pay some oop, or upgrade to DxDP?

[myhoney]

We are going during free dining, staying at POFQ, with DDs 6 and 4. We have dinner ADRs scheduled, but one night is Cali Grill, and one is Hoop de doo, so we are essentially short on TS dinner for one night.

DH and I figured we'd eat 2 CS that day, and if need be, pay oop if we run short on credits (haven't been to Disney in 20 years, so not sure how big the meals are and if we'll really share!)

To upgrade to DxDP is $500, which I don't want to spend, but at the same time, maybe we would do more shows. (DH is happy about the free draft beer at HDDR!) We are doing Akershus, but no character meals since DD4 is freaked by cosutmed characters, and no breakfasts, just planned on pop tarts or cereal in the room.

I know DxDP is a lot of food, but if we keep our current ressies (usually between 5 and 5:30), upgrade one more to SoA or CRT, and do CS lunches and resort breakfasts, would it be sensible? I'm going on the "if we're going to spend $50 oop and eat pop tarts all week and skip a sit down dinner, why not splurge and do it up" mentality! I've also been stockpiling snacks to bring, just to make sure we have enough! But, as I said, we haven't been since we were kids, so who better to help us than those in the know! Thanks!

 

[hannahdrewmom]

If you are set with your meals then I'd stick with it and pay for HDDR oop so that you can get category 1 seating. I'm not sure that you will need that many sit down meals.... especially if you are aren't planning on doing character meals.

 

[sharonabe]

With two signature meals planned, aren't you short two meals. If you're staying 5 nights, you have 5 credits and 4 of those are used for 2 nights, so you still have 3 days you need to eat and only 1 credit left for a TS. Of course, you still have your 5 CS, but they won't cover what you need.

$500 doesn't seem like much, but you need to do a little research to see if it is really "worth it" to your family.

If you eat breakfast at your resort QS every morning (instead of pop tarts), you'll spend roughly $25-$30 each day and can use snack credits on the days you're doing the signatures, BUT you'll either need to get up earlier to have time for that breakfast or lose some valuable early morning park time. (5x30=$150)

For lunch, you have the option to do QS or TS and there are some TS places that won't take too much time (Liberty Tree Tavern and Plaza at MK, Rose & Crown at Epcot, Sci Fi at HS, Yak n Yeti at AK). If you opt to do some of these TS, you'll spend rougly $50-$60. (5x60=$300)

So, it is possible to easily use the value of your $500 upgrade. And remember with the DxDDP, you also get apps with every meal, but you wouldn't have to get an app and a dessert at every meal to see the value with an upgrade.

 

[havoc315]

If you are only using ts for dinner, then upgrading is probably not worthwhile.
Many cs meals are indeed big enough to share.

Your family has the same ages as my family. We do find it worth the $100 per night to upgrade the family, but we do a ts lunch every day, and several signature dinners.

To make it worthwhile, you realistically need to add 3-5 ts meals.

 

[myhoney]

With two signature meals planned, aren't you short two meals.

We are staying six nights, but don't get in until 4:45 on a Tuesday, so we are figuring it will be 7 by the time we get to our resort and checked in. We thought we would pack a "lunch" for the kids, since they don't normally eat that late, and we want to leave room for delays. (And, to be honest, I think I'm hoarding our credits!) So, that night we don't use any credits. But, when we leave, DME picks us up at 4pm, so we currently don't have any TS planned that day, but could and probably should. Maybe a breakfast and a real early dinner, since we don't get home until 9:30?

 

[myhoney]

havoc, does that take a lot of time away from the park? are you hungry at dinner time, or do you eat late on vacation? We wanted to keep the kids on schedule as much as possible, but maybe we could push dinner back to 6ish and do lunches around 11:30?

 

[havoc315]

havoc, does that take a lot of time away from the park? are you hungry at dinner time, or do you eat late on vacation? We wanted to keep the kids on schedule as much as possible, but maybe we could push dinner back to 6ish and do lunches around 11:30?

That's exactly what we do. With a 4 and 6 year-old, we aren't going to tour the parks from dawn to dusk. 4-6 hours of park time is plenty for the day. We aim for rope drop every morning, to maximize the attractions in the shortest time. So we don't have a ton of time for breakfast -- quick breakfast in the room, or split some CS and snacks.
Since we got to the park early, we are hungry for a TS lunch between 11:30 and 12.
Yes, it is a bit more time consuming than CS, but not that much more. Another 30-40 minutes per meal. And no searching for a table, no balancing trays. A much more relaxing meal.
So 9-11:45 of park touring. 11:45-1:00 lunch. Then another hour or 2 of park touring.
A 2-credit dinner then usually around 6:30-7. Kids to bed right after dinner.
Of course, we last stayed at a monorail resort, so it was quick to get back to the room after a signature dinner.

 

[Mikey'swife]

If you would do cs lunches, I would do WPE for your CS dinner (it is better then some disney ts). You could eat cs at the resort breakfasts for well under the $500 if you want something more. We have done dxdp 2 times because we want to have apps at signatures and want lots of character meals which are over $100 for 2A/2C. After our last trip we really decided it was overkill since cs is fine for lunch and breakfasts are overrated once you have seen all the characters.

 

[CajunMomof3]

We do the DxDP every time. We always talk about saving money by doing DDP, but, in the end, (1)we like paying for everything up front, (2) we like to do sit downs alot more than quick service, and (3) we need to schedule breaks like a sit down meal or we are too tired to enjoy ourselves. So the value may not be monetary but it works for us!

 

[myhoney]

DH likes the idea of "go big or go home"! At this point, we have ADRs for CRT, Cali Grill, Akershus, VN, SoA, Raglan, HDDR, 1900 park fare, and still have some more to plan. We will probably upgrade, just because we don't expect to go to Disney again for several years, so we both feel like for what we're getting, $500 isn't much to spend. We changed dates to get free dining, so we'll end up spending the same but get so much more.

 

[4butlers]

DH likes the idea of "go big or go home"! At this point, we have ADRs for CRT, Cali Grill, Akershus, VN, SoA, Raglan, HDDR, 1900 park fare, and still have some more to plan. We will probably upgrade, just because we don't expect to go to Disney again for several years, so we both feel like for what we're getting, $500 isn't much to spend. We changed dates to get free dining, so we'll end up spending the same but get so much more.

That was our thinking too. This is a big vacation for us and wanted to "go big or go home!" I really couldn't see eating Goldfish crackers or Pop Tarts on our dream vacation. We've done enough skimping just to save for the trip already. We were planning on doing DDP, but then got FD, so upgrading to DxDP still saved us money from what we were planning on spending just for the regular DDP anyway. I also like knowing that ALL our food is covered and already paid for. It also gave us the opportunity to as many character meals as we want and eat at nice sit-downs in the evening. Our kids are just a little older, so we expect that we will go, go, go all day, so a relaxing TS during the day and/or evening will be nice. Plus, we get refillable mugs, that we would have bought anyway. That's more than $60 right there.
Just my opinion, but I say go for it!!

 

[3boys4me]

I'll add my thoughts here. We have done the reg. dining plan in the past. When we went last November, we were there for 9 nights. We figured that between getting to, waiting and eating at TS restaurants we probably spent 2 hours a day with TS meals. That was the equivilant to two whole park days. Not to mention several hundred dollars in tips. So, while you add the difference to upgrade, don't forget to factor in the additional tips. We did most of our TS at dinner, but I was so tired of eating by the end of the trip. I took my kids back for an extra trip in March and we did the QS plan. What a refreshing change. We all had a much better time. We didn't have to be anywhere at any certain time, and we ate when we were hungry. It was much more realxed for us. I know this isn't for everybody, and some people love the restaurants. For me, I go for the parks, not the restaurants. We have lots of good food and great restaurants where I am, I don't need that on vacation. We also go pretty regularly so all of the character meals aren't that important to the kids anymore. My husband does not feel the need to skimp on vacations, but we do what wroks for us. I hope you have a fabulous trip

 

[ElizabethG]

I evaluate this on each trip. Generally, I have found that if you are using 2 TS credits per day, it is worth it money-wise. For our upcoming trip, we will be there 11 nights and will be using an equivalent of 17 TS credits. My food OOP estimate is around $500 (which includes all the tips for meals on and off of the DDP). That is much cheaper than the $1,000 it would cost to upgrade to DxDP.

I start with my plan first. I plan out what my idea of the perfect vacation would entail. Then, I figure out which dining plan would fit best with the plans I already have for my family. If you do it the other way around by first getting the DxDP and then continuing to add things until you feel you have your money's worth, then it is more cumbersome than perfect.

However, if you just want everything to be paid for and make just the plans you want and don't worry about getting your money's worth, I can see the benefit to that. Many people do that and really enjoy that 'all-enclusive' feel. You have to decide if you want the best monetary value, or the most options.

 

[hannahdrewmom]

Not to mention several hundred dollars in tips.

Tips can KILL you on the dxdp we figured that we spent close to $50 a day on tips alone. So we were there 9 days and spent $450 on TIPS!! HOLY MOLY! It was a lot more than I had planned. (This was 2 adults and 1 child.)

 

[Sappermont]

I was recently in a similar situation; we had more table service scheduled and I thought upgrading to the DxDP might be a smart way to go. I had never used a dining plan and hadn't been to WDW in nearly ten years. I am SO glad that I didn't upgrade to the DxDP. I can definitely see the benefits of the plan (signatures, dinner shows, all table service, etc.). However, if you are considering it to make up for a couple of credits I'd stick with the the DDP and the pay the extra (if any) OOP. We ended up having to cancel a few reservations due to timing and being full. A lot of times we used snacks for breakfast. We were always full and only paid for one breakfast (Kona Cafe) and a few bagels (Kona Island) OOP. Either way, you'll have a blast!

 

[nkereina]

Didn't get a chance to read all posts so sorry if this has been mentioned. I think it would only be worth it to upgrade to DxDP if you plan to forego the in-room breakfasts and some QS meals. The credits you get on DxDP are not used in their best value on QS meals when you breakdown the cost. So if you plan to do a lot of QS meals, it's probably not worth it. You could essentially do a TS breakfast or lunch, and then a 2 TS dinner (signature or show) and you would then maximize your credit usage. Then, whichever meal you don't do a TS for you, have 2 snack credits per person per night to use for that. You can use snack credits for breakfast items like cinnamon rolls, muffins, etc. I know a lot of people say they did not enjoy 2 sit down meals per day with their small children, but I guess that depends on the kid. If your kids will be antsy and wanting to get in the parks, probably not worth it. But maybe they would benefit from the break too.

 

[myhoney]

Thanks for the input, everyone! These are our current ADRs:

Day One:
Flight arrives at 4:45, figure we won't get checked into POFQ until 7ish. May hit resort CS for a meal/snacks.

Day Two: Magic Kingdom
9:05 – breakfast at CRT - character
5:30 – dinner at Cali Grill

Day Three: Epcot
11:30 – lunch at Via Napoli
5:15 – dinner at Akershus – character

Day Four: Hollywood Studios
*still need to plan breakfast/lunch TS*
5:15 – Spirit of Aloha – show

Day Five: Animal Kingdom (can't choose between breakfast/lunch!)
9:20 - breakfast at Tusker House – character
11:30 – lunch at Yak and Yeti
6:00– dinner at Raglan Road

Day Six: TBD/Most likely Magic Kingdom
8:45 – breakfast at Kona
5:00 – dinner at Hoop De Doo Review – show (boat to FtW)

Day Seven: TBD/Epcot or HS
9:20 – breakfast at 1900 Park Fare – character
*will probably grab CS lunch, still planning*
4pm – meet DME to go to airport, arrive home 9:26pm

So, using almost all of our credits, and we're excited to see and sample so many places and shows. Day 5 is tough - heard raves about Tusker House, but Yak and Yeti looks great and we all like Asian food. Raglan Road was one of the first places on our must do list, and we want to see the dancers, so we can't decide what to give up! Days 6 and 7 we ae leaving for the kids to decide what they want to see again, so we're leaving that pretty flexible too. All in all, I think we are getting a lot for $500, and think our timing works, too, where we'll be satisfied with 2TS and snacks or a split CS meal.

 

[mommylovesdisney]

Just wanted to add this in: we just came back from a 5 night stay on the ddx (we upgraded from reg free dining) and we did ts for nearly every meal. (we have 1 dd on the adult dp, and 2 kids on the child plan) our gratuities were nearly $300 for those TS meals. We are re-evaluating the cost comparison for reg vs dx plans and looking into paying some oop for our next trip.
Just don't forget the grat. for ts meals when calculating your dining costs.

Don't get me wrong! DXDP was awesome! and i knew there would be grats to pay, of course, but we ate too much, lol!!!