Is it worth it?

[Kurby]

well i just spent the last 2 days working out the cost of meals.

here's the grand total based on 2 adults and 1 child

14 nights

Disney Dining Deluxe = $2310 plus approx $400 or so in tips

Out of Pocket same meals plus the cost of 6 identical mugs (ya i'm not happy that 1 we would be getting 6 mugs and 2 that they are no longer resort specific therefore IDENTICAL) = $2951 including tax but not tip.


a general work out of the regular ddp is as follows.

$40 for the DDP and an average of $26 for breakfast buffet (which we could save money on by not going to the buffets but they are almost all character and that's where we're seeing the characters)

for a total of $66 each adult

a difference of $5 from the deluxe dining plan


it's a hell of a lot of money to spend on just food especially since we're there for 2 weeks but it's our vacation.

we could save money by bringing food but again we're on vacation and i just don't want to waste time going back to the resort just to make dinner plus even though we're staying in a dvc it's only a studio so we only have a microwave not a stove so really what can you do for dinner in there?

dddp for us just may be worth it after all (though i swore we'd never do the ddp again - this time it works out)

 

[Colleen27]

We really loved the deluxe plan, as much for the all inclusive feel as for the savings (though we did come out ahead). We tried several of the signature restaurants, ordered room service on our pool day, and just never had to think about our food budget... It was great. We did have a load of extra snack credits, enough for us to bring back enough treats for both kids to take for their classes, but we had no problem using up our meal credits.

 

[septbaby]

Well if the amount of money is rather daunting then do the Basic plan. You'll still be able to eat very well. You aren't likely to get so tired of eating with fewer credits. CS meals, especially breakfast are easy to share so you'll be able to have some flexibility.

If you haven't booked DP yet, just book the Basic and upgrade to Deluxe with at least 3 days before arrival if you decide to go that route. Doing the reverse could result in a change fee (not DVC savvy here)

Good luck and have a magical trip!

 

[Kurby]

oh - with dvc we don't have to tell them we want the plan until about 2 days before we arrive - and then we don't pay for it until we check in.

it's a good and bad thing - the bad thing is that we can't pay it off in advance like if we booked a cash room - but i guess that's a good thing too.

Well if the amount of money is rather daunting then do the Basic plan. You'll still be able to eat very well. You aren't likely to get so tired of eating with fewer credits. CS meals, especially breakfast are easy to share so you'll be able to have some flexibility.

If you haven't booked DP yet, just book the Basic and upgrade to Deluxe with at least 3 days before arrival if you decide to go that route. Doing the reverse could result in a change fee (not DVC savvy here)

Good luck and have a magical trip!

 

[choirfarm]

First of all, how do you eat at home? Example, I have a bowl of cereal for breakfast, wrap or a sandwich with a few chips and water for lunch, then I fix a nice dinner: Cheesburger soup with breadsticks and salad. So.. I normally only have one big meal a day and to be honest my "big" meal is not as big as a Disney TS. So for me, using my snack credit to get a pastry at breakfast with my refillable mug, then having a TS lunch as a break in the middle of the day left me barely hungry for dinner. We would eat a counter service, but often DH and I would split one. One day we had a big breakfast buffet and then we just had a snack... I think we all split a Goofy's create your own snack (this was our day away from the park) and then ate a Boma buffet for dinner and we were all miserable from eating so much that day.

So with the deluxe, first of all how much will it interfere with touring? Now with 14 days, you have plenty of time, so it may not. But if you have 3 sit down meals a day or even 2, one you factor in all of the traveling, waiting for ADR and then eating time you have spent a lot of time eating. Which may be just right for your family. But I don't know your child, either. Some people include the food as part of the vacation. We wanted to see and experience all of the parks, not eat but that is us.

I have a family of 5 and we had the regular DDP for 8 nights and the day we left we had 11 CS credits and 6 snack credits left. ( Don't worry we used them.) But we had a REALLY hard time using those credits and felt like it was too much food for us. That said, I know not everyone eats like we do. For you, it may not be too much food. So look at how you eat at home? Do you REALLY eat that much food for breakfast, lunch and dinner??

To be honest, we all decided that we would rather just pay out of pocket than do the dining plan again, even if it is free again. We would not have been eating that much or that often.

Christine

 

[klynn]

Only you can decide if it's worth it for your family. Here is our experience. We spent 3 weeks at DVC on 3 separate reservations last month. We are a family of 4 and our kids are 15 and 11. The first week we were on the DDP. We were tired all all the desserts and snacks toward the end and we canceled the DDP for the second week; we did keep all of our ADR's and just paid OOP. We ate whatever we wanted. (My dd11 usually ordered off the kids menu or we split an adult entree.) By paying OOP (and using our DDE) we saved over $500. If we did not have the DDE we still would have save over $400. The third week we also paid OOP and save another $500.

 

[Kurby]

i don't usually eat much at home but on vacation i like to enjoy meals. we're always rushing around at home in the morning, work, school, dh starts at 4.30 so is never home for breakfast.

we had talked about using the characters breakfasts as a 2 fold kind of thing. i'm not much for standing in line to spend 30 seconds with mickey, Cinderella or whoever so at breakfast our dd can interact with them as they come around and if we book out time before the park opens we're not missing any park time for breakfast or waiting inline to see someone.

lunch and dinner i guess is just an experience for us - again not being together at lunch time we can enjoy it as part of our vacation.

dinner is the only meal we eat together as a family at home so we could use counter service for that but we do like eating out.

i guess we might try it this year and see how things go.

because our stay is split we could always cancel the second week if we find we aren't finishing things.

 

[klynn]

because our stay is split we could always cancel the second week if we find we aren't finishing things.

I think that sounds like a good idea. Try it out the first week and see how you like it! If it is working for your family just stay on it the second week. If not, you have the option of canceling the second week since your on a split stay. Have a great time!

 

[CInderellaFan1981]

We have used the dining plan on our last two trips, and it was nice to be "forced" into eating at nicer restaurants one a day. Fast food gets pretty awful after 5 days even with Disney's selection. I think that it was reasonable in prices as well. We did choose some of the pricier establishments that we probably wouldn't have if we weren't on the dining plan (Auskerhaus being one).

 

[Kurby]

oh well i think that's the thing - if you're on the plan you tend to eat at the more expensive restaurants and order the more expensive meals (although ours seem to be running the middle of the road most nights.)

i guess the one good thing about working all this out is that we know what's on the menu a head of time and can make sure we have a variety of items not just chicken.

that's my main goal this trip - try new or different things - i'm not one for variety so this time i'm going to try different dinners - usually i'll just order pasta or chicken - this time - i'm looking at pork, pot roast, fancier pastas.

 

[caroline1851]

wow! i cannot ever imagine spending that much money on food for 2 weeks or eating that much food for 2 weeks!