Poll: Do you use the DIning Plan when staying DVC?

[Chuck S]

What I mean is this: I want the steak. But I can't bring myself to pay $X for the steak. So I order the chicken instead, even though I don't want the chicken.

Everyone does this once in a while, but if it happens a lot, the DDP is permission to ignore the prices. You still might end up paying more, but you don't have crippling price anxiety at every meal.

That kind of makes sense, but I see that Olivia's has Prime Rib on the menu, again, so I'll get that even at the price. If it is something that really sounds good to me, I order it, and it still winds up less than the DDP. For my upcoming trip in June, I made my dining reservations, then went through the menus and picked what I would probably want to eat, and rounded up to include the tip, and it still came out cheaper than the DDP.

 

[Brian Noble]

Sure---and I think most people are like that. I'm talking about the hypothetical person who Just Can't Pay That Much. There might not be that many of those folks, but if someone reading this realizes I am describing them, then the DDP might useful. Useful is not the same as a good deal.

 

[Mle8308]

It's waayyy too much food for me. I've done boht plans a few times and won't again. With the TS DDP, it felt like we were always chasing reservations, having to leave a park when we were having a great tme to make a dining reservation. Or not do a certain attraction because it was time for a reservation. QS wasn't as bad, but we didn't want to eat QS all the time, so we ended up spending more money for TS. And I'm not a big drinker, most of the time I prefer a diet coke. I did like when they did the dining card right after the pandemic, we got a $1500 dining card and could use it anywhere for food, including Gideon's, the food carts in the parks, and many of the bakeries. You could order whatever you wanted, no limit - food or alcohol, and it could be used to pay the tip, too. We ate very well and on our last day, ended up paying for cookies for a bunch of kids at Roaring Forks to use up the credit (with the parent's permission). We brought home snacks, too!

 

[BuffaloJim]

I will occasionally use the DDP, especially now that not only are all my kids Disney adults, they’re actually adults over the age of 21 and they all drink. For instance, last year we did 6 nights with a split stay. First 3 were at BCV and then 3 more at VGF. We added the DDP for all 6 of us to the VGF portion. We then did…

3 character meals as my wife loves them. All included relatively expensive cocktails.

3 quick service meals, at least some of them that included beer or wine. The nice thing about this was that we could also get soft drinks from the hotel QS and save the alcohol for the evening.

Plus we had the drink cups and the multiple snack credits.

All in all, it definitely saved some money, plus everything was paid for before we vacationed. Of course, if we hadn’t gotten the DDP, we would not have done 3 character meals, nor would we have gotten expensive cocktail drinks (maybe we would have since dad was paying).

 

[jparilla]

Sure---and I think most people are like that. I'm talking about the hypothetical person who Just Can't Pay That Much. There might not be that many of those folks, but if someone reading this realizes I am describing them, then the DDP might useful. Useful is not the same as a good deal.

It reminds me of when my dad would take us out to dinner and let us know we could order what we wanted. It lifts that price anxiety, whether you are the one paying or not.

 

[PolyRob]

That is not accurate. You can't use a Disney GC to pay on the website, but if you call MS to add it, you can use a GC to pay.

Ahh maybe she said online and I misunderstood? Something changed with DGCs.

I still don't think I could get the DDP math to work for me personally though.

 

[PolyRob]

You would have to ask them.

Not a server, but I imagine a large number of guests don't tip on the value of what they ordered since it's "prepaid."

 

[PolyRob]

Also substitutions... Disney has seemed to crack down on a lot of them, but that doesn't mean guests won't still ask.

 

[Steelers0854]

Like others have said, our main issue is that it’s just too much food for us. Plus I like to have more flexibility in choosing where we eat and not have to worry about oh the next meal needs to be a QS because we have 2 credits there. I would take it if it were free (oh those were the days), but I wouldn’t pay for it.

 

[Girlstar30]

I have never done Disney Dining Plan as it makes zero sense for us. With the lack of flexibility, I would at least expect to save some $$$.

We do like character meals, but we generally do not like Disney QS food at all. I think charging two dining credits for one restaurant is ridiculous.

I also dont drink alcohol or even soda and I prefer water (I know so boring lol) I can only drink so much lemonade with the refillable mug

Most of the restaurants we like would require 2 meal credits so I feel we would run out of this fast and spend way more $.

We also dont do a bunch of snacking, certainly not every day. If anything its the occasional popcorn.

Bottom line, I just dont want to force myself to eat places I dont want to and eat more food than I want to. I dont see the appeal unless you have kids for the kids eat free plan. I am with @juliebee to just load up on gcs and put that aside as dining money and forget about it. I would like to load up and pay as much as a dining plan and compare my spending that would be a fun little challenge