MYW Dining - Help us decide!

[disneyvoice]

My DH and I are trying to decide whether we should add the dining option to our December vacation. We are trying to have more of a "mellow" trip and so I have decided not to become obsessed with getting PSs this time around so we can just eat whatever and whenever we feel like it. Since we are going the week prior to the busy week at WDW I'm hoping we won't really need PSs anyway.

We are trying to decide if the dining option would make sense for us. We usually eat one counter service meal and one sit down meal each day. However we never got dessert with the counter meal. We never get an appetizer with our sit down meal; we sometimes get dessert with our sit down meal but we usually split one dessert between the two of us.

Have any of you done the dining option but not gotten the appetizers and desserts with all your meals? It seems like you do save money by getting the dining option if you eat everything that comes with the plan; otherwise it seems like you will at least break even (just having meals prepaid seems like a nice option as well).

What we don't want to have happen is for us to end up stuffing ourselves with food just because "it comes with the dining option" when we normally wouldn't eat that much. We also don't want to end up paying more money for food than we would without the dining plan. Any advice??

 

[HaleyB]

What we did, before free dining was offered for our dates, was to book two stays. One 3 night package with 10 day MYW tickets and dining. Then we booked 4 more nights at the same resort, room only. The best of both worlds!

The dining plan would have been good from the minute we checked in till midnight the day we changed over to room only (and we have never had to change rooms with back to back reservations, but t is possible), so we had 4 days to use up 3 TS and 3 CS credits. Our plan would have been to do a big meal arrivial day as a vacation kick off and a signature meal another day. You can get desserts that carry well and save them for breakfast or late night snacks (we did that with the meal vouchers last year).

 

[DisneyJen0504]

The best way to figure out if its worth it is to see what you would normally spend eating at 1 counterservice and 1 table service a day. For DH and I, we easily eat more than $35 per person per day on a table service meal alone. So for us, to get a counter service and snack for each day on top of the tabel service is worth it.

 

[Lewisc]

The dining plan might work for you if you eat signature meals. Split the appetizer and dessert and just order a second entrée or split the entire meal perhaps ordering an extra appetizer.

Even at $35/ adult it's pretty easy to break even.