Newbie here. Hello! Is the deluxe dining plan worth it for us?

[krowe333]

I have been trying and trying to budget between doing the deluxe dining plan or spending out of pocket for a week and I need some help.
I am 36, my dh is 40, our daughters are 8 & 12.
We will be doing the Cinderellas Royal Table, The Crystal Palace, Rainforest Cafe, Coral Reef, Sci-Fi Dine In, Akershus Royal Banquet Hall w/Princesses, and maybe Chef Mickeys at Contemporary Resort and Ohana's Lilo & Stitch B'fast.
Our daughters are eaters! They eat all day to night-lol!
We will be staying at Pop Century Resort for 5 nights, not using the park hopper. Doing MK 2x and the rest of the parks 1 day.
Using the EMH to the fullest.
Thank you for any and all information,
Kimberley

 

[Desnik]

Our family is pretty similar in age. I'm 36, DH is 40, DD 14 & DS 9. But we are all not big eaters. My 14yo never eats enough to justify paying adult prices. We go to Disney often and don't do the buffets or character meals anymore. We don't really eat desserts either, so for our family the DDP & especially the DxDDP is not worth it for us. But from what you have said about your family, I think the DDP would work great for you all. That's especially because of the places you plan on eating at. Just keep in mind it is a lot of food. Why not do the regular dining plan? Do you really want to do 2 or 3 sit downs a day? Not only does it cut into park time but again that is a ton of food.

 

[Claire&TheBoys]

The best way to find out is to run the numbers. Go to allearsnet.com and look at the menus there and prices. You can probably guess what your family will choose to eat (I know I'm right probably 95% of the time). Add it all up, add in your 6.5% sales tax and compare to what the dining plan will cost you. Include an estimate of $3/snack/person/day and the cost of the refillable mug if that is something you'd buy anyway.

 

[dsneprincess]

Agree with pp. We have never done DDP, but seeing the amount of food per person with DDP, we would never be able to eat it & walk in the heat all day. The time alone it takes to travel to the different meals & wait & eat would be our whole vacation. We usually do 1 reservation per day & share meals or snacks for the rest of the meals. Just remember that most times of year, walking in a Disney Park is like walking on the surface of Mercury! DS12 has not been able to finish an adult meal yet! Deluxe DDP would be overkill for us!

 

[dsneprincess]

Forgot to add that I would MUCH prefer park hoppers over deluxe plan!!

 

[disneychrista]

I agree with the PP to do the math. That is really the only way to know if it is worth it to you. Do you tend to eat expensive meals or are you a hamburger & fries family? The dinning plan would never be benefical to us, as we don't like fancy meals or the time it takes to do sit down meals every day. We much prefer quick counter service meals, don't ever get dessert and rarely get snacks.

 

[ceecee]

We do the DDP, everyone I've ever talked to said the deluxe was just too much food. I would go with the regular and see how you like that.

 

[BubMunkeyBles]

I'd say yes with what you listed. Especially with the 8 year old and if you do Chef Mickeys and Ohana's on a 5 night stay. From our stays we only need two sit down a day to break even, plus extra snack credit. We weren't going to do dining in December and then realized the savings with our 3 year old made it worth it since the kids buffet's are expensive!

 

[usd2bmd]

We do the regular dining plan when we go, but I don't think we would ever do the Deluxe plan, because I don't see us doing that many "signature dining" experiences to make use of all the dining credits and we definitely wouldn't do more than one table service meal per day.

We are there 8 days every trip and I think all that eating would be too much time taken away from the parks. As it is my husband doesn't really want to leave the parks to eat...

It's a personal choice, but if I was making it we would do the regular dining plan and if we chose to do a signature dining experience we would just pay out of pocket for another meal.

 

[Cheshire Figment]

Do you want to spend your time in the Parks or eating?

Three sit-down meals per day, especially at Deluxe, will take six or more hours of time per day and will cut down on Park time.

 

[danceintherain]

Right now, you only have 9 credits of table service listed per person. That leaves 6 credits. With those meals, here's your best case scenario (assuming you eat everything you order):
CRT (dinner): $65.74
Akershus (dinner): $42.59
Crystal Palace (dinner): $39.40
Rainforest Cafe: $47
Coral Reef (dinner): $43
Sci Fi Dine-In: $38
Chef Mickey's (dinner): $41.53
Ohana (breakfast): $22.36
Total: $339.62
Cost of Deluxe Dining for 5 nights: $99x5=$495
If you subtract the cost of the refillable mug ($14.49) and $3 per snack ($30) you're left with $110.89 to cover. That's approximately $18.50 per credit.
That's not an entirely barring amount, but still hard. (Quick Service breakfasts are usually closer to $10) Also, I pretty much picked the most expensive things on the menus at the places you mentioned. If you go for something less expensive on the menu (or breakfast instead of dinner) the leftover amount will be more. I'd say you need at least one more table service meal to make it worth while, and you need to be fairly certain that you're going to order some of the more expensive items along with appetizers and desserts for every meal and eat everything. Even so, in order to actually save money, you really should plan on table service meals for every credit, which is A LOT of food, and a lot of time spent eating.

My only other comment is that you can't use EMH to their fullest without Park Hoppers, because you'll be stuck in the same park when it starts getting crowded in the afternoon. It's up to you though.