Love the convenience of the Dining Plan? Really?

[kaytieeldr]

Wait, on second thought, the dining plan doesn't include tax or tips.

Wrong. All versions of the Dining Plan include the tax (and always have). It's probably best to be fully informed when trying to persuade...

I understand. You need the dining plan because it helps you rationalize spending money. It's a psychological problem, not a math problem, so I can't convince you to go OOP on logic and math alone. But hear me out... If you get a pre-paid card with the dining plan amount (plus tax and tips), just think of it as a "Prepaid Disney Dining Gift Card™."

And when she overspends - yes, even including that unnecessary tax you persist in including - because there was a price increase, or somebody made a different menu choice than they 'promised' six months earlier?

You abhor the Dining Plans. We get it. But since they seem to be working so well overall for both the guests and the business, it doesn't look like anything is changing soon. The original Dining Plan is well into its ninth year, and going strong. And economics, not any dining plan, caused the homogenization of the various restaurant menus.

By the way, enough with the condescension.

You don't have to do any of those things. Just put your dining itinerary in the spreadsheet.

In which world is a vacation spreadsheet (or even the additional step of ordering a gift card online after calculating its presumed value [math]) less stressful than using a card you get at check-in, to pay for meals?

 

[Marionnette]

Disney411: you are my new hero. You have the guts to say what I have been thinking. Thank you.
I'm one of those DDP users that cite convenience as a factor of why we love it.
It's prepaid, therefore out of sight out of mind so to speak. We're not penny pinchers when it comes to vacation. We want it to be completely stress free. With the DDP, nobody's looking at the menu wishing for "x" but ordering "y" because its more economical.
But we do have kids and do a lot of character meals, so we fall into the target audience.
I just don't see why people have to bash it or the users just because it doesn't fit their specific circumstances and vacation habits.

You're the type of guest that DDP suits. But that doesn't mean that guests who feel the DDP is neither convenient nor a value are wrong. They're speaking from their own experience.

In our case, we would be looking at a menu and think: "I need to get an entree that costs at least $X to break even" instead of choosing what appeals to us. Or we would order dessert even though we are full. Or we wouldn't consider skipping an ADR because it means having unused credits at the end of the trip.

We've opted for the TiW card instead and will pick up Disney GCs at Target using the pharmacy discount card and the Target RedCard to get just under 10% off their face value. From a budget perspective, it will save us somewhere in the neighborhood of 28% off of the price on the menus. For us, this offers more flexibility than the DDP (the discounts apply to appetizers and alcohol as well) and is a cost-saver (we're not paying for snacks and desserts we don't want/need).

Just like the DDP, my plan doesn't work for everybody. But I think that people should evaluate how they prefer to vacation when they are deciding whether to get the DDP. For some people, they will learn that the DDP is a perfect fit for them. For others, like me, they will find that they are better off without it. Just because someone has decided that the DDP doesn't work for them, that doesn't mean that they are sitting in judgement on someone who has determined that the DDP is a good choice for themselves.

 

[maxiesmom]

Just like the DDP, my plan doesn't work for everybody. But I think that people should evaluate how they prefer to vacation when they are deciding whether to get the DDP. For some people, they will learn that the DDP is a perfect fit for them. For others, like me, they will find that they are better off without it.

Exactly. No one way of doing this is "wrong" as some posters seem to think. Heck, which way is right for your family may change from vacation to vacation. I know it does for mine.

 

[Jonathan Swift]

Wrong. All versions of the Dining Plan include the tax (and always have). It's probably best to be fully informed when trying to persuade...

It depends on which price you get quoted. Some prices leave the tax off.

And when she overspends - yes, even including that unnecessary tax you persist in including - because there was a price increase, or somebody made a different menu choice than they 'promised' six months earlier?

You won't overspend because you already know whether or not the dining plan is more expensive. If the dining plan was cheaper, you would have gotten it.

You abhor the Dining Plans. We get it.

No, I don't abhor the dining plans. I abhor faulty logic and rationalizations. You can't claim the dining plan is going to save you money when it usually doesn't. You can't claim the dining plan is less stressful when you're counting credits, force feeding yourself things you don't want and denying you things you'd rather have (e.g., desserts vs. appetizers), using TS credits for QS, and scrambling at the end of your trip to buy unwanted snacks.

But since they seem to be working so well overall for both the guests and the business, it doesn't look like anything is changing soon.

Of course not. Disney makes out like a bandit off uninformed people and there's a sucker born every minute.

The original Dining Plan is well into its ninth year, and going strong.

Any similarity to the dining plan nine years ago and today is in name only. Like a frog slowly being boiled in a pot of water, Disney has chipped away at the dining plan benefits and raised costs throughout the years.

In which world is a vacation spreadsheet (or even the additional step of ordering a gift card online after calculating its presumed value [math]) less stressful than using a card you get at check-in, to pay for meals?

Ask me again when you're scrambling at the end of your trip to buy unwanted snacks, wasting TS credits on QS restaurants, etc. You act as if there aren't threads in this very forum full of people asking about doing these things. There's a sticked thread at the top (and in my signature) about using snack credits on the dinging plan. I don't need the mental crutch of prepaying for my dining to avoid "sticker shock." (As if the sticker shock of the dining plan doesn't count.) You didn't really think there is such a thing as the "Prepaid Disney Dining Gift Card™," did you?

 

[TDC Nala]

Time to close, as it's one thing to state one's preferences and give advice. but to debate about those preferences is counterproductive.