Need help with decision about dining package

[snowglobe girl]

We (me and DH) were considering adding on the dining option with our vacation package. For $500 more, it includes one snack, one counter service and one table service per day. Says you can also trade in two table services for one signature dining experience. We are trying to decide if this is worth the money since we're planning to go during F&WF. Does anyone know if any of the vouchers can be applied to the booths at the festival? Can someone tell me if the dining option is worth it?? Any opinions would be greatly appreciated!

 

[SB in KY]

I think the answer on F&WF use for vouchers is no...although since they have not offered the plan during F&WF time I suppose there is a chance for snack options....I guess whether it is worth it or not depends on your dining styles/preferences....for us it is definately worth it. We like to try new sit down places as well as the old favorites and it is nice to be able to order appetizers, entres and deserts without considering cost. In the past we have tried other meal plans that included 2 sit down meals/day and we nearly killed ourselves!! By the 3rd day we felt too stuffed to move and nothing even looked good to us....this option is much more flexible....for us 1 table service meal/day is plenty, the CS meal will keep us from having to take so much time out of the day for sit down meals and allow for a lighter meal....also this plan allows you to share meals if you wish and then use the stored credits for the signature restaurants....which to us is another helpful feature that will help us not to eat ourselves to death (we have so little self-control!!)

However if you never want to eat at counter service places or you want to spend a lot of time wandering the F&WF then the dining plan probably isn't the best choice for you.

Best advice would be to just play with the numbers...look at places you would normally dine and what you would normally order and see how much you would usually spend for a week....and then compare to the $490 the dining plan will cost plus whatever else you would spend on food that would not be covered (F&WF, etc.) and see how it looks.

For us it was an excellent value, not to mention the added fun factor...but your situation may vary.

 

[snowglobe girl]

Thank you so much for your advice. I believe I will sit down and calculate that. We usually eat counter service around lunch and then we would go to Epcot and pick a country to eat dinner, so this plan sounded like what we do anyway. I think its looking pretty good right now. Thanks again!

 

[callahanjulie10]

So exactly what is the cost per person, per day for the meal plan? I do think regardless of cost, if we were going to really enjoy the F &WF, we would rather snack around than to actually go to counter service/sit down meal. We were there last year at this time and really loved going from country to country experiencing this, it was so different and very enjoyable.

 

[SB in KY]

It is $35 per person per day and includes 1 table service meal, 1 counter service meal and 1 snack per person per day. We never really got into the F&WF thing....seemed like we spent a lot of $$ and never felt like we ate....but to each his own.

 

[Meezers]

I think the one thing that bums me out about the dining plan.

If one person in your party has an AP and you get a great AP rate....if you want to add the dining program...you lose your AP rate.

They way we figured it...for an adult family of three (2 rooms)...if I get a 26% or more discount for the AP we wouldn't save any money on the dining plan. Does this make sense? Thank goodness my brother is the math whiz...I just gave him numbers and he came up with the percentage!

 

[segue2life]

I think the one thing that bums me out about the dining plan.

If one person in your party has an AP and you get a great AP rate....if you want to add the dining program...you lose your AP rate.

They way we figured it...for an adult family of three (2 rooms)...if I get a 26% or more discount for the AP we wouldn't save any money on the dining plan. Does this make sense? Thank goodness my brother is the math whiz...I just gave him numbers and he came up with the percentage!

I agree.... I think they should have a dining plan for passholders...
You should figure out what the better savings is, the ap rate on the room, or the amount of money you would save with the dining plan..

If the dining plan ends up being a better deal, get that for however many nights you are there, but only pick a 1day ticket(since you have the AP). The 1 day ticket never expires so you can just keep that 1 day ticket for whenever, but you can still enjoy the dining plan for x amount of nites you are at WDW.

best advise? email WDW Guest Relations requesting a Dining pkg for Annual Passholders!

 

[segue2life]

Dining plan is totally worth it... Food and Wine Festival booths dont count as a snack item... but the nice thing is, that the dining plan is like a debit account so if there is a day you just eat around the world, dont sweat it, use your snack/meals on a different day!

 

[callahanjulie10]

So am I understanding correctly that you can't use an AP rate and purchase the dining plan? What about Fl resident rate + plan? I couldn't just add this on to my resort reservations I already have?