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

[Katiebell]

Intercot has a fabulous tool, a DDP Spreadsheet/Calculator. You fill in # of C and A in your group, how much you normally spend in food per day, the # of TS and CS meals you will eat at each restaurant on the DDP (there is a complete list of restaurants, I think it's programmed with an average meal price at each, and it lets you know if it's a good value for your family or not.

I found the DDP saves us a little -- we typically spend $40-$60 per person per day for vacation food. But on the DDP, we will eat much better than OOP, and get to try more fun and unusual restaurants. Yep, we could save a lot if we ate CS most of the time and had trail mix in our room for breakfast, and we've done that before when our budget was tight -- better than not going to Disney at ALL! But we really like at least one nice sit down meal a day, especially on vacation, and another small meal to help us keep up with all that walking! So the plan should work very well for us.

 

[OurDogCisco]

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.

Like where? I haven't noticed. This is only my 3rd trip to WDW. So is this something that has happened over the last few years or 10 years?

 

[aubriee]

Like where? I haven't noticed. This is only my 3rd trip to WDW. So is this something that has happened over the last few years or 10 years?

Within the last year for sure. Chef's de France replaced their filet with a hamburger and took the duck completely off the menu. Le Cellier took their big steak off the menu and moved the chocolate moose from the kid's menu to the adult menu. Spoodles took the shrimp and scallops off their menu completely, although in Sept 2005 waiters were encouraging customers to add both to the steak as they were free with the DDP. Their paella is also gone. I'm sure others can come up with more examples, but that's just a few off the top of my head.

Don't get me wrong, I'm one that loves the DDP (got it free Sept 2005, bought it May '06, got it free again Sept '06, and was able to get it free again via the bounce back program for Sept '07).

 

[jess-sarah]

Within the last year for sure. Chef's de France replaced their filet with a hamburger and took the duck completely off the menu. Le Cellier took their big steak off the menu and moved the chocolate moose from the kid's menu to the adult menu. Spoodles took the shrimp and scallops off their menu completely, although in Sept 2005 waiters were encouraging customers to add both to the steak as they were free with the DDP. Their paella is also gone. I'm sure others can come up with more examples, but that's just a few off the top of my head.

Don't get me wrong, I'm one that loves the DDP (got it free Sept 2005, bought it May '06, got it free again Sept '06, and was able to get it free again via the bounce back program for Sept '07).

I agree that the menus have declined. It looks like, with an exception of a few signature resturants, that they all serve some version of steak, salmon and pasta. We have to decided to skip DDP because:1. Too much ordinary food 2. Don't want to feel compelled to use all credits 3. We like to skip dinner and order late night room service 4. getting a AKL sav.view at $186 was a better value.
These reasons, taken together outweigh the convenience factor of DDP

 

[Katiebell]

Le Cellier took their big steak off the menu and moved the chocolate moose from the kid's menu to the adult menu.

Well, this makes perfect sense, doesn't it, since Disney Dining considers 10 year olds adults

 

[kdkbrebel]

katiebell,
Do you have a link for the ddp spreadsheet on intercot? Or can you tell me how to find it? I have checked the intercot site and can not seem to find it. thanks.

 

[Katiebell]

katiebell,
Do you have a link for the ddp spreadsheet on intercot? Or can you tell me how to find it? I have checked the intercot site and can not seem to find it. thanks.

I can't find anything in the rules regarding posting links to other sites, so it's

http://www.intercot.com/infocentral/dining/diningplan/estimator.asp

Moderators: if I have inadvertently broken a rule by posting that link, I apologize and please delete the link

And if the link disappears, it's on the Intercot board, InfoCentral, INTERCOT Disney Dining Plan Estimator. Really great tool

 

[smartestnumber5]

We just were at Disney two weeks ago and we did not do the DDP because we got an AP discount on the room (saved $161).

We ate one CS a day and one TS a day ended up paying $70 a day for food--just $8 cheaper per day than the DDP. (We did get the DDE card, but we barely made up the $60 it cost us for the card, so we haven't really saved more than a few dollars with that yet.) So it was really the room discount that decided things for us. In terms of food, I just don't see how one can do a TS meal each day and come in that much under the DDP. We actually got the cheapest entrees on the menu and sometimes just shared some appetizers and dessert, so this was a lot cheaper than it could have been if we had gotten what we really wanted at each meal.

Now it's a different story I guess if you're doing mostly CS meals, but you still might want to look at the CS menus and figure a rough idea of what you'd eat each day. For us, our CS meals generally averaged $8 to $10 a person. Snacks each day added up to between $8 and $12 between us. And then we spent another probably $5 between us a day for things like milk for breakfast, coffee if one of us needed caffeine while we were out, raisin bran when we needed some fiber --things that just kind of came up. So I think if we had done dinner CS instead of TS and kept everything else the same, we'd possibly be hitting $40/day on CS meals, $12/day snacks, and $5/day misc = $57 a day. So only a $20 savings (per two people) from the DDP with no TS meals at all.

 

[kdkbrebel]

Thanks alot katiebell.

 

[3dog2kidmom]

to the DDP!

Last Christmas we used it (about $400 for 2A and 2C for 4 nights) and while it was a lot of food, it was SO nice not to have to worry about what everyone ordered and stick to a strict budget.

This January we were on a land/sea package and could not get the DDP. For 4 nights we spent well over $500 and that was with me policing what everyone ordered, limiting drinks with meals to water most times, sharing desserts, not buying any snacks, and having breakfast cereal or bars of some sort in the room (not included in the $500+ estimate).

If we ever do a cruise + WDW together again, I will book it separately to get the plan. We like to eat TS, so that may make a difference for you.