New Meal Plans? Worth the $?

[loveysbydesign]

Hi all,
Any info. regarding the new meal plans would be great. Do you think they're woth the added cost or is it better just to play it by ear and see how hungry we'll get. It's me, dh , ds-6 and dd-3! Thanks!

 

[bicker]

I'm, unfortunately, not eligible for the plan yet, because it won't be offered to DVC members for their visits until visits in April. However, I did a quick forecast of what we're going to spend, based on the menus posted online and what I know about my family's preferences. We'll end up spending at least $1250 for just lunch and dinner for our trip (including tax and tips). If the dining plan was available to us, it would have cost us $978. So we'd have saved $250, plus gotten a snack for each of us each day, included.

For folks who are getting the dining plan as part of a MYW package, the math may not be as easy since perhaps you cannot get certain discounts and then add on the dining plan... I'm not sure about that.

 

[all4fun]

Hmm we're in the same boat as the pp because we are DVC members. You might check out the restaurant board - I think there were some threads on it there. The budget board might be another good place to look. We do plan on using the dining plan on our next trip in December, but again, not really sure how it compares to people using the MYW plan.

 

[czycropper]

YES! There are 4 in our family and the meal plans are great and you save much more than you expect.

I know they've changed since we went last year but I did a calculation when we got home and by using the meal plan we saved over $300 I'm planning our next 10 day visit in late 2006 and I have already put it into the budget. A good example would be - a high school friend & her DH met us for dinner one of the nights we were there and they spent over $120 for basically the same dishes that my DH & I had - the only exception was that I was able to have dessert - and we only had to pay for the wine

 

[Schmeck]

How much does the 3 yr old eat? Would it be worth paying for all those meals?

 

[bicker]

I think a more important question is how much are you going to pay for meals for your three year old. I just did that computation for our 1.5 year old (who clearly would eat even less, and beyond that, gets some meals for free). It came to $66 for 6 days, so almost exactly what they're charging for the dining plan. My estimate for our 6 year old is a bit higher, so I suspect we've save lots of money even for him, if we were eligible for the dining plan.

 

[byoung]

We are also DVC and will use the plan not that we can.

 

[unbroken chain]

1. How long is your trip? We were just there for 9 days. At first, you are saving a lot of money over what the cost would be out of pocket (but not necessarily if you would not normally have had appetizers, desserts with lunch, etc.) But by the end of our trip we just couldn't eat any more. My 13 year old boy, who can eat a whole pizza, was taking 2 bites of a hamburger and saying he was full. I barely ate for 2 days after we got home!!

2. Remember that half are table service. At Cinderella's Castle, Chefs de France and Planet Hollywood, it took us 1 3/4 hours to eat table service. Will your 6 and 3 year old sit for nearly 2 hours to eat dinner? If you are going to use the table service for lunch instead, you might get faster service, but the relative savings won't be as great.

 

[loveysbydesign]

HMMMM.....you all have such great points! My kids are definitely not into waiting and sitting for 2 hrs., especially since it will be our first time there. I think if we decide to stay off-site than it might be better as they may feel overwhelmed, so perhaps we could leave a park, go back and eat lunch and then go back to the park. Originally we were planning to stay onsite, but we have a limited budget and my kids are really active and would probably drive us crazy in a small hotel room, plus my dh snores ungodly loud!