco]

ODC, try Kayak.com. I just booked a 9 day car (Hyundai accent or Ford Focus) for 210 bucks including tax. We are going the last 9 days in August. the 23rd until the 31st. That's a little less than 30 bucks a day.

http://www.kayak.com/r/e_Qaud

I may also try price line, name your own price.

I did that. Actually, I'm pretty savvy at getting good rates either through using a mousesaver coupon or Costco coupon, etc. We are 4 people and the original poster said that they get a mid-size car for $150 for the week (I'm assuming that includes taxes and fees). We are going at the end of June and I did Kayak for 7 days and nothing was under $40 a day. So, that would be around $40 X 7 = 280 and then, you need to add the taxes and fees. We go during peak season. To me by end of August everyone is back in school so, it can be considered a slower time.

 

[OurDogCisco]

I'm having the DDP dilemma for our next trip in August. We have never tried it before, but were thinking about it. Crunching the numbers we would be right around the same or have to pay a little bit more on the DDP. So the only reason for us to do it is the convienence of paying ahead of time. Though I don't think they include the tip. Another problem I have with the DDP is that 3 of the places we want to go to, 2 are double credit meals, which would not be a good value at all. And one isn't on the DDP so it would have to be OOP.

We keep going back and forth with this, but I think we will end up not getting the DDP yet again. Maybe someday it will be worth it, I don't know...

As far as how we eat, we pretty much just get a meal and eat. No apps or dessert. Maybe once or twice that week we will get dessert, but we aren't big on those. It would change on the DDP since it is included.

In your case I wouldn't get it if you don't eat dessert. We use to save our desserts for breakfast the next day if possible. But when we did DDP it included an appetizer and tax & tip. Now, it doesn't. Also, our kids are 10 and 13 and using the plan for them is a waste most of the time. My 10 year old still orders kids' meals.

 

[Minnesota!]

We are coming up on our first trip using the DDP. And only using it because it was "free" - which in our situation saved us almost $1000 over our previous package/booked trip.

Anyway, we never do a sit down everyday, and at our few sit downs we do (usually Boma, Ohana, and one of the WS restaurants), we do just the meal. MAYBE a appetizer to share (like DH gets soup and I get a taste ha ha!), and then the meal. The only desserts we eat are at buffets or like Ohana where it comes with.

I think we will have way too much food. I foresee taking lots of desserts "to go" and having them for breakfast the next day.

 

[rndmr2]

Lots of talk about eating with free dining on these boards. If you did not have the DDP, do you still eat desserts? Do you still have TS meals?

Myself, this will be my first trip on the DDP. I have only ever eaten one TS meal and that was @ Sci-Fi. And most of what I ate were small snacks here and there.

In a couple of weeks I am going to Disney and looking forward to stuffing my face with the DDP. This is the first WDW trip that I am looking forward to eating and forgetting about calorie counting.

Is it a good thing?

When I would go with my parents we would usually do all CS meals maybe one or two TS meals for the whole trip. (a character meal or HDDR usually) When I went with DH the first time that was how it was too, sometimes we had dessert, sometimes not. Last trip we had the QSDP and the $500 gift card deal that we used for TS meals and we had a TS meal every day.

I like the TS meals but if we did not have the dining plan or the GC that we had, we definitely would not do that many TS meals.

 

[DonaldTDuck]

Exactly... I totally agree. I was just trying to sympathize with that person. I've never had a problem with the food except a few meals. I definitely have my favorites and least favorite restaurants but there is no way I would waste park time to hunt for better food. So, I totally agree with you so no need for flame retardant suit from me. Personally, I think, the reason people go offsite is because they can't stomach the prices. But I'm from California so a lot of these prices seem normal to me, unfortunately.

The flame retardant suit was because Boma fans get so upset when someone disses Boma.
As far as car rentals, try Hotwire.com. We used them for our Disneyland trip in '08 and got a full sized car, an Impala, for $129 for the week. They don't tell you what specific vehicle or which agency you'll get, but we got that through Hertz. Our Impala had less than 400 miles on it.

 

[Colleen27]

ODC, try Kayak.com. I just booked a 9 day car (Hyundai accent or Ford Focus) for 210 bucks including tax. We are going the last 9 days in August. the 23rd until the 31st. That's a little less than 30 bucks a day.

http://www.kayak.com/r/e_Qaud

I may also try price line, name your own price.

Well, there's why you're more willing than I am to go off site - there's 5 or 6 of us, depending on the trip, with one in a car seat. A rental for us pretty much has to be a minivan or full sized SUV so we NEVER get rates like that! When we looked into it for our last trip the best I could find after searching Kayak and Priceline and checking all the Mousesavers links/codes was just over $700 for the week.

 

[OurDogCisco]

The flame retardant suit was because Boma fans get so upset when someone disses Boma.
As far as car rentals, try Hotwire.com. We used them for our Disneyland trip in '08 and got a full sized car, an Impala, for $129 for the week. They don't tell you what specific vehicle or which agency you'll get, but we got that through Hertz. Our Impala had less than 400 miles on it.

I've done Hotwire too. Right now there is nothing on Hotwire for $150 for a week. I just plugged in my dates and I got:

$34.95 per day

$321.83 total*
silkCarTypeName2:Mid-size car Hotwire Hot Rate Location
In Terminal Miles
Unlimited Seating
4 adults Cargo
1 large, 2 small suitcase
Models
Mazda 6 or similar**

The economy quoted me as follows:

$30.95 per day

$290.50 total*
silkCarTypeName0:Economy car Hotwire Hot Rate Location
In Terminal Miles
Unlimited Seating
2 adults, 2 children Cargo
1 large, 1 small suitcase
Models
Chevy Aveo, Hyundai Accent, or similar**

I think, maybe once in a blue moon people find awesome deals but I really haven't seen anything in the $150 range. Maybe it is because you travel during non-peak times. But anyways, by time you add gas to a mid-size car you are at $400. This is be my last post about it but I just wanted to prove my point.

Also, if you went to Disneyland those prices would be different from Florida

 

[cymbaldiva]

It could be the difference in travel dates on the car rental; we travel at the end of August. My bff is the one that found the rate for the car ~ she is a total rock star at finding the deals!