Possibly foregoing the dining plan this trip?

[Slayd]

First of all get a Disney Visa if you're not against credit cards. I have been paying all my bills and purchases with mine (and paying off immediately of course), and now I have over $400 in rewards to spend on our trip. That's for the most part our food budget for the weekend.

Second, not sure what restaurants you go to, but the DDP has never made sense financially when I have budgeted it out. Me and the family come no where near eating enough food to justify it. We never get desserts anyway, and we share drinks with our food. If you don't want fries or other add ons, you have to say so and that's deducted from the bill. Take a Britta filter bottle to fill at fountains and don't buy water. Just the amount of money we save doing that is immense.

I hear a lot of people say the DDP takes stress out of their trip. We spend roughly $20 per meal for me and DW. We haven't went with DD or DS yet, but I don't see how that would change things. With the magic bands making payment so easy nowadays, the DDP is what would stress me out. I would be constantly thinking to be sure I'm taking full advantage of what I'm paying for....not to mention gaining all the pounds from trying to get what I'm paying for vs what I need. Just my two cents.

 

[GraceMonica]

I got the dining plan for the first time last trip. I hated it.

Next trip, I will happily be paying OOP. I never look at prices when I'm paying OOP, I just get what I want and I still come out ahead because I'm not shoving a dessert in my face at every meal. (Plus, some QS don't have great desserts!) I'm looking forward to not having to do a TS every day...and not having to order the most expensive stuff to get my monies worth.

 

[Babsy]

Free dining costs way more than a RO discount and paying OOP for us. I always wanted to try FD, but could never justify all the extra expense!
Plus, I like to order what I want and I never eat dessert. Also, I like to eat where I want to eat, not based upon what is good value for FD. Finally, FD is too much work. we just book where we want to eat, buy whatever we want without worrying about the price and then add up the cost at the end of the trip. we have NEVER ONCE paid as much as FD would have cost.

I also believe that if more people put the time in to see what FD actually cost them, they would drop it in a heartbeat! Also, since FD began, prices in restaurants have been marked up repeatedly - probably to justify the high prices of the DDP.

For example:
Lunch used to cost less than 12.00 tax and tip included at Akershus for an all you can eat buffet! No, there were no princesses, but what a deal that was! In those days they had the hot food that you now order al a carte included with the buffet. I would happily forgo the princesses and go back to that menu and pricing!

 

[KrazeeK120]

We got the dining plan back when an appetizer and gratuity were included. We dumped it after it stopped being a good deal. Plus, it's so nice to just order what I want and not worry about whether or not it fits the "plan." We like to do TS meals some days, and not others, and there isn't a way to do this with any of the dining plans (unless you want to lose a bunch of money). For us, the RO discount typically offered is much more substantial than the free dining plan.

 

[ajwolfe]

We ran the numbers- for us DDP doesn't save us anything- it actually costs more. When we had it a couple years ago, we left with 22 QS credits (before you could turn them into snacks).
.

How in the world would have 22 QS credits left? How many days were you there that you didn't eat? Seems like a crazy amount.

 

[mkla2015]

How in the world would have 22 QS credits left? How many days were you there that you didn't eat? Seems like a crazy amount.

8 days x 5 people = 40 QS credits

Most days we ate one big meal- TS and snacked.

 

[Lisa F]

For the last few trips we have used free dining at the value resorts. Our kids are small and we pretty much only shower and sleep in the room. Going by last years formula for free dining we can do 6nights at Pop with upgrading to the regular dining plan Or with a different deal we can get 6 nights at Beach Club no dining plan for about the same price. Dh and I would like to try something different this trip with some resort/water park days and skipping Dhs. With that in mind we are definitely leaning toward BC (really excited about Storamalong Bay!) but we are nervous about paying OOP for our food. Any advise on helping us wean ourselves off the dining plan?

I am planning my upcoming trip to be a mix of both DDP and OOP, split stay with 4 nights at BWV on DDP and 3 nights at Poly OOP, with some OOP things during the DDP phase and I will tell you that I put a lot of time and thought into whether it would work for me to do it that way and it does and I will save about $150 on the DDP portion, doing mostly things that are good value on the DDP.

The biggest thing to do to "wean" yourself off of the plan is rethink how you eat and just order what you want. Want a couple of appetizers instead of an entree? do it. want breakfast at the wave instead of dinner at chef mickey's? do it. rather than focusing on the good value on the DDP places, focus on the good value OOP places that you'd probably avoid if you were not on the plan. Have breakfast be a heavier meal than lunch... there are some great TS deals there without characters. Here are a few:

MK: Plaza, LTT lunch
Epcot: Via Napoli (share a pizza!),
HS:share a meal at 50's prime time, sci fi
AK: have the tuna nachos appetizer for a main meal at Yak n Yeti

resorts: beaches and cream
breakfasts at the wave, kona cafe, grand floridian cafe, captain's grille

also take the opportunity to go to some of the swolphin restaurants if you want to do something special and fancy... they do not participate in the DDP and it's your chance to try something new that you wouldn't otherwise try... also it is convenient to your resort.

I'm sure I'm missing some other stuff but that's what I'd focus on if I wanted a super yummy time, plenty of TS and not a whole lot of money.

BTW I am doing the gift card thing too! And pretty sure I can use my discounted gift cards to buy the DDP, so that's about a 5% bonus there too. DDP has its place as does OOP and I'm glad both options are available so I can work them both!