No Dining Plan = no stress!

[snykymom]

I'm one who loves the sit-down restaurants, does signature restaurants, and won't do the dining plan. I find it doesn't save me anything and does add to the stress of trying to make sure that I didn't waste any money. I need to get my money's worth on any plan.

For example, I love Jiko. But it's 2 credits; the 2 credits cost more than I likely would spend at Jiko. Sometimes I like having 2 appetizers and no main course; sometimes I'll substitute a dessert with a single appetizer. If I don't feel like going to an ADR, I don't have to worry that I have to find another one or I'll "lose" a table service credit.

Last trip, I was very glad not to have the dining plan. I got sick the last 2 days, and ate little. I didn't have to pay for things I didn't eat.

 

[whitney37354]

I can see both sides to this.

We've only been once as a family and we did DxDP because I wanted to do all of the character meals so we could kill two birds with one stone by getting pictures & autographs and eating at the same time. We saved $250 and lots of touring time by doing that. I also got DH out of bed & into the parks early because of ADR times. Otherwise, he'd sleep late and miss half the touring day.

We did miss out on doing some things like getting an evening FP for Soarin' because we had to be at another park for ADRs instead. We could have done a few more rides & more touring of WS if we'd done more CS or snacking instead of two TS & one CS each day. We only did three rides at AK because we were trying to get back to Soarin' for a FP and they were out by the time we got there. We did finally get FP for Soarin' on our last morning because we had ADR at Akershus and were rushing through that meal. We'd already seen all of those princesses at Cindy's castle and were in a hurry to get back to The Land for the FP's. We got there at rope drop for the stampede and had 1.5 hrs. to kill before FP's were valid.

If/when we go again, I think we'll do another dining plan or maybe just wing it and do CS & snacks. DH could have gotten his hot breakfast at CS just as well as he did at TS this time and it would have been much less expensive! We could concentrate on doing our favorites and things we missed this time around. Maybe we could get some pool time in too, since we missed that.