This discussion comes up so often.
The DDP is a good deal for one and only one entity -- Disney. That is why they offer it for sale! It is a cash guzzler for them.
A) You pay them money often times 6 mo in advance of when you plan to consume the benefit of your money. Time x Money = Profit. The longer they hold your money, the longer they earn more profit on its return, the less time your money is sitting in a stock or other investment earning you that return. Say it's 3% over 6 months, conservatively.
B) You are committing to buy a certain amount of non-refundable food. Otherwise, people go to a theme park, see a menu, and maybe split a soda or hold off on that appetizer. With DDP you lose that flexibility to decide you don't want a dessert this dinner. No, you paid for it -- so you take it and eat a bite.
C) PPl are arguing that it gives them the flexibility to order a dessert that they only want a few bites of and not have to feel bad about paying for it -- Huh? You are paying for it either way. In fact you're paying for a dessert at every meal for every person whether you want it, just a bite, or not at all.
D) Appetizers are not included because Disney knows diners show up to eat hungry. You look at the menu, think an appetizer looks yummy (they always do -- plus, you're starving!) so you BUY an appetizer in addition to the full meals and dessert you are pre-committed to. Whereas otherwise when you go out, if you buy an appetizer, you might split a meal or not get dessert. Disney doesn't care if you do that cuz you've prepaid for them.
E) Say you want a beer instead of soda at this meal. TOUGH. You already bought the soda, so suck it up. Buy the beer too if you want it, but you won't get your money back on the soda.
Now it *can* be used effectively, but even when optimizing it, using everything efficiently, and consuming expensive items, it's only going to end up saving you a few hundred bucks. On the other hand by using it suboptimally you can come in way overspent on it.
Do you really want to have to think "this snack is only $3.50 should I use a point on it or pay cash cuz my next snack might be a $4.50 one and risk ending up not having used all my snacks, or should I take that dollar hit now and just consume the point on this less than optimal item" with everything you buy?
Free dining is of course the exception. If you get free dining and you have 3 or more ppl in a room, free dining is better than a 30% hotel savings. If you have 2 ppl in an expensive room, it might be about a wash.
There are other ways to even further improve on OOP dining. Buy gift cards at Target for 10% off. Buy one $100 gift card for each sit-down meal. Bam, $10 off each meal. Paying with gift cards, if you choose to micro-manage it like that, can make OOP dining FAR cheaper than DDP.
For 9-11 year olds it's even worse of course and most ppl know this. Disney pre-bills you as an adult for kids over 9, which means you're pre-buying them an adult plate... some kids might want a steak but are not always going to be picking the $30 item.
Look at the calculations on the previous pages of this thread. Those that came out ahead on the DDP fail to acknowledge that they would have otherwise purchased a soda and dessert for every person at every meal... and they fail to factor in the power of paying with gift cards or TIW (if you should choose to go that route). Even the Disney Visa gives you small bits off at select restaurants.
The DDP is a convenience that Disney is selling. You are paying for it with money and flexibility, and paying for it ahead of time. I'm not against the DDP, as it is indeed convenient. Like any other convenience, like taking your bags from the airport, or taking a taxi, or any other convenience in the world -- but it is generally not a "cost savings" or a way to eat at Disney World for less than just paying out of pocket. Again excepting when it's offered free.
It is also a way to encourage everyone to spend even more money. By getting you to buy food ahead of time, it makes one feel like they have more discretionary funds at the parks to buy that extra appetizer, beer, or souvenier.
For the true planner and micro manager, you can get some value out of it if you would, for example, order two meals at a restaurant, one appetizer, one soda, and one dessert. Then do so again at the next restaurant... but at both, only pay for the appetizer and al-la-carte entry by cash and the entre with soda and dessert on points. Splitting checks like this can yield some decent savings but it takes a lot of micro managing, explaining to your servers specifically which items you want to be billed for, etc. It is way beyond what most ppl are looking to get into while on vacation. For the average person, average family, it's going to cost far less just paying cash (or even better, with discounted gift cards).
Just so ppl know. The DDP is not about savings. It's a convenience / feature / offering that Disney charges for because it is profitable to do so. Theme parks around the world are copying this as even now my local Six Flags is offering pre-buy food items. Anything to get a consumer to commit to buying something so they don't get to the park and change their mind.
She just doesn't eat enough. She and I shared a ton of meals and and we were always full. At Via Napoli, for instance....our family of 5 shared the largest pizza they have then went to the patisserie in France for dessert. On the dining plan I think we would have each had to order our own individual entree....way too much food! I don't always want dessert at dinner at the same place we're eating dinner.
