I'm looking both sides of DDP...pos & neg

[KKB]

Just booked rooms for our first WDW trip w/ family at nice discount.
Did not yet book DDP...I keep going back & forth.
It would add $220/day...generally we are not huge eaters(rarely order appetizers, entrees & desserts when out...usually entrees only) Last time at WDW, DH & I often just had kid's meals as they were the right portion size; or we would split meals. But the boys can be human garbage disposals....

We would not be ones to spend big bucks to eat at sit down spots at WDW. Don't want to spend time or $ there. Kids would rather eat kid fare anyway.
So in-room snacks,(we could easily do breakfast in the room), counter meals are fine.
But if we are going to be there a week, on site, I might need a sit down meal or two! And it does sound like a very good deal. $220/day seems like a lot, but it is 7 people. I just can't believe we adults would eat $40/day.

I'd like to hear both sides..those who felt they would have spent MORE if they had NOT used DDP, and those who felt they would have spent more if they HAD.

Thanks,
Your research queen...

 

[momof2disprincesses]

Here's my 2 cents as we've done several trips to WDW with and without the ddp.

Before the ddp, we just focused on the parks. I did not realize what great restaurants WDW has! After the ddp, I now see, a WDW trip can be about both the parks and the great food. There is a lot of great food at WDW!!!

That being said, you can certainly "do" WDW without spending a fortune on food, but you will eat mostly fast food and a lot of the same foods.

With the ddp, you will discover a whole new side to WDW and your planning of a trip. I personally LOVE doing research on restaurants, looking at the menus, making ADR's and touring plans, etc.

The definite "pros" the ddp include:

• Not having to worry about how much a meal will cost
• Having all your taxes & tips included
• Eating at some of WDW best restaurants
• Finding some GREAT fun places to eat (50's PTC, WCC, HDDR, O'Hana, etc.)

The definite "cons" include:

• Paying up front - if you don't have trip insurance and if something happens, you don't get a refund (or you do if you try really hard - see my other post here)
• Having to plan your park touring around meals
• Not being able to go to all the restaurants you want (for example, we miss Rainforest & Ghardelli's when we're on ddp)

You'll get other thoughts here too. Take it all to heart and decide what will work best for your family!

Good luck and let us know what you decide.

Also, if you do decide to get it, make sure to read reviews here to help you pick your TS restaurants!!

 

[MrsG]

You don't say how old your boys are. I remember one year after we came back from Disney, we couldn't figure out why we spent so much money on food. Then we realized that the kids weren't eating off the kid menu any more and they ordered adult sized meals. If they are large eaters, I'm sure they wouldn't mind a little extra that came with your meal for free.

Just a thought!

 

[The Sweetness]

As far as I know, if you took a discounted room, you are not allowed to buy the DDP

 

[pezpam]

Sweetness is right. Unless you're renting from a DVC member and they make the arrangements, you can only get the DDP as part of a package, not with a room-only reservation. That means rack rate on the room unless you find a package discount......

 

[NDAMomX2]

We have taken two trips using the DDP. The first trip was with a group of 12. I felt like we saved so much money using the DDP that trip. No whining from little ones about "so and so got a 'special' drink and I didnt" or "so and so got a dessert and I didnt." Everything was equal and children knew that they got their snack of choice a day. (The refillable mugs really helped us out too) Howevor, this past trip was just the immediate family. The four of us truely felt like we had too much food! My youngest DD could have lived on appiteizers alone. I think we would have missed the snack options and security of the DDP if we didnt have it. We did end up with 4 leftover CS credits and 12 leftover snack credits on our last day (How did we manage 12 snacks?!) But that makes for last CS parting meal at the resort and alot of snacks for the plane! I think the DDP is worth the value, only 35 or so (I dont know the exact price) dollars a day for CS, TS, and snack, for most families food costs more than that a day. I would have the dessert boxed up to go and eat it for breakfast the nest morning. I have read on here that at least one resteraunt frowns upon you doing that. (You never know untill you ask) Then you are getting three meals a day. Good luck with your decision!

 

[chrismom2005]

i'm thinking about doing a split stay and getting dining plan for only half because i dont want to do a sit down everyday but if you are going to do a sit down then the plan is a value.

 

[JimMIA]

I think it's important to evaluate DDP one of two ways.

Either it fits your normal dining pattern or it doesn't. We ALWAYS do a nice dinner or a character meal each day, so DDP fits us beautifully.

If you don't do sit-down, it will be hard to justify DDP. You might want to consider other options, like DDE or some other discount plan. DDP is not for everyone.

The other way to look at it is the "broadening my horizons" strategy as outlined by momof2disprincesses above, Personally, I think that's a strategy that's best appreciated after enjoying it, rather than before the fact, but there certainly is some pretty good dining at Disney.

 

[yankeepenny]

with us two adults, my first time last year, the DP was perfect! we saved several hundred on meals, eveything is paid in advance, and we did not starve in any way.
i enjoyed picking the evening TS, and it was worth it.
(just my two cents)

 

[abaldacci]

We have done it 2 times now and it worked out great this time DS will be ten and is a hardy eater but still is full off the childs menu so. I was talking to my DH about where we were going to eat on vacation and tanner chimed in not at the ball (planet Hollywood) I don't want to order of the adult menu and I don't like there kids menu. So I ask him you don't want to eat off the adult menu and he said NOOOOOOOO. So now I don't even know if we are going to keep it unless i can find another way to use his credits and pay out of pocket for him.

 

[jillyjoey]

Cons:
1. Yes it does cost a lot of money up front
2. Yes you probably don't always order appetizers and desserts with every meal
3. Yes you probably don't need to eat a TS meal every day

PROS:
1. You have it all paid for YeA!!!
2. You get an appetizer and dessert and don't have to worry about it if you don't eat it Yea !!!!
3. Your kids get an appetizer and dessert and you don't have to worry about it if they don't eat it Yea !!!
4. You can do all character meals and not have to wait in line at the parks so your kids to meet the characters Yea!! from DH
5. If you do eat this way normally it really saves you money YEa!
6. This was way better than me sneaking in my canned tuna and only buying the other 3 their meals Yea for me !!!!!
7. Better than eating pb & J in the room Yea
8. Get to try so many restaurants -- some are just as entertaining as the attractions (Ohana/ Teppanyaki)
9. Now this is what a vacation is about -- no worries Yea !!!! It's all paid for and decided before you go

and the best part -- we had so many snack credits left over we brought back a bag of Mickey cookies and rice crispie treats so the magic lived on!!!! Yea!!!

 

[desertbloom]

We are going in March and it will be our first time using the DDP. DH and I debated on whether we should get the DDP or not for quite a while before booking our trip. The reasons we finally decided to do it were: We could pay for our food up front so it made it easier to keep track of our spending. We wouldn't have to carry as much cash around. (Just enough for emergencies and we could charge purchases in gift shops to our room.). We would normally go offsite for sit down meals and I feel it takes even more time away from the park than a sit down meal in the park. We are also right to left menu readers. We thought it would be nice for once to be able to just order whatever we want!!! No agonizing over the cost of a dessert or a milkshake and not being stuck with having to order cheeseburgers at a CS all week. No, we normally don't eat that much food every day but the ddp gives us the freedom to eat what we want. This trip is our last trip for a long time as it is getting too hard to take dd out of school now that she is in middle school. So this time we are splurging. (well, for us the ddp is a splurge... I dunno about the rest of you...lol).

 

[MSSANDRA]

A good question to ask...

When you are on vacation so you eat to live OR live to eat??? We live to eat on vacation and eating nice meals is a very important part of the trip.

We have done it both ways and love the DDP. We used our credits wisely and never paid anything out of pocket the entire week. Ds who is quite picky tried a lot of new things. They will work with "young adult" dinners to find something that they will like. Two places fixed my picky but big eater a simple pasta dish, adult size. They can also mix and match on the adult plan and have a desert or something off the kids menu, at least that worked for us.

 

[Amy&Dan]

We did the DDP in December. It was a lot of fun and it was a great deal. My kids are 10 and 12 and it was way too much food so sometimes we didn't order four appetizers and four desserts. Often we did and often we didn't finish our meals. In some ways it did feel like a lot of time spent eating but then again, you have to eat. And I have found some of my slowest eating experiences at CS places so eating there isn't always a quick in and out either. I liked prepaying for everything, we didn't buy one meal OOP and only a couple of snacks and only because they were things not counted as snacks. 30 of our 36 snack credits were used for water bottles since we were eating so well for our meals.

Now, for our next trip we were thinking we would not do the DDP to save money. I sat down to map out our meals. I decided we could safely say we would share 3 cs meals when we ate cs. We picked five favorite sit downs for a ten day trip. I added that we would have snacks and probably buy some water bottles. Oh, and I might add that the five meals I picked were:
O'Hana dinner
1900 Park Fare, dinner
Prime Time lunch
Sci Fi lunch
Liberty Tree Tavern
So not really your premier locations! Anyway I added up what I thought we would spend and found out that we would save about $300 for a ten day trip over doing the DDP. That was with sharing meals at cs places, only going to buffets and the cheaper sit downs and only spending something like $20 a day for snacks and water since I could always pack some of that to bring from home. $300 less or $30 a day didn't seem worth it. So we are back to the DDP and have added some of our not so cheap favorites like Wolfgang Pucks, Le Cellier, Tony's and Coral Reef. And we won't be sharing, packing a suitcase full of snacks and water bottles and can enjoy the nice places we enjoyed last time. I was surprised at how little we would have saved even with that number and caliber of ts places and sharing ts. And sharing might not have happened too well anyway since ds12 has become a garbage disposal. So that would have ended up shooting the budget to all heck anyway. And dh can get his fill of red meat and pigging out and we are all happy!

 

[perd]

Here's my reason for doing the DDP: I make all the arrangements and pay it all in advance, and then DH doesn't get grouchy or have a heart attack having to pay out of pocket during the trip. As long as it's all already paid for, and he doesn't see hundreds of dollars leaving his wallet every day, he's happy. I tell him we got a good deal, it's all paid for, just enjoy it. It would seriously ruin our trip if he was thinking every meal about how much money we were spending on food.

We have never used the DDP before but last time we went we used those vouchers (which are no longer available), and he was happy with that, knowing our meals were already paid for, and he relaxed and enjoyed it. I'm going to accomplish the same thing this time, but with the DDP! As long as he doesn't know how much it's really costing us, he will relax and have a good time and enjoy his meals.

 

[jodifla]

We don't get the DDP. It's TOO MUCH FOOD, and it would force us to eat in a way we normally wouldn't (i.e., stuff ourselves.)

It would also make us slaves to a restaurant schedule of ADRs, which we're not interested in, especially now that the DDP has forced the dumbing down of the menus, so most restaurants offer very similar, uninteresting menus.

We get the DDE. That way, we order what we want, we don't overeat (as much) and we save on our martinis, manhattans, and wine.

 

[SLDL]

I can see both sides of this discussion. When we went in Sept, dining was free so we didn't have to decide! But we are taking my parents (along with DD 17 mos. & DS 4) next month & I am still up in the air about it. We loved it last time b/c we got to try many new places that we wouldn't have usually tried. On the other hand, we had scheduled our trip so much that it wasn't spontaneous. We always had to be at a certain place at a certain time. My DH swore he would not run through Animal Kingdom like a madman again to hold our spot for breakfast w/ Donald. I think that's one reason why we won't be doing it (probably!) b/c we want to do more counter service that table service so we don't have to plan as much. I really wish we could be reimbursed for any TS credits we don't use, or if we could get 2 CS credits for a TS one. If that were the case, I would def. do it!

And I have heard some of y'all say that you liked it b/c you paid for it in advance...I'm just wondering if anyone has ever thought of getting Disney Dollars or using some type of system other than DP to budget your money for meals. As you can tell, I'm still trying to decide myself!!!!

 

[Disneynut4ever]

I would have the dessert boxed up to go and eat it for breakfast the nest morning.

Why would they care if you took it "to go?"

 

[Disneynut4ever]

We don't get the DDP. It's TOO MUCH FOOD, and it would force us to eat in a way we normally wouldn't (i.e., stuff ourselves.)

It would also make us slaves to a restaurant schedule of ADRs, which we're not interested in, especially now that the DDP has forced the dumbing down of the menus, so most restaurants offer very similar, uninteresting menus.

We get the DDE. That way, we order what we want, we don't overeat (as much) and we save on our martinis, manhattans, and wine.

What do you mean by "dumbing down on the menus?"

What is "DDE?"

 

[aubriee]

What do you mean by "dumbing down on the menus?"

What is "DDE?"[/QUOTE

Alot of (all right most people) feel that restraunts have removed alot of their signature and more expensive dishes from their menus and that the chef's are not being given the leeway to prepare alot of the things that made each restraunt so unique, due to the DDP.

DDE is the Disney Dining Experience card that Annual Pass holders and Florida residents can buy that give 20% off table service menus and 20% off CS at resorts that don't have a TS (as well as at AK--again because they also don't have a TS).