Justification for Spending $1,000 + dollars

[Missytara]

I can say I used the dining plan for the first time last year, since I was traveling with two college students that liked the idea of having our meals paid ahead of time.

I wasn't so savvy about the plan last time, and while we had some very expensive meals, we also had some less expensive meals that barely matched the daily cost.

Also, next time, I would not use two credits for each of the three of us to do a Character meal. When I look at the meals we were getting other nights and added it up for the three of us - we paid about $60.00 a piece for the character meal. Next time, I will definately pay OOP.

But this year, I really squeezed the dining plan for what it was worth, and found that I was either getting my snack for free or half of my breakfast. You can really work it, if you try.

 

[pilferk]

Anyone else come to this conclusion: 3 Adults and 1 Young Child

After consdiering the DDP's, I just can't justify spending over a thousand dollars for seven TS Dinners and Seven QS lunches. I am not cheap and have no problems spending money. We have no interest in having a dessert at every meal. Maybe one every other day.

Question:

Is your 3rd adult REALLY an adult, or an additional kid over the age of 10?

If your 3rd adult isn't really (or doesn't eat like one), the DDP might NOT work for you. Our upcoming Oct '11 trip will be our LAST on the DDP for awhile, because our eldest daughter will likely be 10 for the following trip. She would not consume $45-ish worth of food in a day and, at that point, we will no longer see any savings on the plan. It will be cheaper to feed us OOP than to pay for the DDP.

But for right NOW, with 2 adults and 3 kids, it's a pretty decent value...though the savings largely comes from the kids side. Still, I recently ran a cost analysis and DDP was the way to go for us. We saved a couple hundred dollars over our 10 day stay (so, 9 nights on the DDP), based off of estimations of where we'd eat and an average value (or actual, if it was a buffet) of the menu items.

Retail (not including snacks) price was around $1675.

With the TIW discount (again, not including snacks and keeping in mind our next trip would not be within 365 days of the upcoming trip, so I would have to upgrade one of the adults to an AP AND pay the $75 annual TIW fee for a total of about $180..which I added to the cost): $1621

Note: If you are ALREADY an AP holder, you'd only need to add the cost of the $75 annual fee (and you can pro-rate that if the card is going to be with you for more than one trip during it's "life span").

DDP: $1424 (which was the price of the DDP and 2 out of pocket TS meals...one of them breakfast at Cinderella's Royal Table).

We save about $200 AND get the snack credits.

For us, it was worth it.

Next time, though.....not so much as our DDP cost would be 1728.68 (3 adults, 2 kids on the DDP + 2 OOP meals). That's a hundred dollars MORE than the TIW discount option.

 

[Vickis3js]

We did the DDP for 8nights and we had 3 adults 2 kids and the total was $1199. The daily cost was about $150. I know our meal at CM was over our daily total and we still were able to get a CS and a snack. I came home and added our meal totals up and our total was about $400 more then the DDP cost and that didn't include some snacks that had gotten.

I know a lot of times the desserts were too much so we would ask for a fruit cup to go. At CS places we would maybe get 1 dessert to split and then 2 fruit cups. The kids would always grab a bag of grapes that they wouldn't be able to eat with their meal so in the bag they went. If they got hungry they would snack on that. We had 12 snack credits left over the day we left and we happily grabbed bags of candy and rice krispy treats to bring home for friends and family.

Now I can say that next year our DS will be 10 and we will probably not do the DDP. He is not a big eater so it would be WAY too much for him and I can't justify the price per day for him.

 

[Minniemouse07]

We generally do the DDP. It works out best for our family (2A/2C) because we like one TS meal per day to sit and rest and eat something that isn't "fast food."

Dd and I used the DxDDP on a girls trip. It made sense because we were doing some signature dining. We had breakfast or an early lunch each morning (TS) and a signature dinner each evening. We definitely came out ahead w/ DxDDP rather than the DDP or OOP.

This past June we took advantage of the kids play/stay/dine free deal. This gave the kids the QSP and since it was a last minute budget trip we didn't upgrade to the DDP. It was a HUGE mistake! The couple of TS meals we opted for were WAY more (like a few hundred $$) than it would have been for us to upgrade. We will never do the QSP again.

Dd will be a new 10yo when we go this summer, but we scored Free Dining so it takes some of the hurt away.

I should add that we are smart w/ our ADRs. We never do a signature meal on the regular dining plan (OOP is a better deal), rarely do anything other than dinner (breakfast and lunch are less expensive and you get more w/ dinner) and we maximize our snack credits for use throughout the day.

As always, different families will have different needs...thereby making it a deal for some and not others. Everyone really needs to crunch the numbers themselves to see what works.

As in our case... different plans work better for different kinds of trips.

 

[jbrnhrt]

I was in the same boat as op, we are doing 7 nights, with 3 adults, 2 kids. our dining plan will be about $1100-$1300(don't remember exactly), so I took the time to plan out our meals and figure out how much we would be spending out of pocket. It worked out for us just like a pp, the cost of the qs and ts meal, without desserts was the same as paying out of pocket. so with the ddp we also get desserts and a snack each day. on our last visit we brought snacks into the parks to save money, adn we ended up having sticker shock with the meals, we ended up just getting the kids a qs meal to split(they're only 2 and 6) each day in the parks (btw breakfast was included in our off site resort). we just couldn't bring ourselves to hand over that kind of money for each meal, so we're going to do ddp on our next visit. having more adults than kids seems to be how we're going to be realizing savings. For our family one week of meals at disney costs us about 2 months of regular grocery shopping whether we do ddp or not. I also think not having to worry about managing meal money is worth is, one less thing to worry about. hope this helps!

 

[wdwmom0f3]

I only do dining plan when it's free. When we don't have free dining, we can eat a lot less expensively without it. I enjoy having it, but don't have to. I am a cheapy most of all. So, I do whatever works out cheapest for me. We can have fun either way.

We have been on the dining plan a few times. The very first time I saved like 600 on our rooms, so I applied that savings to the dining plan and added it to our trip. After everything was said & done, I saved over 600.00 by using the plan.

The last time that I used it, we had free dining. Now that my kids are all considered adults, this was a HUGE savings. Actually, we are going again in May and we will be on free dining again. Like you, I am not sure I will ever pay for it again. $250.00 a day for 5 people to eat is insane!! We will just have lunch or dinner in the parks and eat off site!

 

[LuvLuvLuv]

for us... we love it. we will always have a dining plan. we prefer to use the dxddp.

normally when we go to eat, we get one appy, 2 entrees and one or 2 desserts. (theres 2 of us)

its peace of mind to go and not have to worry if we'll have enough money to eat on day 8, or to really want that steak--but have to order the burger instead. it also lets us try new things that we may have not ordered if we were paying OOP.

keep in mind, you have until the week you leave to add the plan. (you don't have to pay it at the 45 days prior)

 

[mindyd]

My kids are both considered adults this year so its 4 of us at the adult plan and I have decided just to do it because I like having stuff paid for ahead of time. We are doing some buffets which will help break even but I think its going to be close normally I figure it all out but decided just to go with it and not worry. I love not having to worry about how much the food costs and how relaxed it makes me.

 

[3pletprincesses]

We changed our travel dates yesterday and free dining is not available those dates. We debatted getting the dining plan and I won. when we did the math, it was about $26 for each of us to eat a day if we took and plan. $26 is not alot when I think that we would probably still do 1 TS a day and 1 QS a day. Plus I won't have to worry about getting the extra mickey ear ice cream since it's included in the plan (one snack). $1300 sounds like a lot of money for 6 days for 5 people but I averaged it, it's not so bad. Quick services opp are roughly $8-9 per adult and doesn't including drinks so maybe $10 per adult an no desert time 2 meals.. about $20. the extra $6 was worth to us for the extra snack and peace of mind that TS was no extra then QS KWIM.

I went last fall and we were 4, myswelf and my triplet 4 yo. The average QS tab was $45 not including desert.

It all depends on the family.

 

[AimeeMichele]

The dining plans are totally worth it! When we went in October, every time I would get the bill I would think "thank goodness for the dining plan" because I would have had a very hard time paying what they were charging. We did a character breakfast each day, a signature dinner, Hoop Dee Doo and some other sit down meals. It was fantastic! We were on the Deluxe Dining Plan and saved I believe over $500 with it. I've already booked for Nov 2011 and am trying to talk myself into upgrading to the Deluxe Plan again since we have to go to Cinderella's Royal Table, Hoop Dee Doo and have a character breakfast each day (this is per my nephews and niece and I let them be the boss of Disney)

Like some others suggested, go over the menus and price out what you think you'll spend and compare it to the price of the Dining Plan. I'm doing that again myself right now

 

[twooley2]

I'm spending $2400 for 12 days on deluxe dining for 4 people. I have never prepaid for food on a vacation so its kind of strange. I decided to live it up since I don't know if we will be back more than maybe once again. We live 2 hours from disneyland so its hard to justify flying all the way to florida on a regular basis, but will see. I am finding it less stressful knowing that all my food is paid for. I have been to disneyland and other southern california theme parks enough to know how ridiculous the prices are. We just returned from universal studios in Hollywood and the prices at the counter service places were beyond belief, but thats california everything is overpriced. Goodluck with your descision.

I hear ya. I am having a problem with 3200 dollars for 5 people for 8 days for food alone. I am really thinking this is a lot of money an dwondering if it is sane