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

[crazycatlady]

We usually buy it for the first night or two of our DVC stay. We never know when we are flying in when we book our room, so we usually have a night or two at the front of the trip before the main stay. We always buy the mugs and I know by now which restaurants have a hefty enough price tag to make it worth it. For a night or two with Chefs, Ohana, Steakhouse 71 {dinner}, or Tutto for our TS and Polite Pig, Docking Bay 7, or Satuuli Canteen for our QS, we will definitely save money. There are others that are expensive enough to work, but these are some of our favorites. We don't feel like it is inconvenient to plan around a TS or two for the first couple of days and we enjoy being able to order expensive drinks, entrees, and desserts at the start of the trip.

We had the DP scheduled for our early May trip this year but canceled those reservations when the 40% off was announced for APSs since that makes more sense in money saving.

 

[airjay75]

At what point would this be worth it for 2 adults? Like 1-2 nights booked separate with dining plan? I have never considered the 1 day to get the mugs and 1 of the big table service meals in it.

I haven't run the numbers on that specifically, so I can't say. The refillable mugs are $22.99 plus tax per person, so if you're going to purchase those regardless of whether you're buying the DP, I think I would just subtract that from whatever the cost of the DP is and see whether you'd be spending that much on food anyways during that time to see whether it's a good deal or not. For us, with the kids free, if we were to buy 4 refillable mugs, that's already $100 and the cost of the QS DP for all 4 of us for one night was not much more than that and we can easily use or dining credits for one night. I think when you get to the DP for many nights, that's when it can become difficult because you've just got so many dining credits you're trying to use up.

 

[Brian Noble]

I would not create a split stay to try to leverge a dining plan over a couple of mugs. Way too much work for too little return, but YMMV.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

I use the dining plan price as an estimate for food costs and I get discounted gift cards for that amount for each trip and I always have a decent amount left on the cards at the end of each trip. And we’re eating where and what we like without trying to make the most of a dining plan.

 

[DVC Gma]

I would not create a split stay to try to leverge a dining plan over a couple of mugs. Way too much work for too little return, but YMMV.

Usually happens because we run out of points and have some cash nights somewhere.

 

[Chuck S]

Usually happens because we run out of points and have some cash nights somewhere.

I remember those days, when we'd always move to a cash reservation for Friday and Saturday nights. We added on points quickly. Though, if I drive down, I allow an extra day for unexpected road conditions, so sometimes my first night is at Pop Century.

 

[PavlovPluto]

We've never done the dining plan. The thought of dessert after a table service meal makes me want to gag. It would work better for us if you could trade the dessert for a second alcoholic beverage, which probably makes some of you want to gag, lol. As for the quick service plan, that would be interesting if you could separate the alcoholic beverage credit. I would like QS for lunch and dinner, but would just drink water at lunch, and have two drinks at dinner. We have zero use for the refillable mug. We have coffee, milk, water, and beer in the room.

 

[DVC Gma]

I remember those days, when we'd always move to a cash reservation for Friday and Saturday nights. We added on points quickly. Though, if I drive down, I allow an extra day for unexpected road conditions, so sometimes my first night is at Pop Century.

Trying right now!

 

[The Jackal]

Last time I looked Disney made the new dining plans hard to get out of it what it costs you. Most will spend more than if they just bought what they ate. Especially when kids are 11-13 years old. They just don’t eat enough to be considered an adult. Can you get your moneys worth, yes, but you’ll have to work to do that.

 

[juliebee]

I just watched a video from Ear Scouts about the DDP and this video actually made me rethink if it could be worth it. Normally videos are all about maxing the value by eating at the most expensive places and drinking alcohol, but Rob didn't do that and it showed it could be a value for the right person.

 

[Brian Noble]

I don't think I'm likely to spend an hour watching that. What was the main takeaway?

 

[mikeuno]

I will report back after watching another Ear Scouts Disney video - most are very informative to me although YMMV

 

[Tatebeck]

We never have, just because the DVC discount makes it harder to come out ahead with the dining plans, unless you only get the most expensive thing at a very specific set of restaurants. We wouldn't want to be limited like that, either by the menu choices or the restaurant choices.

But I would be open to trying it if they applied the DVC discount to the dining plans themselves or some other deal

 

[juliebee]

I don't think I'm likely to spend an hour watching that. What was the main takeaway?

The premise was can you still break even or save money if you don't drink alcohol or only pick the priciest of restaurants? It was his 2 or 3 day trip using the dining plan and eating where they wanted to instead of gaming the plan. For their trip, they did save money on the DDP. But he did caution he felt that it's too much food to do a long trip on the DDP but good for a split stay. No big surprises in the video, but it was nice to see this done without alcohol. Most videos I've seen on the DDP show alcohol at every meal to inflate the "savings" of the DDP.

 

[Brian Noble]

So they ate where they wanted, did not order alcohol, but they always ordered the way the Plan dictated? In other words, never ordered apps, and always ordered a dessert for each person?

(I know, I could just watch it..so feel free to tell me: "Hey, just watch the video.")

 

[J-Dog]

For me, it's not even necessarily the amout of food per meal being too much, it's also the number of QS added in addition to the TS credits. We don't eat a ton of QS meals, so a lot of those went to waste.

If you could tailor it to exactly how you individually eat, it would be great, but obviously Disney would never make it so everyone can game the system perfectly in order to make out ahead.

 

[Brian Noble]

obviously Disney would never make it so everyone can game the system perfectly in order to make out ahead.

I could see them doing something kind of like Virgin Voyages does with their pre-sail Bar Tab. You can pre-pay a bar tab, and the larger tab you pick, the larger discount you get. But, if you don't spend it all, you don't get anything back. That's a way of effectively upselling (which is what the Dining Plan is meant to do, IMO) without having it fit into a specific number of each kind of meal.

 

[Tatebeck]

So they ate where they wanted, did not order alcohol, but they always ordered the way the Plan dictated? In other words, never ordered apps, and always ordered a dessert for each person?

(I know, I could just watch it..so feel free to tell me: "Hey, just watch the video.")

I skimmed through most of it on fast forward with the captions on just to see since I wanted to know as well.

All of the meals and snacks besides the very first one on arrival day he was aiming for value, not just going where they actually wanted to go. On arrival day they just did a quick service at the resort they were staying at and came out about even.

Other than that they were indeed trying to game the system as much as possible without getting alcohol. Ordering the most expensive festival booth items, finding a restaurant like shiki sai that had a prix fixe menu to get appetizer, entree, dessert, and drink for 1 credit, AND was a special dinner with a show seating reservation, etc. They had a target price to aim for/above for each snack/meal, and didn't just add it up at the end to see what happened when they selected their things naturally

From what I know, it would be VERY hard to just wander around randomly and come out ahead with the dining plans, especially if you avoid the alcohol. Their goal was specifically to try and "beat" the dining plan without alcohol, not an organic "will my normal trip beat the dining plan"

 

[Tatebeck]

What also really steers me away from trying the plans is that it forces you to get more drinks and desserts than you may want in order to get the value back. If I am not having an alcoholic drink, I usually get water. I wouldn't pay their crazy prices for a soda or something. We have coke zero delivered to our villa or in our owner's locker. On the plan its always alcohol or specialty drinks or you lose value.

We usually are an appetizer/entree family instead of entree/dessert, so it takes away from what we would normally want there as well.

It takes a bunch of extra work to beat it, and with the DVC discount at some restaurants it's even harder to "beat" it. And it usually is so much food after the extra drinks and desserts you end up eating more than you normally would. My metabilism is slow enough that I don't need excess calories that I never wanted in the first place

I could see them doing something kind of like Virgin Voyages does with their pre-sail Bar Tab. You can pre-pay a bar tab, and the larger tab you pick, the larger discount you get. But, if you don't spend it all, you don't get anything back. That's a way of effectively upselling (which is what the Dining Plan is meant to do, IMO) without having it fit into a specific number of each kind of meal.

I definitely agree that it is an upselling attempt. If I would normally spend $200, I could buy the $300 dining plan and if I work hard get $400 of food, drinks, and desserts! I'm not sure that is really considered a savings for me personally

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

I skimmed through most of it on fast forward with the captions on just to see since I wanted to know as well.

I’m told this is actually a great use case for LLMs, but too lazy/AI-adverse to try it myself.

All of the meals and snacks besides the very first one on arrival day he was aiming for value, not just going where they actually wanted to go. On arrival day they just did a quick service at the resort they were staying at and came out about even.

Thanks— this is definitely a very different story than “just wander around and see what happens and we got value!”

Other than that they were indeed trying to game the system as much as possible without getting alcohol. Ordering the most expensive festival booth items, finding a restaurant like shiki sai that had a prix fixe menu to get appetizer, entree, dessert, and drink for 1 credit, AND was a special dinner with a show seating reservation, etc. They had a target price to aim for/above for each snack/meal, and didn't just add it up at the end to see what happened when they selected their things naturally.

The other element (that probably doesn’t apply to DISboards regulars but would apply to many guests) is that not only do you need to be gaming it for value but you need to know to book 60+ x days in advance to even get in to many of the restaurants that maximize value.

I definitely agree that it is an upselling attempt. If I would normally spend $200, I could buy the $300 dining plan and if I work hard get $400 of food, drinks, and desserts! I'm not sure that is really considered a savings for me personally

We would be very happy with the upsell plan that’s just a discounted credit for being willing to commit to $1000 in dining in advance… but I think that gets to the heart of the problem, which I believe economists call adverse selection— if you give people many options it’s going to be the people who know what they’re doing and can optimize and we’ll spend it all anyway who take advantage… not sure it will necessarily push more spending… they would need to dig into our data and figure out how much we spent on the previous trip per day and then make each family a custom offer to try to get us to bump it up.