Maggie'sMom
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Feb 26, 2008
- Messages
- 7,839
Prior to this trip, I've purchased the basic dining plan. When tallying up my receipts from our August 2010 trip, I found we just barely broke even. So I decided to forgo the DDP this trip and pay out of pocket. The basic DDP would have cost DD8 and I ~$660 for our 10 night trip.
I purchased $700 in Disney gift cards to use towards our dining, but sometimes I was putting food on our room charge or on a credit card (e.g. when we ordered pizza from off-site). I kept all receipts and entered them on a spreadsheet. When comparing the costs, I removed items that I would have had to pay OOP for anyway, namely alcoholic drinks I ordered and the glow character punch that DD ordered. I also excluded tips, since those would have been OOP anyway. But I did include food that we had from non-WDW restaurants, i.e. the pizza we ordered from Papa Johns, because if we'd been on the DDP, I would have made us use those credits and gotten food from WDW restaurants.
Our total food cost, excluding items that I would have had to pay OOP for, was $630.44. So we saved $30 by paying OOP. But what was even better was the freedom that paying OOP allowed us. DD didn't always want something from the Kid Menu. Since we weren't on the DDP, DD could order whatever she wanted. Her meals were more expensive than if she'd ordered off the Kid Menu, but she liked the food better and was much more likely to eat it.
Another bonus was that I didn't feel any pressure to order the most expensive things on the menu just because I wanted to "get my money's worth" out of the dining plan. On the flip side, I promised myself that if I did want the most expensive item on the menu, I wasn't going to deny myself just because of the cost. So at LeCellier, I ordered the filet instead of looking for a less expensive option. But at Whispering Canyon, I ordered the less expensive pasta because I just didn't feel like eating steak that night. And that one night when DD was craving Papa John's pizza, we called them up and ordered it rather than feeling we had to stick with WDW restaurants because of the dining plan.
I don't think I'll ever purchase the dining plan again. I really enjoyed the flexibility we had, and saving a little money was great.
I purchased $700 in Disney gift cards to use towards our dining, but sometimes I was putting food on our room charge or on a credit card (e.g. when we ordered pizza from off-site). I kept all receipts and entered them on a spreadsheet. When comparing the costs, I removed items that I would have had to pay OOP for anyway, namely alcoholic drinks I ordered and the glow character punch that DD ordered. I also excluded tips, since those would have been OOP anyway. But I did include food that we had from non-WDW restaurants, i.e. the pizza we ordered from Papa Johns, because if we'd been on the DDP, I would have made us use those credits and gotten food from WDW restaurants.
Our total food cost, excluding items that I would have had to pay OOP for, was $630.44. So we saved $30 by paying OOP. But what was even better was the freedom that paying OOP allowed us. DD didn't always want something from the Kid Menu. Since we weren't on the DDP, DD could order whatever she wanted. Her meals were more expensive than if she'd ordered off the Kid Menu, but she liked the food better and was much more likely to eat it.
Another bonus was that I didn't feel any pressure to order the most expensive things on the menu just because I wanted to "get my money's worth" out of the dining plan. On the flip side, I promised myself that if I did want the most expensive item on the menu, I wasn't going to deny myself just because of the cost. So at LeCellier, I ordered the filet instead of looking for a less expensive option. But at Whispering Canyon, I ordered the less expensive pasta because I just didn't feel like eating steak that night. And that one night when DD was craving Papa John's pizza, we called them up and ordered it rather than feeling we had to stick with WDW restaurants because of the dining plan.
I don't think I'll ever purchase the dining plan again. I really enjoyed the flexibility we had, and saving a little money was great.
