My cost/benefit analysis of the 2008 DDP!

[riaesq]

What's important to keep in mind here is also any savings that might be LOST by paying full price for your room in order to get the DDP.

Often with an AP (or other special pricing), you can save from 20-100 a night on your room.

So if that discount is available, and you forgo it in order to buy the DDP, you can add that nightly cost back into what your real cost for the DDP is.

Hope that is somewhat clearer than mud.

 

[BeckWhy]

What's important to keep in mind here is also any savings that might be LOST by paying full price for your room in order to get the DDP.

Often with an AP (or other special pricing), you can save from 20-100 a night on your room.

So if that discount is available, and you forgo it in order to buy the DDP, you can add that nightly cost back into what your real cost for the DDP is.

Hope that is somewhat clearer than mud.

If you have an AP, which I probably will never have... then yes you do lose something to get DDP.

Other than free DDP promo, any vacation plan discount that I have ever seen Disney over has discounted the room, not the DDP.

 

[Kitka]

What's important to keep in mind here is also any savings that might be LOST by paying full price for your room in order to get the DDP.

Often with an AP (or other special pricing), you can save from 20-100 a night on your room.

So if that discount is available, and you forgo it in order to buy the DDP, you can add that nightly cost back into what your real cost for the DDP is.

Hope that is somewhat clearer than mud.

Yes, that makes a lot of sense. Right now I have a AAA room only discount, but my AAA agent says I still have available to book a AAA package discount which basically comes out to the AAA room only discount + dining package at full cost + tickets at full cost. So unless I got a better discount on the room with the AP than I do on the AAA it would be a wash for me - but I need to do some research to know if the AP room discount might save me more, making my $100 savings over 5 nights a wash.

Does that make sense? LOL.

 

[jackskellingtonsgirl]

For Value resorts the difference between AP rates and AAA rates has only been about $5 per night. I booked at Pop for October and December and the difference was almost nothing between AP & AAA. AND I couldn't get an AP rate at Pop for either of those trips!

The AAA discount on rooms is a %, 20% maximum so the AP discount is usually better, especially at Deluxe resorts. I switched our Dec. reservation to AKL with an AP rate and saved $70 per night, plus we got the $75 dining credit. (This is for 2007, but you can still sort of see how the AP savings sometimes cancels out the DDP savings.) I never ran the numbers to see if it would have been cheaper to have an AP discount on our room in August as opposed to "free" dining because I was afraid the answer would be the AP room rate! Without the DDP DS would have ordered from the kid's menu at Wolfgang Puck's, Kona, and Le Cellier and I am sure DH and I wouldn't have ordered an appetizer AND dessert at every single TS. The DDE savings combined with the AP discount probably would have dropped the total cost of our trip more than going with free dining. Oh, well. Too late!

 

[paulh]

What's important to keep in mind here is also any savings that might be LOST by paying full price for your room in order to get the DDP.

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this is only in the free ddp time frame,you can add dddp paid to any package even if its discounted, ap or outherwise.Worth noteing that cost comparisons have been done on 2007 prices and not 2008,so saveing might be more
For us ddp paid not worth it with app removed might concider if it was app or dessert and dont forget that auto tip included for dde card next year
Paulh

 

[clkelley]

this is only in the free ddp time frame,you can add dddp paid to any package even if its discounted, ap or outherwise.Worth noteing that cost comparisons have been done on 2007 prices and not 2008,so saveing might be more
For us ddp paid not worth it with app removed might concider if it was app or dessert and dont forget that auto tip included for dde card next year
Paulh

You cannot get a package with an AP discounted room. However, there are other discounts that you can get with a package such as AAA and public code offers, Visa Card offers, private code offers.

 

[chepar]

If you have kids, I think you absolutely have to do the detailed math to determine whether the DDP is for you.

I spent hours last year on this exercise. With the 2007 plan, I pretty much broke even because it was only my daughter and myself. No money savings, but huge convenience advantage in being able to pay in advance and/or carry as much cash.

The 2008 plan's exclusion of included tip is the thing that tipped the scale as far as my decision not to do the DDP next June. Had the 2008 plan included tip, I would have gotten it, even with the exclusion of the appetizer.