Quick Service Dining Plan?

[bigdaddy511]

We (DH, DW, DS21, DS13) are heading down to WDW for Christmas and are debating using the QSDP now offered. We rarely use table service, but always eat at the park or the resort we stay at (AoA). I was wondering if anyone had used it and found it a good deal. Seems to me that it would be cheaper for us who usually dine at Cosmic Ray's and the like.

Disney Quick-Service Dining Plan
For each night of your Quick-Service Dining Plan package, each Guest in your party (ages 3 and up) receives:

2 Quick-Service Meals
Each quick-service meal includes:

For Breakfast
1 entrée or 1 complete combo meal
1 single-serving, non-alcoholic beverage
For Lunch and Dinner
1 entrée or 1 complete combo meal
1 dessert
1 single-serving, non-alcoholic beverage
Children ages 3-9 must order from the Children's Menu (if one is available).

1 Snack
Examples of snacks are:

1 frozen ice cream novelty, popsicle, fruit bar, popcorn scoop (single-serving box), single-serving bag of snacks, single piece of whole fruit, 20-oz. bottle of Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite or Dasani water, 22-oz. fountain soft drink or juice, 12-oz. coffee, hot chocolate or hot tea, single-serving prepackaged milk or juice

 

[sharonabe]

It really depends on how you like to eat. Do you always drink soda/coffee/tea with your meals? Do you WANT a dessert at every meal? Most QS meal desserts are prepackaged, but you can find places with better desserts. Without either of these, you will find it difficult to "spend" the $35 you paid for the QSDP. To break even, you need to spend $15 each meal and get the $4.99 snack.

If you have under age 9 kids, there snack is essentially free.

 

[we3travellers]

We are thinking of doing the same thing for our upcoming trip. I actually spent some time looking at online menus and writing down what I think we would eat. The QSDP would cost us $575 for 2 adults and 1 child. I came out with a total of $599, and did not even include the refillable mugs and the snacks! That would bring the value for us to more like $725. Obviously a good deal. The only reason I am on the fence about it is because we would like a few TS meals. Two for sure, maybe as many as 5. Maybe you should run the numbers as well and see how it comes out. BTW, we wouldn't eat so many desserts either, but I excluded those as well from my calculations or used something that can be used for a light breakfast where available. (i.e. fruit bowl, muffin or yogurt)

 

[sunsetbeachgal]

We had QSDP free on our trip in March of this year (it is not really free as you pay rack rate on the room) and while we enjoyed the convenience we would not pay for it...we normally don't get dessert with every meal, often split a beverage, and for us we would spend less out of pocket...and also like a TS meal here and there. But, everyone is different. For me if it is near break-even I would prefer NOT to prepay for my food and just buy what you want when you are there...But for us on this trip it was worth it to give up the room discount for free dining...

 

[havoc315]

It is difficult but not impossible to realize actual financial savings under the plan.
If you would buy mugs for every person anyway, and you would buy a dessert with every QS meal, than the QSDP might save you a few dollars.
If you would intend to use some of your QS credits for breakfast,
OR you would occasionally skip QS dessert,
OR feel you don't need to have mugs that are only good at your resort food court anyway--

Then the QSDP is likely to be more expensive than paying OOP.

I'll note that Disney has recently been removing some of the "expensive" QS entrees from lunch menus, making value even harder to achieve.

Let's look at a typical expensive day at the Magic Kingdom:
I'll go "expensive" -- Won't use any credits for breakfast. And will get plus-priced items.
Cosmic Rays for lunch --- Note that the Chicken & Ribs combo is no longer offered for lunch. Thus, the MOST expensive item on the menu is now: Rotisserie Chicken-- $9.69
Beverage -- $2.89. Gelato for dessert -- $3.29
Snack -- Lets just assume a fairly expensive item of $4.
Dinner -- Pinnochio Village Haus -- most expensive item on the menu -- $9.69, flat bread pizza. Beverage of $2.89. Dessert -- chocolate cake, $3.49.

Total for the day -- $35.94. With tax, total = $38.27.

Price of the plan --- $34.99

So, by ordering the most expensive items on the menu, and always getting beverage and dessert -- Saved a whole $3.
If you skipped just 1 dessert for the day --- Then you'd be losing money.
If you got mid-priced entrees instead of expensive entrees, you'd be losing money.

Let's show a more mid-priced scenario:
Cosmic Rays:
Lunch -- Chicken nuggets, $8.19. Beverage-- Bottled water, $2.50
Dessert-- Strawberry yogurt -- $1.99
Snack credit -- $3 item
Dinner -- Pinnochio Village Haus again:
Penne Pasta -- $8.49
Beverage -- bottled water, $2.50
dessert -- gelato -- $3.29

Total -- Without tax -- $29.96
With tax -- $31.91

So using mid-priced items -- still without skipping desserts -- a total loss of $3 per adult.

Now, if you LOVE the mug, and don't plan on skipping any desserts --- Then you might not mind losing $3 per adult on some days.

 

[bigdaddy511]

It is difficult but not impossible to realize actual financial savings under the plan.
If you would buy mugs for every person anyway, and you would buy a dessert with every QS meal, than the QSDP might save you a few dollars.
If you would intend to use some of your QS credits for breakfast,
OR you would occasionally skip QS dessert,
OR feel you don't need to have mugs that are only good at your resort food court anyway--

Then the QSDP is likely to be more expensive than paying OOP.

I'll note that Disney has recently been removing some of the "expensive" QS entrees from lunch menus, making value even harder to achieve.

Let's look at a typical expensive day at the Magic Kingdom:
I'll go "expensive" -- Won't use any credits for breakfast. And will get plus-priced items.
Cosmic Rays for lunch --- Note that the Chicken & Ribs combo is no longer offered for lunch. Thus, the MOST expensive item on the menu is now: Rotisserie Chicken-- $9.69
Beverage -- $2.89. Gelato for dessert -- $3.29
Snack -- Lets just assume a fairly expensive item of $4.
Dinner -- Pinnochio Village Haus -- most expensive item on the menu -- $9.69, flat bread pizza. Beverage of $2.89. Dessert -- chocolate cake, $3.49.

Total for the day -- $35.94. With tax, total = $38.27.

Price of the plan --- $34.99

So, by ordering the most expensive items on the menu, and always getting beverage and dessert -- Saved a whole $3.
If you skipped just 1 dessert for the day --- Then you'd be losing money.
If you got mid-priced entrees instead of expensive entrees, you'd be losing money.

Let's show a more mid-priced scenario:
Cosmic Rays:
Lunch -- Chicken nuggets, $8.19. Beverage-- Bottled water, $2.50
Dessert-- Strawberry yogurt -- $1.99
Snack credit -- $3 item
Dinner -- Pinnochio Village Haus again:
Penne Pasta -- $8.49
Beverage -- bottled water, $2.50
dessert -- gelato -- $3.29

Total -- Without tax -- $29.96
With tax -- $31.91

So using mid-priced items -- still without skipping desserts -- a total loss of $3 per adult.

Now, if you LOVE the mug, and don't plan on skipping any desserts --- Then you might not mind losing $3 per adult on some days.

This was REALLY helpful! I never really crunched specific numbers, just looked at it generally. For us, who usually don't do dessert and aren't huge fans of refillable mugs and will do the occasionally TS, the QSDP will probably not be beneficial.

 

[we3travellers]

PP is correct in showing that it will barely save any money, and may even cost more. I find that QSDP is a good, if not great, value for children. That is where the real savings comes in for us, and we only have 1 child. At $11.99 per day, DS5's QSDP will cost us $83.93. He LOVES his snacks and will use all of them. So, if I subtract $28 for the 7 snacks ($4 average) and $15(?) for the mug, I am left with $40.93 that I have paid for 14 CS meals, or $2.92 per meal! Great if you have 2, 3 or even 4 under 10 yrs. OP is a family of all adults, so really might be a break even. One of the main reasons that we are considering it is because we are staying at CSR. We too love to eat at our resort often and PM is one of the best value CS in all of Disney...IF you are on the QSDP or DDP. Doing the PM buffet a few times in the week will definitely get our moneys worth. We will also visit WPE a couple of times in a week for dinner. Disney's intention is not to save money (they even state you can save up to 10%), but more to offer something along the lines of an all-inclusive resort. Let's face it, when we go to an all-inclusive resort in the Caribbean, the food is not "free" or "cheaper", we have already paid for it in the cost of our package!