I must be missing something--what's so great about the dining plan?

[Fargoman2]

There must be something appealing about it--otherwise so many people wouldn't purchase that option.

Paying RACK RATES for your room instantly totally negates the value for me. It surely appears to me that paying RACK RATES at ANY hotel EATS UP all of the Dining savings and then some.

So, the moral of the story is: if you have access to any discounts at WDW hotels, go that route and forget the rack rate/dining combo. Correct?

 

[DisOrBust]

That is what I also concluded. I know it sounds so tempting "ordering anything" however do you really need a dessert at every counter service and a App and dessert at every TS? There are some sorry desserts offered at CS that I don't want to waste calories on. If you take thoose away are you really saving????

Then in our case we have a 11yo, thus per WDW an adult. No way will she eat Dessert and App at every TS? It would be an incredible waste of food.

Then add in AP room rate and DDE and the answer IMHO is obvious... .

However if AP holder EVER get to add the DP like DVC does I will be singing a different tune

 

[Chuck S]

Even without paying rack rate (DVC), it really depends upon your dining habits as to whether the plan works for you. For my party of two adults we save more using the DDE rather than the dining plan. Of course, if you normally eat appetizer, entree and dessert every meal, I could see the savings. Or if you are traveling with children under 10.

 

[pennyplanner]

We had a code and did the dining package.

Throw in two adventurous eating bottomless pit teenage boys to the mix and it turned out to be a wonderful savings for us!

--penny

 

[lillygator]

HOW did you have a code and a dining package?

 

[PrincessAurora]

Finding out if this is worth it to you involves math. You need to figure out how much your trip costs, how much your family would spend for food with tax and tip, where you would eat, what discounts you would get, etc.

I only travel with adults, we mainly eat in signature and table service places only, we get our rooms with a package and have free airfare.

Then figure out how much the dining plan costs per person and compare that to your dining habits. I use the menus on Debs site as a guide. I pretty much figure out ahead of times, where I am eating, what looks good that I would order and how much it costs. Anal? Yes. But this is how I figure out if it is worth it to me.

Next trip I am also figurnig if it is worth it to me to get an AP, get DDE and how that would work with Rack Rates OR a package.

Bottom line, if you have kids and you mainly eat counter service with breakfast in your room - dining plan will probably NOT be a good deal for you.

 

[PrincessTrisha]

You can get the AAA discount on the room and still get the dining plan.

Also, when Disney offered discounts last fall/winter (room only and package) you were able to get a discount on the room and get the dining plan.

From my point of view, no I don't necessarily get a big discount on my room rate, instead I get a big discount on my meals (we enjoy restaurants like PH, Le Cellier and Alfredo's and prefer to order higher end entrees if cost is not an issue).

I don't drink and I enough CS just as much as table service and generally travel in a group of three adults and after doing some calculations, I found that the AP/DDE is not the best deal for me and my family. For us, It's the small discount on the room and the dining plan (or for my may trip - renting dvc points and dp).

 

[winniedapooh]

Even without paying rack rate (DVC), it really depends upon your dining habits as to whether the plan works for you. For my party of two adults we save more using the DDE rather than the dining plan. Of course, if you normally eat appetizer, entree and dessert every meal, I could see the savings. Or if you are traveling with children under 10.

I agree with you here...we have been going back and forth for our upcoming October trip and frankly I think we save more with DDE. I love that little card! We do not eat all that food, DS and his friend will not eat all that food and I don't like to waste either. If we really wanted to think of it as pre-paid I just buy Disney Dollars...works for us!

 

[mickeywho?]

We used it on our last trip and found we saved over $400 over the week. Having two kids at $11ea per day was a no brainer - even being picky eaters they still managed to enjoy the buffets and two dinner shows at a much better price that paying out of pocket.
If you are planning on eating a TS meal every day it's probably worth it. If not, then find something else to spend the money on - I'm sure you'll think of something!

 

[tashast]

For us, this is our first trip to Disney. Since it is our honeymoon, I wanted to be able to eat at fancy places, try new foods & not think about how much it is costing me at the time. I tend to back away from more expensive things on a menu if I have never tried them before. This way, if I don't like something, I would feel to bad about it & if I order something expensive, I won't feel guilty. Hope this makes sense - it is a Friday and my brain cells are frozen.

 

[sweetiepapeetie]

We're going with the dining plan because of the same reason as the previous post......If I had to pay at the time we ate I would opt for cheaper meals, and no extras, even if I had the money to pay for it! I think this way allows for me to not worry about how much the stuff on the menu costs, and gives us the opportunity to try new things! If it wasn't for the dining plan I wouldn't have put all this time into researching the restaurants and the menus! This from a girl who orders a cheeseburger everywhere (Princess Aurora now depises me! ) simply because I can't make a desicion!

Amanda

 

[kisertn]

I agree with you here...we have been going back and forth for our upcoming October trip and frankly I think we save more with DDE. I love that little card! We do not eat all that food, DS and his friend will not eat all that food and I don't like to waste either. If we really wanted to think of it as pre-paid I just buy Disney Dollars...works for us!

What is "DDE"?


Nevermind, I just looked it up. All these ins and outs of pricing just make my head swim. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this existed. Well, at least I am Disney's favorite customer from 2/26- 3/5. I did get a AAA discount on my room, and my mother was able to get a military discount on the tickets ~10%. But the food bill I am looking at for 3 adults and one child for 9 days is almost as large as the lodging. 20% off sounds nice, but methinks I just break even if I race to get an AP and then the DDE. Oh well.

 

[mommykds]

We have the dining plan & a AAA discount.

This August we will be using the dining package for our family of 5. (2 adults, 1 10 year old, & 2 kids under 9). Based on where we would like to eat I worked it out that it would cost at least $150 per day (w/o tax & tip) to eat at WDW...The dining plan costs $138 per day so pver 10 days it will save us at least $120.

 

[deelam]

We also got it through AAA. I think it's a deal for us, because we have sit down dinners planned everyday.

 

[erikthewise]

The advantage is that you get to pay for your meals in advance and restrict your choices while doing so. What more could you ask for?

 

[deelam]

The advantage is that you get to pay for your meals in advance and restrict your choices while doing so. What more could you ask for?

How are your choices restricted? Do you mean by having to be at restaurants at certain times on certain days? If so, Don't you have to pre-book many restaurants anyway?

 

[erikthewise]

How are your choices restricted? Do you mean by having to be at restaurants at certain times on certain days? If so, Don't you have to pre-book many restaurants anyway?

Your choices are restricted in that you need to eat on the average one TS meal and one CS meal per day. If you want to eat 2 TS meals per day, or one every other day (both perfectly reasonable things to do), the dining plan isn't going to work well for you. On our recent trip we had 13 TS meals, 3 CS meals and virtually no snacks. And at none of the TS meals did any of us eat an appetizer, entree, and dessert at the same meal. If we were on the dining plan the only way we could have eaten this way is by paying a lot extra. In that sense the dining plan would have substantially restricted our choices. As it turned out by using our DDE card we paid almost exactly for these meals what we would have paid for the Dining Plan.

Of course if the dining plan scheme is pretty much what you wanted to do anyway, there is no problem. But for many people it causes them to adjust their plans and eating habits to fit the terms of the plan. Not a criticism of the plan itself, which I think is reasonable.

 

[deelam]

I though we could save our credits up. Like if we skipped snacks we could get a bunch to go our last day. The same with CS-I thought they carried over. You are saying they don't?

I actually have a TS breakfast at Chef Mickey's and a dinner that night at WC. Will I have to pay cash even if I have the extra credits?

 

[erikthewise]

I though we could save our credits up. Like if we skipped snacks we could get a bunch to go our last day. The same with CS-I thought they carried over. You are saying they don't?

I actually have a TS breakfast at Chef Mickey's and a dinner that night at WC. Will I have to pay cash even if I have the extra credits?

I'm not saying that at all -- you will be fine, as only the total number of credits used in each category has to add up.

For us, eating 13 TS meals in 8 days would have meant we would have had to pay cash for five of them regardless. And we would have wasted a huge number of CS and snack credits. If instead we had eaten 4 TS and 12 CS, the dining plan would have been a huge waste of money and we would have had to pay cash for 4 of the CS meals. That's what I mean by restrictions.

 

[BikeFan]

I though we could save our credits up. Like if we skipped snacks we could get a bunch to go our last day. The same with CS-I thought they carried over. You are saying they don't?

I actually have a TS breakfast at Chef Mickey's and a dinner that night at WC. Will I have to pay cash even if I have the extra credits?

You can do as you describe. You'll have all your TS and CS credits available to you when you check in, and you can use them at whatever rate you desire. You're not locked in to 1 TS and 1 CS meal per day. You can do 2 TS's one day and 2 CS's the next, or whatever. At least that's how it worked for us on our Sept-Oct. '05. Enjoy!