Before offering specific comments about our meals, I have some general comments about the
DDP and DxDP.
The first time that we used the DDP, it was part of free dining. Of course, free is a great value. However, I kept our receipts anyway. After analyzing what we would have paid, I concluded that we ran a small profit in that we ate more $ than we would have paid. This was done with almost no focusing on picking "higher-priced" entrees.
The next time we went, we bought the DDP. This time, you no longer had starters and the tip covered. However, we still managed once again to eat more than we paid. I must add that this required us to focus more on the cost of each entree than we had the last time. It was still a good experience, but it required more work.
This time, after multiple trips to WDW, and with unlimited FastPass times no longer the norm, we figured that we might have more time for more sit-down meals. So, we decided to try DxDP. We figured that, snce we didn't usually eat breakfast, we could get 2 good TS a day from an early lunch and a later dinner.
While we did get to have more Signature dining experiences than ever before, it was just too much. The combination of the time required to enjoy a sit-down meal, and the lack of time between said meals to become hungry enough for the next meal was just too much. Did we get our "money's worth"? Yes. Was it a quality experience? For us -- not as much as it sould have been.
In order to maximize the financial cost of the plan, we had just about the most extensive (and most expensive) meal on every menu. Of course, this also added to the hidden total cost (by adding to our OOP, since we are NEVER cheap to our service staff.). But, as alluded to earlier, the sheer amount of the food was just too much.
Later in her report, iloveeeyore mentioned that the overall amount of food might have affected our ratings in a negative way. I could not agree more. While everyone needs to find their own happy place; ours is a clearly a place with much less food than we might have consumed a number of years ago. What can I say? I guess that we are getting older.
In the end, it was a great trip, with some great new foods, and returning to some "must-dos" for us. But, as I have said on a different thread about OOP vs. DDP spending, this doesn't mean that I will not eat too much pretzel bread next time we go to Biergarten. It just means that I will do so without eating another big meal that day, and I will do so OOP.
That being said, if free dining were to be offered in the future, I would probably compare the cost at 75% (an estimate of the cost of the amount of food we would actually eat) versus whatever room discount we could find. In the end, it is more about the overall experience my family has together in our special place than any individual meal or attraction.