Please help me choose a dining plan (or not)

[socaintexas]

We are going to WDW for the marathon weekend in January 2015. It will be me, my husband, and our twin five year old daughters. We will get in late on Monday January 5 and will leave early morning on Monday January 12. We are going to stay at the AKL in one of the club level rooms. We are going to MK on January 6 and have reservations at Be our Guest at 7 pm. We are doing AK on January 7 and have reservations a Jiko that night. On January 8 we are doing a morning safari with an included breakfast and my husband and I are going to Victoria and Alberts that night. On Friday January 9 we are going to Epcot and have ressies at Akershus at noon and at Monsieur Paul that night. We have reservations at Boma on Saturday Jan 10. On Sunday I will run the marathon and we are just playing it by ear to see how mobile I will be. We are not big breakfast eaters and I thought that we could snack from the Concierge lounge in the morning and maybe do quick service dining and pizza delivery one day for lunch.

I am getting bogged down in the details and hope that some of you more experienced folks can help me decide IF a dining plan would make sense and if so, which would you suggest.

Thanks in advance!

 

[ibela]

Based on what you write, dining plan doesn't seem like a good fit. 2 credit meals on ddp aren't the best use $ wise, you're staying cl so probably won't need many snacks. I'd just pay oop based on the needs for this coming trip.

 

[marissamayhem]

Agreed with ibela.

Both Jiko and Monsieur Paul are signature restaurants and will cost 2 TS credits for each. They'd both be cheaper to pay out of pocket than the total cost of 2 credits. Victoria and Alberts doesn't even accept the plan (I'm 99% sure) so you'd have to pay out of pocket for that anyway.

 

[supersnoop]

The easiest thing would be to plug your meals into the http://www.distripplanner.com/ website. If (and that's a big "IF") you use all the counter service credits, eat dessert with every meal, and would actually purchase the refillable mugs, the dining plan would work out for you.

For kids (ages 3-9), places like Boma and Akershus more than make up for the whole day's price of the dining plan. But, without fully utilizing the allocations of the plan, it's harder to make up the difference for adults.

 

[socaintexas]

Thanks everyone! I am thinking that out of pocket may be the way to go. I found that calculator earlier supersnoop. That was very helpful.

 

[DisneyFansInNYC]

When we stay club level we never need to buy breakfast or snacks throughout the day. They have bagels, yogurt, oatmeal, cereal, fruit, etc. We usually go back to the hotel during the day and have snacks at the lounge which cuts how much we eat after that.