On Dining Plan, do you spend additional money on food?

[Threeriversdisneyfan]

Last Sept, we did OOP for Rainforest CAfe, about $70 (had to save credits for HDDR) A couple Breakfasts @ ASMu (2 days 4 meals about $50) and numerous snacks in the parks (approx $40) reasons varied from could not use DDP @ BB or TL, the card readers did n't work at AK (wireless problems), and finally the DDp snack list did not equal my kids snack list (hopefully it will this trip)

I am going to budget between $100 to $200 just for the reasons I mentioned above. It's hard to explain to your kids that they can't have a snack just because it's not on the DDP list. Don't worry you will not leave hungry with the DDP on any day, just plan for the unexpected snack here or there.

Of course there is extra tip debate (no comment here, don't want thread to go off topic).

 

[NMW]

We like character/resort breakfasts every morning, so we are paying for them. We are also doing 3 TS lunches this trip which we are paying for. We will pay for one dinner completely oop because we are doing Flying Fish one night and need 2 credits each for it. Of course all alcohol is oop too!

We stay in the DVC villas so we have a big fridge. We have the car service stop on the way from the airport so we can pick up soda, beer, juice for the kids. We don't cook on vacation, but we love the fridge space!

 

[DebbieB]

I used the DDP with my niece last month, 5 nights. We stayed in a DVC villa, so I bought bagels & juice for breakfast, plus some liters of pop & snacks for the room. We did 1 table service per day, so I paid OOP for the Cinderella breakfast to stretch our TS credits to the last day. We did a counter service meal later that day and did a TS lunch on the last day before leaving. So other than the Cinderella breakfast, I did not pay for any meals other than breakfast in the room. We did pickup a few snacks in the parks but not much.

 

[HaleyB]

We did spend oop on adult drinks, and a few snacks (although because they were not on the plan at the time, almost everything is now). We also did a few extra TS meals oop (but not needed and we had left over CS meals because of it).

This year I plan on $20 a day oop, plus $100 (total, not per day ) for adult beverages for DH and I. That will cover either breakfast or snacks if we use our snack credits for breakfast. I don't think we will spend all $20 every day, but I like to aim high on my budget.

 

[simpilotswife]

Yes, we will pay OOP for a couple of DD's meals. She'll be 10 and so considered to be an adult. She doesn't eat like an adult though so for the couple of places that are not buffets, we will pay OOP for her and use the extra credits for dinner at Flying Fish.

 

[meglovesbelle]

We are planning a few character breakfast that we will pay oop, these are cheaper to pay for than a ts. Even paying for our charatcer breakfasts we are still going to save money. Can't wait to get there

 

[!@#$%]

I DISAGREE with everyone on this one.
We had 3 on the DDP, but a family of 4 (one 2 year old). We all were stuffed all week. We DID NOT spend a cent more. We even cashed in all our snacks at the end of the week and took home 14 bags of chips!!! We couldnt eat the snacks, and we all ate like pigs the whole week.
I never buy water. Water is free in the park. Just ask for a cup of water. Oh, and its not that bad, and if you think it is, crystal light packs are a buck and a half a box at Walmart. Makes bad water yummy and so small you'll never know you have one in your pocket. Comes out to like 9 cents each.

 

[!@#$%]

JMHO. No flames please.

 

[Fionasmommy]

We paid $108 OOP for lunch at CRT, and spent around $5 per day getting DD a waffle w/ bacon and milk from the food court for breakfast. Other than that we didn't spend any more on food.

 

[ExPirateShopGirl]

We paid out of pocket for the mini donuts at the water parks... not on the plan but worth every cent/calorie... we bought a case of water bottles for the trip in advance... I had a glass of merlot at Le Cellier... and one morning I paid out of pocket for breakfast at Kona Cafe... The more we visit WDW, the less we spend out of plan...

Good luck~

 

[pigletforever]

We will be going in October and I know my family and we will be paying for extra snacks. I also know that we are going to be paying for 1 or 2 meals OOP - Fultons is one. I figure it is vacation and it is only money.

 

[LeesyUD]

Between my DBF and I we are probably going to spend around an extra $200-$250on oop meals total. We are going for 8 nights and will be there almost the whole day on our 9th day. We are doing 11 TS meals all together (most of which are dinners). We are using our 8 TS credits for only 6 TS meals bc 2 are signatures. The other meals that we will be paying oop are 1 other TS dinner, 2 TS lunches and 2 character breakfasts. We really only eat twice a day and the way it has worked out we will be doing 1 CS and 1 TS each day. There will only be 2 days where we will probably be eating 3 times in which case we will have 1 early character breakfast, 1 CS lunch and then 1 TS late dinner. At first 11 TS meals seemed like alot but then I realized I get 8 on the DP and if I did not plan any signatures I would only pay 3 meals OOP which really isn't alot more. However, bc we are doing 2 signature meals it isn't affecting how many TS we do just how many we pay oop.

 

[LeesyUD]

I DISAGREE with everyone on this one.
We had 3 on the DDP, but a family of 4 (one 2 year old). We all were stuffed all week. We DID NOT spend a cent more. We even cashed in all our snacks at the end of the week and took home 14 bags of chips!!! We couldnt eat the snacks, and we all ate like pigs the whole week.
I never buy water. Water is free in the park. Just ask for a cup of water. Oh, and its not that bad, and if you think it is, crystal light packs are a buck and a half a box at Walmart. Makes bad water yummy and so small you'll never know you have one in your pocket. Comes out to like 9 cents each.

No flames here but what really is there to disagree with? No one here is really giving many opinions...most are stating what they payed for OOP like the OP asked and some have already mentioned they have only spent a few dollars OOP or none at all. I don't think it is a matter of who agrees or disagrees on whether you should pay OOP. I think the OP was just trying to get an idea of how many people do pay oop and how many don't. You are entitled to your opinion, everyone is different, (I don't always pay for meals OOP) I just don't see how anyone could be viewed as being right or wrong on this topic.

 

[Goobergal99]

We bought breakfast OOP and our resort mugs so I would say we spent a lil over $100 extra. I am budgeting about the same for this trip as I have decided to drop some of the OOP meals we were going to have.

We also didn't use all of our snack credits last year. But with the amount of yummy things they added this year, I don't see that happening again

 

[ElizabethB]

We'll be paying out of pocket quite a bit. Why? We're doing HDDR and several 2 TS meals. Why all the 2TS meals? We like 'em. Plus, we're doing TS for both lunch and dinner. Why? Because we don't like CS. So we'll have lots of CS leftover unused. But, the DDP is free for us next month, so who cares? If I had to pay for DDP, I'd have to rethink this. Actually, free dining isn't free for us next month, as we could have gotten a room only discount with AP or public codes. But, by staying at a moderate, free dining is only costing us the difference between AP room only rate and rack rate for our room. That's about $350 for our stay. We'll use that up with HDDR and one 2TS meal. So, the rest is gravy for us, so to speak. So, if we go OOP for some meals, I'm fine with it. We're still ahead.

 

[Dina]

I was going to ship all of our cereals there and orange juice boxes and just buy milk in the resort gift shop. However, my 6yo keeps talking about eating Mickey Waffles every day and sugar cereals (he rarely gets them at home), and I'm thinking about just bringing some extra money so we can get breakfast at the food court every day-- it would probably be more fun than just eating pop tarts/cheerios in our room. So we're planning to pay for breakfast, and we're doing Donald's Breakfast that we're paying OOP for-- it just seemed a waste to use a dining credit on breakfast.

 

[GC&S]

I DISAGREE with everyone on this one.
We had 3 on the DDP, but a family of 4 (one 2 year old). We all were stuffed all week. We DID NOT spend a cent more. We even cashed in all our snacks at the end of the week and took home 14 bags of chips!!! We couldnt eat the snacks, and we all ate like pigs the whole week.
I never buy water. Water is free in the park. Just ask for a cup of water. Oh, and its not that bad, and if you think it is, crystal light packs are a buck and a half a box at Walmart. Makes bad water yummy and so small you'll never know you have one in your pocket. Comes out to like 9 cents each.

What are you disagreeing with? The OP asked if people paid OOP even when on the DP. Some do, some don't. It's a matter of choice so I'm confused why you are disagreeing with everyone??

We did pay of pocket for a few things. One year it was so hot we used all our snack credits for water (even though it is free at restaurants, we chose to use it for bottled water). We did pay oop for some snack items. Last March we kind of drank our way around Epcot and that definitely was not covered on the dp. We probably spend around $25-$50 oop (that's usually for 7 days).

 

[!@#$%]

No flames here but what really is there to disagree with? No one here is really giving many opinions...most are stating what they payed for OOP like the OP asked and some have already mentioned they have only spent a few dollars OOP or none at all. I don't think it is a matter of who agrees or disagrees on whether you should pay OOP. I think the OP was just trying to get an idea of how many people do pay oop and how many don't. You are entitled to your opinion, everyone is different, (I don't always pay for meals OOP) I just don't see how anyone could be viewed as being right or wrong on this topic.

I was looking at it as a "should you HAVE to pay extra for food while on the plan" question, in which case I'd say "No. Theres plenty". But like you said; everyones different. Maybe I misread.

No problem. Its all good.

 

[LeesyUD]

I was looking at it as a "should you HAVE to pay extra for food while on the plan" question, in which case I'd say "No. Theres plenty". But like you said; everyones different. Maybe I misread.

No problem. Its all good.

Ah I see. I was just confused a bit on your comment bc I saw varied responses, so I guess it was just throwing me off who you were disagreeing with. Was just curious, I understand what you mean.

 

[Frantasmic]

We spent extra since not all things a 5 year kid wants to try are on the snack plan. It wasn't a lot each day, but it was extra. We ate breakfast in the room each morning, so it was just extra snacks/drinks mostly.