Never again will we use dining plan

[bobbie68]

Hi,

Sorry the dining plan didn't work for you, for us it is awesome!!!!!!!!!. My husband will not go without it. We enjoy knowing where and when we are going to eat. I agree it makes us slow down and rest. Everything worked out perfect for us the last couple of times.

 

[Braden's Momma]

I could not agree more with the OP for the following reasons:

1.) The food is sub par--- I would rather eat at Applebees
2.) If you like steak it works because that is what 50% of the restaraunts serve (and for the cost you feel obligated to order the most expensive thing)
3.) I felt like I was tied down with all of the ADRs---I got to ride 2 rides and then I had to walk all the way to the other side of the park to eat a meal I did not want.
4.) I want to eat when, where, and whatever I want.

Having said this we are going back in May and we are going to be doing th equick service plan because we liked the food better at COlumbia Harbor House and Flametree better than any table service.

 

[seadd67]

We are doing the DxDP for the frist time this year. Last year we did the DDP, we like it but the TS did not come with a apptizer,we are big apptizer family so thats one of the reasons of going to the delux. The other Is we just love the TS places. We can do the qs typ food at home with fastfood,but here we are on vacation so we wanted our meals to feel like that. Its been fun trying work all the credits In for our 9 day trip. Mixing in apptizers at one place and the meal at another. We like our breaks so time away from the park will not be that big of deal speacily sicnce we max out the time at the parks each day with park hoppers.

 

[ReneeA]

It works for our family and the way we like to eat. I feel that it's very flexible since we do lots of sharing at the CS meals - there's never tons of food leftover, and yet we still have credits enough to grab a couple breakfasts at CS.

However, both of my kids still qualify for the kid's dining plan. Talk to me in a couple years when the kids are both "adults" on the DDP...I may have a different opinion.

 

[jpaxton1118]

I have always been a huge DDP fan. It seemed to always work for our family but my son is now 11 and he does not always want what is on the adult menu and I know that I would rather eat off the kids menu at counter service because that is about all I can eat. We bring in a lot of water and juice boxes with us into the park so we don't really need to order drinks. So anyway after running the numbers we would come out ahead not getting the ddp. I like the idea of having it paid ahead of time but I also like the idea that I will not be spending $1200 for food for the 8 days too. Now I am all confused about what to do. haha

 

[erosenst]

I think a lot of it is your mindset going in. If you feel wasteful not maximizing the plan, it's probably not a good choice.

For us, the DxDP works well, for a variety of reasons:

* DD still needs to eat at least 4 times a day (combination of meals and snacks).

* DD is still young enough that she really enjoys the character meals, so we do several of those.

* DH and I will go for a nice dinner one night, while DD either has room service or something from the hotel restaurant

* DD and I, and to some extent DH, often eat more healthily at a buffet because we'll eat a lot of the fruit and veggies, and only 'taste' many of the less healthy things.

* I'm a planner. I have no problem making ADR's and knowing they'll likely work for us. I can also look at menus and know what we'll likely order. Knowing that, I can price out meals and snacks. To leave a 'buffer', I assume that we don't get dessert at lunch, split a dessert at dinner, and only get one snack a day. (Remember that drinks are snacks too, and we always seem to hit hot days and are thirsty.)

Given all of the above, I thought we'd likely save about $70 last year. We ended up closer to $175. (Granted, that included some snacks we might not have tried if we were OOP. We had extra credits, and to us, part of vacation is trying new and different foods.) This year, it again looks like we'll save about $75.

It does take a little work sometimes. At Flying Fish, I wanted a salad as an appetizer, and an appetizer as my entree. Fortunately, the waiter worked with the mgr to make the system accept this. (The salad as app was fine; it was the app as entree that caused issues.)

 

[seadd67]

It works for our family and the way we like to eat. I feel that it's very flexible since we do lots of sharing at the CS meals - there's never tons of food leftover, and yet we still have credits enough to grab a couple breakfasts at CS.

However, both of my kids still qualify for the kid's dining plan. Talk to me in a couple years when the kids are both "adults" on the DDP...I may have a different opinion.

awsome picture

 

[Ava]

We said this last time, but, with free dining, it seemed to make sense. But, I ate too much, felt stuck with all these silly reservations, and couldn't eat what I wanted. I don't want a soda with my dinner and lunch yet again, or a dessert. I want an appetizer, and maybe, that's all I want. I don't want to have to leave the line I'm in so I can go eat when I'm not hungry. I don't want to gain 5 pounds in 7 days because I don't want to waste food. Plus, I was disappointed with quite a few of our restaurant choices.

I will use the room only discount next time. Buy my tickets through Undercover Tourist much cheaper, and eat what I want, when I want. I may not even make a reservation at all. I can't say that it was financially worth it either. I had 35% off of a room only. I can't use my restaurant totals to judge anything, because I wouldn't have ordered the way I did if I was paying OOP.

Lesson learned, I guess.

This is why I'm not interested in doing the dining plan. I don't want to be tied down to reservations every day, and I'd rather just order what I want to eat instead of "having" to get an entree, soda, & dessert at every meal.

For our trip in May we are doing the scenario you plan on next time - room-only discount (25% off at POP), tickets from UT, and dining OOP. We have 3 TS meals planned (2 lunches & 1 breakfast), which with a 2-year-old I think is enough. There is plenty of variety of CS available to keep us happy.

I think a big myth that helps sell the DDP is that if you don't book TS meals you'll be stuck eating burgers & pizza for a week, but that's not the case at all. There are a lot of options available at CS, you just have to know where to go. My partner & I decided that for our "date night" at Epcot we're not going to book a TS dinner - we're going to snack around the world instead, picking up whatever strikes our fancy at the CS locations. I'm sure we won't have a problem finding more than enough to fill us up!

 

[goofy2008]

I agree way to much food. And the whole trip you worry about what time do we eat Next..

 

[imthatgirl]

I agree way to much food. And the whole trip you worry about what time do we eat Next..

If you want to any table service whether you have the dining plan or not. the only time you aren't worried about time is when you eat exclusively QS. I don't see how the dining plan changes that.

 

[nurtz]

I would never say we will never use the dining plan however I doubt that we would unless free dining was a better discount for us than my AP room discount. Our klds are grown (the youngest is off to college next year) and we like to stay deluxe so frankly the very small savings we might have on the dining plan is not worth the prepaid aspect. Free dining would not be a better discount than my AP discount on a deluxe room which is where we prefer to stay. We like to share an appetizer and sometimes an entree. We never get dessert to share let alone one for each of us. I like to have an adult beverage on occasion and we rarely get the number of snacks that we would get on the plans. I do not want to cart a bunch of uneaten snacks home with me either. We still make ADR's for where we would like to eat. Sometimes we cancel because we just don't feel like eating at that time or at that place. I like that I don't have to figure out how to make up that TS credit. I look at the prices on the menu and I order what I want. It may be the least expensive item, it may be the most expensive. We are happy to eat that way and I am sure we are not the only ones. I am glad for those who love the dining plan so much "they would never go to Disney without it". Some of us would just rather not use it. You can go to Disney and have a wonderful time without it...we have over 20 times and when our kids were young we most certainly had to watch how much we spent. Even then we ate quite well without any dining plan.

 

[fadingjamie]

This trip will be our first time using the DDP. We're paying for it too (I think we should have waited to get it for free to test it out but whatever). I really enjoyed making all the reservations and planning. However, my first trip, we paid OOP the whole time with the help of the $200 gc we got at booking. Paying OOP definitely gives you the freedom that you were talking about and I am kind of worried that we will be "interrupted" by our reservations. I like the idea of the meals being paid for in advance so I don't have to worry about what things cost, but I wish there were a few things different. I don't always want dessert at the end.. it would be nice to be able to pick either an appetizer or dessert with the meal. There are a few appetizers I am going to want to try that will not be included in the basic DDP. Also, I'm paying in advance for these meals but I'm inconvenienced by still having to bring cash with me to tip. I kind of kills the magic of the plan for me.

Well, we'll see how I like this idea when we go in May. I'll be back! hehe

 

[GailT]

I caved in tonight and chnged to the DDP, I said I wouldn't do it again but I do like CG AP.Narcosses,Citricos and this time trying Jilkos, 2 table settings for dinner each night and for breakfast 1 table setting then when hungry just grab something for a light lunch, I think this is perfect for me, usually eating at the 2TS it's at least 150.00 thats with no alcoholic beverages. I do wish the tip was still included

 

[kylieh]

We sat down and gave Excel a workout, and even though we have free dining as we are only planning one sit down, with the cost of counter service, what we eat, how we snack etc, came our cheaper to change to the current % off with QSDP. Assuming we eat everything, and I'm guessing we will, we should come out around 10% in front. Not heaps, but it's all paid for for ours and SIL's family before we go and it's one less thing to worry about.

 

[brymolmom]

We like the Dining Plan. Of course, we've never paid for it. But love it when it's free!

We have figured out what works best for us, however. I agree it's a ton of food and honestly by the 6th or so day -we are SICK of eating (and overeating). So this August we're doing 2 (maybe 3) 2 credit meals/shows. This means we don't end up having a sit-down meal every day - almost ever-other day. And that is perfect for us. Bonus is that we get a dinner show that will be entertaining (and beer and wine included- YEA) and also get a restaurant with a lobster option which is my absolute favorite.

We might end up paying for a small handful of CS meals...I haven't planned down to that detail yet. But I depending on the time of our flights - I think we might end up about even too. We have 2 adults and 2 kids and often split 3 CS meals between us, plus we like to do the pizza meal at the resort at least one night while swimming, and that's only 2 CS credits for all of us for dinner. So we 'save' a bunch of credits and can use them to cover the days when we don't have TS planned.

Those of you who have found you don't like the DP at all maybe could try it this way next time. Less food with fewer sit-downs and also less being tied to reservations without a TS every day. It works for us!

 

[psac]

In the past we did the room discounts and then bought the DxDP. We used it for a signature restaurant almost every night, with one other TS meal per day and snack credits to get muffins and such for breakfast. We "saved" a LOT of money. Like over $500 considering the costs of the signatures. But then we definitely order more than we would if we were paying out of pocket (like appetizers at every lunch), but even if we didn't do that, we still would have saved money for sure.

 

[jpaxton1118]

It is funny to be how everyone see's it so differently. I think that is great. For us it works. We have 3 kids who eat 3 times a day plus snacks. We are pretty much on a schedule at home and eat our meals around the same time everyday. For us the dining plan works because we are going to be eating when the kids get hungry which is the same time everyday so we can plan a sit down meal. I can tell you if we are off by an hour my kids get cranky so I know that we need to eat before that happens. After running the numbers it might save us $100 put there is also the joy of knowing the meals are paid for and I will not see the look of pain in my husbands eyes when he takes out the money to pay the meal. I can tell you he was in shock after eating at the Princess breakfast in Epcot. He saw the bill and was very glad that we had the dining plan.

 

[seadd67]

Its funny the most common denomnater in this thread is the peace of mind when ordering. We might save a few bucks, maybe break even or even spend few extra of the DP. But we agree the peace of mind when looking over the menues is relief.

 

[dntd]

When we went last we ate breakfast and dinners and only lunch a few times. It was way too much food though we did do alot of signature dining. This time I'm doing the normal dining as the cost of adding a counter service meal and a snack is still cheaper then getting the deluxe upgrade.

 

[sjs314]

Its funny the most common denomnater in this thread is the peace of mind when ordering. We might save a few bucks, maybe break even or even spend few extra of the DP. But we agree the peace of mind when looking over the menues is relief.

I know myself no matter how hard I try to plan every last detail for a trip to Disney everything costs more than anticipated. I am looking forward to using the DxDP for the first time, in fact it is the first time we have ever used the DP not looking at the menu prices and also not always having in the back of my mind to not go overboard so as to have plenty of money for our entire trip. Peace of Mind is a wonderful thing while on vacation