IS DDP worth $672?

[autismgoesdisney]

It would cost my family of five $672 to upgrade from free dining to Deluxe DDP. I am wondering if its worth it???

 

[JoseCSS]

Can you clarify what you mean by upgrade free dining to DDP? Technically free dining is the same as the DDP if you are staying at a moderate or deluxe. If you are staying at a value then free dining is the QSDP and you would need to upgrade...in this situation you may look at how much it would cost to move to a moderate resort.

 

[autismgoesdisney]

We would be staying at a mod, which gives you free dining BUT if we wanted to upgrade to deluxe it would cost us $672 for our family of five (I heard it was $33 a day to upgrade for an adult and $10 per child to upgrade).

Is it worth it to upgrade for the deluxe dining plan of 3 meals a day and 2 snacks?

 

[JoseCSS]

Personally, the DxDP is only worth it if you eat like a horse. Last time we went we kept it simple with the QSDP and were stuffed from the day we got there.

 

[autismgoesdisney]

Personally, the DxDP is only worth it if you eat like a horse. Last time we went we kept it simple with the QSDP and were stuffed from the day we got there.

We would be using it for signature dining and for the dinner shows. They are all two dining credits so really it would only be two table meals a day.

 

[canopynut66]

It would cost my family of five $672 to upgrade from free dining to Deluxe DDP. I am wondering if its worth it???

If your at a moderate and get free dining that is MYWD( 1 CS 1 TS and snack per day) and if your at a value you get quick service so we upgrade to MYWD and the charge is $11 per adult and nothing to upgrade kids under 9. It would be more to upgrade to DXDP.. and not sure where your staying. we tried that one year and was way to much food. then another year tried it as wanted to do dinner shows and more signatures. but normally MYWD works for us

 

[Cafeen]

Considering I'm paying ~$700 for DxDDP for my solo trip (9 nights, not using Free DDP), I'd say it is. However, that's me and it differs for everyone.

If you're planning on doing about 2 TS per night of stay, and you're going to use most of the entitlements (App, Entree, Dessert, Drink) at each meal, then it should work out for you.

Now, it's a bit of an investment and will take a bit of time both planning it all out, as well as actually dining.

Some key things to note are:

• Don't feel you have to use ALL your credits. Unlike QSDP and DDP, DxDDP breaks even pretty early (~75% spent at TS and 25% unused, or ~66% at TS with 33% at CS).
• If you're on the upper end of the credits used, don't worry about skipping some entitlements if you don't want them. Since it breaks even so early, you're unlikely to wipe out your full savings by skipping a few desserts or apps.
• 2 TS a day is plenty for most people, and this allows you to toss in quite a few signature restaurants.
• 2 credit meals can still save you money unlike DDP. This is due to the "cost per credit" as well as the increased entitlements per credit. It's much easier to hit a $52 meal at a signature with an App, Entree, Dessert, and Drink than it is to hit a $64 meal at the same signature with just an Entree, Dessert, and Drink.
• Space meals further apart than normal. 3 courses is large and you won't be hungry as early.
• Don't worry about squeezing every penny out of the snack credits. I usually aim for items worth more then $2.50-$3.00, and don't sweat about getting the absolute best value.

So, again, if your intentions are to eat as the plan is designed, then chances are you're going to come out ahead. Also, with the Free DDP removing about half of the cost (though, some is spent through higher room costs), then it's even more forgiving than it already is.

However, if you're a lighter eater, or your family doesn't want to spend as much time at TS locations, it may not be a good choice.

We would be using it for signature dining and for the dinner shows. They are all two dining credits so really it would only be two table meals a day.

I type too slow, to quoting this here too

In this case, then most likely you'll be just fine and not be wasting money .

In reality, 2TS/1CS or 1 single/1 2credit meal is probably the best idea for most people using it, and you can still come out way ahead with that method.

 

[DisFam11]

We always upgrade to Deluxe Dining (and we don't eat like horses). We do 1 or 2 signature meals. But when you go early and stay out late and do a lot of walking you need 3 meals some days.

 

[habsfan71]

We upgraded to the Deluxe Dining Package. Our main reason for upgrading was due to the fact that 3 of our suppers count as 2 credits. This means that on many days we will only be using 2 meal credits + 2 snack credits. I think this will work well for us, but I'm sure it depends on the situation.

 

[havoc315]

It would cost my family of five $672 to upgrade from free dining to Deluxe DDP. I am wondering if its worth it???

Depends how you plan to use it.
For me, it would come down to this...

For $672.. I'm eating Lunch TS instead of CS.
I'm eating 2-credit signature dinners instead of 1-credit regular TS.
I'm getting some appetizers thrown in.

I'm paying about $550 for a family of 4 to upgrade, and it's worth it for me.
Free dining was the only available discount, so of course I took it.
If I stayed on the basic DDP, I would have paid for quite a few meals OOP, and I would have wasted quite a few CS meals. (We don't like to eat CS often).
So for my family of 4..
What's the value of a TS lunch instead of a CS lunch? Hard to measure, as not sure how many CS lunches we would have skipped and paid OOP for lunch instead. But purely mathematically, the TS Dx lunch is worth about $15 more per adult, and $5 more per child... so about $40 per day.
And the 2-credit signature dinner with some appetizers, compared to a 1-ts dinner -- Worth another $5 per child, and another $25 per adult. So that's another $60 per day.

Throw in the extra snack credits -- not worth a lot, we leave a lot of them left over. So those 24 extra credits (over 6 nights), let's call that another $20 in value total.

So for us... we are getting about another $620 in value, for a $550 upgrade fee. Not totally black and white, but worth it. Especially since we may otherwise have simply thrown CS credits in the trash.

 

[Mom of 2 Wife of 1]

It would cost my family of five $672 to upgrade from free dining to Deluxe DDP. I am wondering if its worth it???

It's absolutely worth it. How often do you go to Disney? Enjoy your trip.

 

[autismgoesdisney]

It's absolutely worth it. How often do you go to Disney? Enjoy your trip.

We average once a year I believe.

 

[hannahdrewmom]

I'd make a list of where you want to eat without a doubt... all credits aside. Then see how many credits you are at. For us we normally do a show or signature at least twice in a week. For 5 people that would easily make up the $650ish. But if you are happy with cs and aren't planning any oop meals than it's alot of money that could be used elsewhere.

Beware though... while it doesn't seem like alot more now... we normally end up spending an extra $400-$500 in tips with the dxdp. So in reality you are talking $1100ish.

 

[Rosiekins]

We really loved the DxDDP and most likely will not go with out it ever again. It was a lot of food but it was so fun to try all the places and really order what we wished with out getting hung up on price. At home we rarely order an Appetizer and/or Dessert so getting them on our vacation was a really fun treat. If you are concerned with food amount a lot of times you can have a salad as your starter. And remember unless you are at Prime Time no one is going to force you to finish your meal. There were only a couple times where we really felt too full but next time we can avoid that with some better planning.

We also found that the breaks were really nice we looked forward to sitting down a couple times a day. Our trip took on a totally different feel and it is one will strive to achieve each trip from here on out. We feel like we saw more of Disney and took more time to enjoy it.

We only had 3 meals a day I think 3 times (we were there 2 weeks) and we spaced them so they were not overwhelming. Since the meals that we ate in the morning were for the most part buffets we just made sure to not over indulge knowing we would be eating a full lunch and dinner that day also. We really loved not having to eat counter service unless it was the ones we really loved and sought out.

One thing we will do different next time is fit in even more signatures. We found that the meals we had here were smaller portions making the meal just the right amount of filling. Plus they are so good we want to try them all!

I also really, really loved that I did not have to worry about my food budget at all for the whole trip. It was just so relaxing. I always spend my vacations worrying about the food budget, was this place more then I thought, I hadn't planned on that meal etc. I also love ordering what I want with out feeling guilty about the price, not ordering the most expensive thing to get the "value" from the plan mind you, just getting whatever it is I truly want. This is golden for me as normally I would feel that I had to order one of the cheaper things, which is fine if that is what I truly want, but kind of a bummer if what I really want is that steak I will feel guilty about paying for. I know I paid for it ahead of time but still that worry is gone and I can relax. All I had to leave was the tip it was lovely.

There were a lot of snack credits but we did some food and wine and used some to bring back souvenirs and treats, like Big Lollypops and bags of Mickey Head Gummies, we even got some really neat frosted cookies (that looked like Nemo and other Charies) for our friends that were really well received. Plus we had out mugs to bring home to keep. It really helped the souvenir budget lol. With kids I bet you will use more of snack credits munching around then we will, and I also bet they will love bringing their friends Lollies and such if you choose to use some like we did.

So I say YES! Try it out, there is so much we would have missed had we not done it, like the Fireworks from inside Cinderella Castle (where our food was surprisingly good), or seeing the Castle light up for the Christmas party from the California Grille or Hearing and seeing Hallowishes from Narcosse. Oh yeah...And all that Yummy food!!!!!

 

[Bete]

and here's why. First, you can still use your free TS credits for those places requiring 2 TS credits on the regular DP to do a few shows or signature dining. Then for the TS meals you lack credits you can either go to cheaper TS places and do out of pocket (like Tusker House or Biergarten) or even do some QS meals out of pocket. You can even get appetizers out of pocket. You can do lunch for a TS meal out of pocket and that's cheaper, too. You really need to do the money crunching and see what will work best for you financially.

Now, if you are there to enjoy the dining experience more than the parks then the deluxe can be fun. To get your bang out of it you really do need to plan accordingly. Keep in mind, the more TS meals and dinner shows you do the more you are not enjoying the parks. It can be very time consuming.

We have used the dining plan for many, many years and we have tried all the different ones. The regular DP we find to be the best fit.

If you can afford it and you want to try it all then the deluxe plan can be worth it. You sound like you are doubting the value, already.

I much rather save the money and enjoy the parks more. With the money saved we can go more often.

When we tried the deluxe plan and felt it was worth it would be on shorter trips and we would be commandos with the parks with park hopping and starting in an EMH early park and end our day in a Late EMH park. We had 12 to 14 hour days at the parks.

Through the years we found we want to relax more and smell the roses; so, we stay at the same park each day (cheaper park tickets) and do 8 to 10 hour days there and the regular dining plan works best for us.

I would do deluxe if I was on my honeymoon or if it a trip of a lifetime and it's doubtful I would ever have the chance to do it again. Then I would go for broke.

 

[Megsmachine]

Dh and I have the regular DDP. How much would it cost for us to upgrade to the Delux Dining? We are going for 6 nights. Thanks!

 

[angierae]

For us it was totally worth it to upgrade from free DDP to DxDP. It was $33 per person per day, and that's covered so quickly and easily - here's an example off the chart I made up.

Day 1: Dinner at Ohana - $32.99. - just paid for the upgrade
Day 2: Dinner at Garden Grill - approximately $35.99 - paid for the upgrade and we still had a counter service breakfast and a TS lunch.
Day 3: Spirit of Aloha show- about $65. That's not inlcuding lunch at Sci-Fi
Day 4: Dinner at Beirgarten - somewhere close to $40 per person. That doesn't including the lunch we're planning at having at Tusker House, or the CS breakfast.
Day 5: DH and I are having dinner at Yachtsman - that will cost somewhere around $130 for the two of us, and the teenagers will be eating elsewhere. That doesn't even take into account the TS lunch we'll be having.
Day 6: two sit down meals that day - each, averaging around $35 per person.
Day 7: DH and I will be eating dinner at Jiko which will be around $112 for the two of us, plus whatever the teens eat for dinner, PLUS our TS lunch.
Day 8: the Akershus breakfast will be around $40 per person.

Now, we don't have small kids, and we don't mind losing "park time" to eat. I think sitting down to a meal with my family is a big part of my vacation, especially since we'll be splitting up from the teenagers for part of the day, so I love having the time to hear about what they did, etc.

If we skip an appetizer or a dessert here or there, or don't eat our CS breakfasts, or skip a TS dinner because we're having too much fun and just call and cancel it and get CS - we're still coming out WAY ahead, since we only paid $33 per person per day.

 

[havoc315]

For us it was totally worth it to upgrade from free DDP to DxDP. It was $33 per person per day, and that's covered so quickly and easily - here's an example off the chart I made up.

Day 1: Dinner at Ohana - $32.99. - just paid for the upgrade
Day 2: Dinner at Garden Grill - approximately $35.99 - paid for the upgrade and we still had a counter service breakfast and a TS lunch.
Day 3: Spirit of Aloha show- about $65. That's not inlcuding lunch at Sci-Fi
Day 4: Dinner at Beirgarten - somewhere close to $40 per person. That doesn't including the lunch we're planning at having at Tusker House, or the CS breakfast.
Day 5: DH and I are having dinner at Yachtsman - that will cost somewhere around $130 for the two of us, and the teenagers will be eating elsewhere. That doesn't even take into account the TS lunch we'll be having.
Day 6: two sit down meals that day - each, averaging around $35 per person.
Day 7: DH and I will be eating dinner at Jiko which will be around $112 for the two of us, plus whatever the teens eat for dinner, PLUS our TS lunch.
Day 8: the Akershus breakfast will be around $40 per person.

I don't dispute your conclusion...(The upgrade probably did save you money) Just a little confused about your demonstration...
For example, Day 1-- Ohana.... you could have had dinner there without upgrading?
Day 2-- I see that without the upgrade, you would have had to cut out the Garden Grill dinner *or* the TS lunch. But if your TS lunch was under $33, then you didn't get the value of the upgrade on that day. (You could have used your regular DDP credit for Garden Grill, and paid less than $33 for your lunch).

Overall, I'm sure you are right. I'm sure your upgrade was probably worthwhile. Just not sure if this demonstration is totally accurate. Would really need to see the prices you "paid" for all your other meals.

On my last trip, breaking it down daily -- I found the upgrade was well worth while on days when we spent 3 TS credits per person. (TS lunch plus signature dinner). But on days where we did CS breakfast, 1 TS lunch, and 1 TS dinner... I found that the upgrade wasn't quite worthwhile on those days. (Counting the TS lunch as the 'extra' meal.. typically spent $25-30 at that meal).

 

[angierae]

I don't dispute your conclusion...(The upgrade probably did save you money) Just a little confused about your demonstration...
For example, Day 1-- Ohana.... you could have had dinner there without upgrading?
Day 2-- I see that without the upgrade, you would have had to cut out the Garden Grill dinner *or* the TS lunch. But if your TS lunch was under $33, then you didn't get the value of the upgrade on that day. (You could have used your regular DDP credit for Garden Grill, and paid less than $33 for your lunch).

Overall, I'm sure you are right. I'm sure your upgrade was probably worthwhile. Just not sure if this demonstration is totally accurate. Would really need to see the prices you "paid" for all your other meals.

On my last trip, breaking it down daily -- I found the upgrade was well worth while on days when we spent 3 TS credits per person. (TS lunch plus signature dinner). But on days where we did CS breakfast, 1 TS lunch, and 1 TS dinner... I found that the upgrade wasn't quite worthwhile on those days. (Counting the TS lunch as the 'extra' meal.. typically spent $25-30 at that meal).

Oops, I left this comment elsewhere instead of here! Guess I'd better go delete that one.

Anyway, my point is that that one meal a day I listed "paid" for the DDP to DXDP upgrade, and everything else that day was "bonus". So I felt that the upgrade was worth the money, because we got more experiences out of it - signature meals, a dinner show, etc.

 

[havoc315]

Oops, I left this comment elsewhere instead of here! Guess I'd better go delete that one.

Anyway, my point is that that one meal a day I listed "paid" for the DDP to DXDP upgrade, and everything else that day was "bonus". So I felt that the upgrade was worth the money, because we got more experiences out of it - signature meals, a dinner show, etc.

Ahhh... I see. Of course then, there may be days where you could have gotten that one meal a day, without even having to pay the upgrade fee.

For example, you mentioned that 1 day, you were going to have 2 TS meals, at about $35 apiece.
You couldn't really do that on the basic DDP, but you could have had 1 $35 TS, plus a $15 CS. So mathematically, your $33 upgrade, only netted you about $20 in value.
On another day, I believe you mentioned $36 Garden Gill, plus CS breakfast an a TS lunch somewhere. Under the basic DDP, you still would have been covered for the $36 Garden Grill, plus the CS breakfast. So the value of the upgrade, was just that TS lunch. So you paid $33 for 1 TS lunch that day. (And depending on the lunch, it may have been slightly more than $33, or slightly less).

I'm very roughly added up your demonstration, based on the costs you provided, and some rough estimates. Assuming you had stuck to the exact same restaurants under the basic DDP, and assuming you would have paid for the cheapest meals OOP. (Signatures being cheap on a per credit basis).... It definitely does look like you saved some money on the upgrade. But it's not really clear unless we have all of the information. Still, my very very rough numbers, suggest that by upgrading, you saved about $7 per person, per day. (Not bad at all).
It appears that you are staying 7 nights -- so you have 21 credits per person. It appears that use have committed about 16 to TS meals, 3 to CS meals, and 2 credits not currently used. (Unless my count was slightly off).
The regular DDP would have covered those 3 CS meals (plus 4 more), plus 7 out of your 16 TS credits.
So essentially.... you are paying $33 per night for 7 nights -- $231, for an extra 9 TS credits. Or... You are paying about $26 for each extra TS credit.

Thus, the slight savings of using 3/4ths of your deluxe credits for TS meals.
A couple more TS credit uses, and your savings would become significantly higher. If you used ALL of your credits for TS, then the upgrade would be costing only $16.50 per extra TS credit, but losing the CS credits.