No dining plan, no discount card and not cooking-Does it work for you?

[Luv2trav]

In the past we have always gotten the dining plan. We have experienced both the regular plan and deluxe... After using the deluxe last June we are seriously considering NO dining plan at all... We have ADR's everyday and the thought of sitting down everyday makes sick.. So we have decided to just do 3-4 dining reservation. We considered the Quick Service dining plan and just pay out of pocket for the 3-4 ADR's.. Although I am not sure that is a good fit for us since my DS's are picky eaters and can usually share a Quick Service meal...

Those of you that just wing it on your own without any type of plan or discount does it work out well for you? I am scared we may end up paying too much going out of pocket..

What are your suggestions?

 

[dianeschlicht]

Absolutely! We like to get ADRs at specific restuarants and the rest of the time we wing it or dine in using the kitchen. We always eat breakfast in our own kitchen, and usually do either a table service or signature a day. On the days we decide to eat at Flame Tree or Sunshine Seasons, we skip the sit down. Our favorite "cook it yourself" meals are much the same as what we would make at home. We often buy a small ham on our grocery stop, and that makes one good meal plus some great sandwich material for "light lunches or suppers".

 

[MnMomW3Boys]

We have never done the dining plan ( I have always wanted to but I just can't take the plunge) we make a trip to Wal Mart when we get there (I don't cook) we grab snack food, a frozen pizza or two, crackers, cheese, lunch meat...whatever else looks good at the time. We usually eat two or three TS meals and a few CS meals and thats it. It works for us!

 

[dianeschlicht]

I just wanted to add that we often go during the times of the year where "last minute" dining ressies are possible. We have often walked up to a sit down in the park and gotten right in. It's all about knowing WHEN to go.

 

[MiaSRN62]

I pretty much echo Diane's sentiments. We do our breakfasts at our DVC with the use of the kitchen. We make a few ADR's for our fav restaurants. And here's a plan that always works well for us (we're not huge eaters). We do breakfast in our villa.....then we try and plan a late lunch/early dinner. If you can jump in on the lunch menu but closer to the dinner hour, it's like getting a cheaper dinner. We also use our Tables In Wonderland card for 20% savings at most sit downs and some food courts. Then we just get a snack later in the evening if we're still in the parks (like a Casey dog or something) or if we're back in our villa, we just snack from what we've stocked our kitchen with. The main reason we do not like the DDP is because we hate having to make all those reservations and having to be at a certain place at a certain time. We wing it. So if we're in the MK on Friday and it's unusually crowded, we just hop over to another park. Now, if we had dinner ADR's, we'd feel obligated to stay in the crowded MK. I know it works for many but not our style.


Maria

 

[CarolA]

I have done the dining plan probably twice in who knows how many trips. (more then you can count on your fingers and toes LOL)

I do buy the Tables in Wonderland card SOMETIMES. But for years it wasn't an option and I have done trips without it.


My idea of cooking is cereal in the room for breakfast.

I have a good time. Disney is not about "dining" to me. I live in a big city. I can get BETTER food for less money here.

For me this works fine and costs me LESS then the DDP would. The DDP has you paying for food you don't need or want. Do you REALLY need desert with a counter service? Do you REALLY need desert with each meal?

(And no walking around Disney does not burn off all those "extras" LOL!)

 

[Anal Annie]

Have never done the DDP but HAVE used the TIW (formerly DDE). I'm with Carol - my idea of "cooking" on vac. is cereal or bagels. We only use studios so cooking is somewhat limited anyway. But eating out is part of vacation for me!! I'm all about doing breakfast in but that's it.

In the past I have not felt that the dining plan was worth it for our DS. He's a "Disney adult" now (turning 12 next month) and weighs all of 65 Lbs. We can eat so much cheaper on our own as what he eats still flips between your standard "kids fare" and the adult menus. He likes pizza & quesadillas so he may order an app. quesadilla somewhere as his meal. We like to have 2-3 nice sit-down dinners in a week but HATE being tied to ADR's & can't afford to do them every day. We'd rather wing it as far as to when & where we are. My guys hate being told we "NEED" to leave soon so we can be wherever by whatever time. Under the old ressie system you could make more than 1 reservation at a time on the same day but now you cannot so we will be doing fewer TS meals simply because of that. I liked being able to have 1 ressie at Epcot & 1 at HS so we could plan our days easier. I would always call & cancel what we decided we didn't want to keep but we liked having a couple of options available so we could decide what we felt like doing. I think it's really hard to decide where and what time you want to eat months ahead. I'd rather "crave" something but Disney doesn't let you dine like that with the ADR system. The way I look at it is that if we do more CS than TS meals we'll be saving a lot of money on our meals. We'll bring our own water & snacks so I think the 3 of us can eat 2 CS meals a day for approx. $50-55...that's a tad cheaper than the CS meal plan per day and we can throw in a couple of TS meals if we want.

We used the DDE card last year for 3 trips. It was still $60 then but now it's up to $75 so I think we'll probably skip it this year. It took us about 10 days to get our $ back on it last time for 2 "real" adults and 1 child. Now that it's gone up $15 and we're doing fewer TS meals because of the new ADR ressie system I don't think we'll recover the $75 fee. Our only 2 ressies for our May trip are at T-Rex for DS's birthday and at Wolfgang Puck Cafe - neither place takes the TIW card 'cuz they're not Disney owned.

I'm pretty darned anal but making ADR's for every day is just too much planning.

 

[starbox]

We considered the Quick Service dining plan and just pay out of pocket for the 3-4 ADR's.. Although I am not sure that is a good fit for us since my DS's are picky eaters and can usually share a Quick Service meal...

We were "on our own" last year - and while it did not end up costing more, it did take away some of the "Magic" to pay 40-60$ for CS meals.

That's why I'd suggest the QS plan - we just used it and, unlike the TS dining, there is NO PRESSURE at all to use all your credits at each meal. DS12 and DD10 shared, skipped, or just got snacks for lunch/dinner several times - we used the extra full-meal QS to allow the adults to eat breakfast.

Also breakfast comes with two bottled drinks - so we just had coffee in our (plan-included) refillable mugs and between the 2 adults got 4 bottles of water to take to the park that day. Kids ate bagels or cereal (snack credit).

I ended up loving the QS Plan!

 

[Luv2trav]

We were "on our own" last year - and while it did not end up costing more, it did take away some of the "Magic" to pay 40-60$ for CS meals.

That's why I'd suggest the QS plan - we just used it and, unlike the TS dining, there is NO PRESSURE at all to use all your credits at each meal. DS12 and DD10 shared, skipped, or just got snacks for lunch/dinner several times - we used the extra full-meal QS to allow the adults to eat breakfast.

Also breakfast comes with two bottled drinks - so we just had coffee in our (plan-included) refillable mugs and between the 2 adults got 4 bottles of water to take to the park that day. Kids ate bagels or cereal (snack credit).

I ended up loving the QS Plan!

Good info.. I never considered using it for breakfast. Are the QS meals combined or would we need to order a kids breakfast? I have also considered the QS for the mugs...

1 other thing I am worried about is we are staying at Kidani and I am concerned about the QS options without having to take a bus to Mara everyday.. I hope they have some type of breakfast/lunch service like at Beach Club store and pool...

 

[goofygal1975]

Under the old ressie system you could make more than 1 reservation at a time on the same day but now you cannot so we will be doing fewer TS meals simply because of that.
Now that it's gone up $15 and we're doing fewer TS meals because of the new ADR ressie system I don't think we'll recover the $75 fee. .

I'm pretty darned anal but making ADR's for every day is just too much planning.

What do you mean about the new ADR system only being able to make one reservastion at a time? Do you mean per day? I called awhile back, under the new system and was able to make ADR's for our 7 day trip all at one time.

 

[WolfpackFan]

We never get the dining plan. Way too much food for us. At most we might have 2-3 full service meals per trip. The rest are all counter service meals. We usually eat breakfast (breakfast bars) in our room.

 

[TiszBear]

I have only used the dining plan once and won't use it again. I usually make no more than 3 ADR's (the most I have done is 4 but that is pushing it).

I prefer to wing it when I go, I don't like having to cut my day short at whatever park I am at to go to a restaurant. BUt that is my preference and it has worked for my family for along time.

Good luck with whatever you decide.

 

[goofygal1975]

I forgot to add that we never do the dining plans. I always consider it, and then back out of booking it. We used to have the DDE card, and with at least 3-4 trips in 12 months we will get the TWI this year.

I just always hear how alot of people on the plans don't use every credit before they leave. Some do use the snacks for the ride/trip back home.

The cs plan sounds interresting. But now that we have DVC, we will have our kitchen on longer trips. DH and I are going to share CS lunches sometimes, and then sanck as we are hungry. We will eat some lunches in the room (we do plan on taking afternoon breaks) we'll have lunch meat and bread. I KNOW we would get tired of CS meals EVERYDAY for lunch and dinner for 7 days. One night we'll order a pizza, another night I'll make chicken wraps...very quick and easy and healthy!! (not that we don't plan to enjoy a burger and fries while we are there...LOL)

We do have a few TS meals planned for our trip as well. Mainly when the inlaws are staying with us for a couple of days.

I just don't see the plans working for our family right now.

 

[hockeyprincess]

I guess I'm on the other side of the spectrum here....when we go we always get the Basic Dining plan. We usually stay in a studio but are doing a 1BR for our next trip, and we're tossing around not doing the dining plan and more cooking in the room. I don't know though.... it's a tough decision for me. I LOVE to go out to eat and HATE to cook. My hubby is the opposite. He makes wonderful meals and would rather not go out. (He does go out to eat to please me!) "They" (the other three in my family) tell me I can't even make boxed mac & cheese, so you see my dilema! So anyway, we get more food than we could possibly eat while dining with the plan. Not a bad thing though, we take the dessert back to the room and eat as a snack later in the evening, and the kids carry the grapes with them and eat as a snack. Food does not go wasted, that's for sure. That said, we would NEVER EVER pay some of the TS prices out of pocket!! So we never would have seen those places or experienced the food had it not been for the dining plan. Typically our dinner cost us more than the dining plan did for the entire day. To me, this is a good deal, EVEN IF you wouldn't normally take dessert with lunch, or order it with dinner.

This upcoming trip is a "less parks" trip and that's the only reason we're considering not getting the dining plan. But there are many TS places we like to eat (Chef Mickeys) that do not require park entrance. I just don't know if buying groceries will be any cheaper than the dining plan to be honest. When you consider that we are flying, so with out Anal Annie goodvibes) coming along with us to plan our meals to the T, we may be in trouble as we can not bring home any of the perishable food we might purchase. This concerns me! It's totally a waste to me if we don't eat everything we buy from the grocery, we left almost an entire case of water and one or two 6 packs of soda the last time and it almost killed me. FWIW: we are two adults and still two children for dining purposes.

My issue is also, that there really have been no additions to the selections of restaurants. I would love to see some other places added! But I know if we are eating Disney restaurants there is NO way we could eat cheaper than having the dining plan.

So there's my two cents!

 

[edk35]

We were "on our own" last year - and while it did not end up costing more, it did take away some of the "Magic" to pay 40-60$ for CS meals.

That's why I'd suggest the QS plan - we just used it and, unlike the TS dining, there is NO PRESSURE at all to use all your credits at each meal. DS12 and DD10 shared, skipped, or just got snacks for lunch/dinner several times - we used the extra full-meal QS to allow the adults to eat breakfast.

Also breakfast comes with two bottled drinks - so we just had coffee in our (plan-included) refillable mugs and between the 2 adults got 4 bottles of water to take to the park that day. Kids ate bagels or cereal (snack credit).

I ended up loving the QS Plan!

We are considering THE QS plan for part of our trip in July....to test/try it out for 2 days. I like the idea of the mugs for the boys especially when we are at the Poly spending time there. I think that right there is a nice savings. Those mugs are like 12.99 a pop. Then you still get the 2 CS meals and 2 snacks. I think it is a nice value even if you add in 1 or 2 TS meals in a weeks trip.

I have been back and forth the past two weeks about JUST ADDING THE DP to the 2 day Poly stay of our 9 day trip this summer and I cant' seem to commit to the DP for two days. OMG I have posted a 1/2 dozen posts about this lately.

I liked the DDE/TIW card and if we had AP's right now we would have it. We got a lot of use out of that DDE card when we got 4 trips out of her AP's last year but I think you have to hit a lot of TS meals and several trips to see the discount especially since they increased it to 75.

I just can't get past a few things with the DP. I don't like the idea of planning where I will eat every night for a 9 day trip. We end up mixing up the ADR's we make now and cancel some when we are there or book them at different times. We also prefer to have our big meal at lunch too. It is cheaper at a lot of places and we are ready to have a nice meal and cool off when we go in the summer. Plus sometimes we don't want to go back out after being at the parks. We want to hang at the pool or resort and chill. If I had an ADR every night....I don't know how that would work for us with our current routine.
I think the DP works for people who go to the expensive places and get their money's worth so to speak. It works for some and not others.

We have been going to WDW for years and years and we have managed to do just fine with no DDP. I think you will be fine.

 

[gracelrm]

We've used the Dining Plan once or twice, had the discount card one year and have just been on our own for most all of our trips. We generally eat breakfast in the room and eat about 75% of our lunches in the room and then have an ADR for supper. This works well for us. We enjoyed the dining plan the time or two we were on it, but it was really too much food for us and we felt we had to revolve our day around food. We've only ever had an AP one year - so we did do the discount card that year - which was nice to be able to include a bottle of wine at the discounted price. But since we don't usually get APs - that hasn't been an option for us. I think we probably save money by eating breakfast and most lunches in the room and then trying not to over-do our supper meal. We don't mind doing lunches in the room because we still like to head back to the room during the heat of the day and swim and rest. We started doing that when we had kids who needed a nap - now DH enjoys the nap and the kids swim or get some time on the computer. Works for us!

 

[Silly Little Pixie]

I know if you get the DP it has to be for everyone on your reservation for the whole trip. But what if some of your party is checking out and you are staying? On our trip it will be me, 2 kids, MIL, FIL. However, DH *might* join us for one night. We are in a 2 bedroom so plenty of room if he can get the extra time off. Would we be able to get the DP if DH checks out the next day? He'd only join us for check in day, and fly home the next morning if he can go at all (it's a post cruise stay). I just want him to be able to experience one night at "home"! It's so unfair that he'll have to go back to work while the rest of us get to relax and play at Kidani for the week... I don't want to have to pay for DP for him if he is already back home in California!

 

[oakmanner]

We never get the DDP. We're going to WDW staying at SSR in 2 Bedroom this May and only have ADR's for four of the eight nights we'll be there.

We have a car so we'll stock up on breakfast items, lunch meat etc. as well as eat off property or order take out a few nights. This appoach will save us big $ over the course of the week.

-Dennis

 

[MiaSRN62]

Friends of ours got the DDP one time and another factor is, you have to eat whether you're hungry or not.......if someone feels ill in the family you lose those credits and paid for nothing. This happened to friends of ours. Not to put down Le Cellier in Epcot, but they all ate there for dinner and all of them came down with some sort of food poisoning. They could barely eat anything for 24 hours and even on the second day they could only eat very light snack meals. So they essentially lost their money for 5 people for two full days. Just something to consider.

 

[HayGan]

Friends of ours got the DDP one time and another factor is, you have to eat whether you're hungry or not.......if someone feels ill in the family you lose those credits and paid for nothing. This happened to friends of ours. Not to put down Le Cellier in Epcot, but they all ate there for dinner and all of them came down with some sort of food poisoning. They could barely eat anything for 24 hours and even on the second day they could only eat very light snack meals. So they essentially lost their money for 5 people for two full days. Just something to consider.

You do not lose your credits. Your friends could have used their credits on another day of their trip. Yes, if you get sick on the last day then any you don't lose would be lost but if it is earlier in the trip you can ust have two TS meals in one day or eat at a signature restaurant. Credits are good for the entire trip and are not allocated to each day.

We have done trips with the DDP and without it. While we have enjoyed many of the TS restaurants we have eaten at we have decided that we much prefer not having it. We make a few ADRs at our favorite restaurants and then plan on eating off-site or in the room for a few meals. Breakfast is in the room for many reasons and it is nice to have snacks and stuff for luch and dinner back in the room. I really think not having the DDP provides so much more flexibility and saves a ton of money.