Silver plan versus on your own for meals and such

[KIS]

Can anyone tell me what the rate is over which you'd have to spend per day or per "wish" in order to make the silver plan worthwhile your while financially speaking?

I am trying to cost it out and I'm a little lost.

Thanks.


KIS

 

[Scratch42]

$67.00 per day = 2 wishes

1 wish = $33.50

Therefore, any meal worth over $33.50 you get your money's worth. You are not limited to just meals, they also include spa treatments, nicnacs, pins, watermice, kid's programs, etc. Janet2k has a wonderful thread somewhere explaining the whole deal.

But basically, we are using it to eat at the more expensive places for less money. We are also going to see Cirque, HoopDeeDoo, Mickey's BBQ, this way by paying up front, it's not going to hurt as much.

Hope this helps.

Scratch

 

[LAinSEA]

your tax and tip! (15% tip - at the nicer restaurants, if the service was especially good we'd bring it up to 20% with our bill for wine).

If you only use the wishes for sit-down lunches/dinners (not buffets, character dining or counter service) you can get your wishes worth very easily.

If you are traveling with young children - I don't think the plan would be a good deal.

 

[KIS]

That's a good point about tax and tip. That just might take us over the edge.

We are traveling with the 5 year old. I would think that between a couple of babysitting and a few shows/tours and boating as well as a couple of character dinners, we might come close to using up her wishes, too. But I'm not sure? Have you had any such experience with the kiddie factor?

Has anyone else managed to make it worthwhile?

I just learned that s/d restaurants do not apply and that the Silver plan does not apply to the teacher discount at the s/d. Is this true?

KIS

 

[stacy6552]

I cant disagree more! These meal plans are so not worth it. We tracked our meal spending this last trip and found that our family of 4 (2 adults and 2 kids) averaged $20 for counter service, which is excellent at MK and $60 for sit downs. Dont limit yourself to where you can eat.

 

[wdwobsessed]

I really think it depends.

If you planned on having sit down lunches and dinners at some of the more expensive places you could get your $$ worth on the adult wishes. Then use your child's wishes on the clubs and boating.

Just make sure these are things you want to do!

wdwo

 

[Pammy_from_WI]

I did pretty extensive research on this topic about 2 months ago, we'll be going in Oct. We have 2 adults and 1 teen and 1 toddler. The plan only is better if you eat at only sitdown places for 2-3 meals per day. If you plan on doing a lot of counter service you're better off going it alone.

I used wdwig.com to get rough ideas of costs for foods and did a meal my meal chart, then I went back and compared it to our per day cost of the silver plan for each person and it ended up being almost $1000 difference and I can think of lots of ways to spend $1000. LOL

You will come out ahead if you plan on doing a lot of the other wish things, like spa treatments, golf, water sports and the like.

They wanted over $39 bucks a day for a 3 year old and there was just no way she'd eat that amout of food. We also looked at just getting it for the adults and teen and pay for her on the side, but we still came out ahead since we weren't going to be eating 3 large meals per day, not many people do when it's really hot outside and you're in the parks all day.

The plan does have its benifits though, it's paid for before you leave so you don't have to worry about money when you get there. You can eat at all the finest places and not worry about tipping and taxes.

I would think the plan would be great for adults wanting to go all out on thier dining choices and taking advantage of all the extras, but I can't see where a family, especially with little ones would ever come out ahead.

And please don't read this as a knock to the plans, it's not, I think they're great for some people, but if your a family and trying to stick with a budget I think you'll come out ahead on your own.

Pammy

 

[KIS]

Pammy,

Thanks for sharing your experience. I am trying to do what you suggested.

It's hard to know if counter service will suit us for 1-2 meals a day. I think it probably will. I am looking at our activities, too.
We have about as much as 5 days worth of wishes in our 8 night/7 day stay, but these days, I've heard you can't use the silver plan with the park hopper plus, and, from what else I understand, current WDW policy is that all people in the room together, no matter what their age, must be on the plan. It certainly is convenient. I also like the reserved viewing area for some parades and firework shows, which I understand you can't get any other way. I am also considering how this plan might force us to do the spas, babysitting, kid's meals up to the max and in that way enhance our vacation, but still, there's nothing like down time and flexibility with a younger one.

KIS

 

[mep319]

The wishes are alloted to a central account and you can uses the wishes any way you like. In other words you can use your child's wishes for your dinners. (I did confirm this thru disney). I plan to use the wishes for myself and DH, pay cash for our daughter's meals....children's meals are usually only between $5-10. We like to eat at the more expensive places so for us it appears it will work. I checked menu prices at wdwig.com and figured we should come out pretty good. I guess a lot of it depends on your eating habits....I also know the golfers seems to get a lot out of it...shame we don't golf!

 

[Reflection]

Originally posted by stacy6552
I cant disagree more! These meal plans are so not worth it. We tracked our meal spending this last trip and found that our family of 4 (2 adults and 2 kids) averaged $20 for counter service, which is excellent at MK and $60 for sit downs. Dont limit yourself to where you can eat.

If your dining plans primarily include counter service and character meals, then the silver plan is not good value. It is also not a good value if used for children's meals.

 

[femmegirl]

I have used this plan before. Of course when using it for a meal we used it mainly for the more expensive sit down meals. There was only adults on our trip. I would not go back to WDW without such a plan. For me knowing that we had our meals paid for in advance was helpful.

I think the decision on whether the silver plan is worth it is an individual thing. If you do not plan to use it for sit down restaurant or recreation things that are more than each wish, then you would be better to not get this plan.

 

[KIS]

When I cost it out, we look like we are just about right on the fence.

I'm a first timer so I don't know yet in advance what our habits will be.

There seem to be such differences of opinion on this one.

I'm going to keep at it.

Reflection, were your sit down meals at two or three dollar sign restaurants (the signs indicating cost in most guidebooks)? Did you eat sit down once or twice a day? Did the $60 include tax and tip?

What kind of activities did you do? See, I'm thinking we might use a couple of babysittings, a fishing trip (we've never fished), take that Illuminations Cruise, etc.

With that, though we are on the fence. I sat down and compared wishes to each meal, activities covered by that plan and averaged it out. It's all rough figures, of course, and I think it averaged out to a little less or a little more than $60 per day. I'm SO confused.

There's also the fun factor, too. Without it we might not try Ohana's or the Luau. With it, we might. We would definitely have only one, not two babysitting times....

How did you decide on this BEFORE you knew how you'd DO WDW? Sigh.


KIS

 

[Scratch42]

But as you have mentioned, we would probably not do all of the shows or would not have bothered with any sit down meals. We usually just grab a quick bite. With the Silver plan we are now doing all plus Cirque. Don't forget to put the tax and grat into the price! Using wishes for babysitting will also allow you and your DH to go to the more upscale of restaurants to have some "WE" time! From what has been said on these boards, the kids will definately have a great time!

Good luck on your decision. Did you check out WDW site under packages to see all that is involved? I don't think the Illuminations crusie is included.

Good Luck with what ever you decide.

Scratch

 

[Reflection]

Originally posted by KIS
When I cost it out, we look like we are just about right on the fence.

I'm a first timer so I don't know yet in advance what our habits will be.

There seem to be such differences of opinion on this one.

I'm going to keep at it.

Reflection, were your sit down meals at two or three dollar sign restaurants (the signs indicating cost in most guidebooks)? Did you eat sit down once or twice a day? Did the $60 include tax and tip?

What kind of activities did you do? See, I'm thinking we might use a couple of babysittings, a fishing trip (we've never fished), take that Illuminations Cruise, etc.

With that, though we are on the fence. I sat down and compared wishes to each meal, activities covered by that plan and averaged it out. It's all rough figures, of course, and I think it averaged out to a little less or a little more than $60 per day. I'm SO confused.

There's also the fun factor, too. Without it we might not try Ohana's or the Luau. With it, we might. We would definitely have only one, not two babysitting times....

How did you decide on this BEFORE you knew how you'd DO WDW? Sigh. KIS

Dear KIS

Actually, I will be using the silver plan with our upcoming trip in early August. I added the silver plan to our FTP package in early June. I went back and forth over what to do but finally decided to use the plan because:

1. At least two of our meals (lunch and dinner) are at sit-down restaurants (in the afternoon, this is a nice way to get some air-conditioned relief). For dinner, we eat at the more expensive restaurants (Narcoosees, Flying Fish, Brown Derby, etc) and generally do the Hoop de Doo Revue.

2. I use the childcare facilities at least three evenings (my daughter loves the Neverland and Sandcastle Clubs)

3. On past trips, I would do 2-3 spa treatments (usually while my daughter is doing the children's activities at the Grand Floridian).


Like you, I looked at menus and prices for recreation and spa treatments. Also, in my case, 'we' means my 10-year-old daughter and I. Based on the menus (and also some of my receipts from last year), I usually paid between $25-30 (before tax and tip) for my lunch (kid meals run between $5-10); dinner around the same or more and also included wine. So between lunch and dinner, I would use my $33.50 wish.

My one reservation is that the plan does not include alcoholic beverages (I'm a glass-of-wine-at-dinner-person), but I feel, given my dining patterns, this plan provides good value. I would suggest looking at your overall activities, and be sure you will use activities the plan covers. I know how difficult it can be when there are so many options to consider. Good luck with your decision.

 

[Pammy_from_WI]

KIS - This is one of those very difficult WDW decisions. LOL I struggled with this same thing for well over 2 weeks.

Here's exactly what I did -

First I did a very rough outline of each day. You'll want to include anything like spa treatments, golf, watersports, babysitting, or anything else you plan on doing. This is hard to do if you don't have park hours and such and of course it will probably change a dozen times before the trip, but try to get a pretty good idea of what you want to do and lay it out, including the approx. cost of those side things. You'll also need to include tips and taxes when needed. Like you probably would want to tip the spa person, at least I do.

Next I laid out a rough outine of places we wanted to eat. Yes, you need to pay for the silver plan for everyone, but you can pay cash for him/her and use their wishes on something else. Again, I used www.wdwig.com to look at menus and figured out costs, sort of guessing what we'd probably eat. I also included 20% tip and 6.5 tax.

Then I tallied it all up and came out ahead doing it on our own verses the plan, because we knew we would not be eating 2-3 large meals a day, you're not as hungry when it's hot out, at least we found that to be true. Plus we like to snack on little treats during the day. We also found that we were just so wore out, we'd end up just grabbing something to eat anywhere. We ended up cancelling a lot of our PS ressies.

We've been to WDW well over 30 times and each trip is so different. This time we have our 3 year old along, so we will only be doing 2 character meals and 2 nice dinners. We don't plan on using the babysitting, knowing us we'll be way too tired by the end of the day to get dressed up to go someplace nice. LOL

We also won't be using the spa, golf, water sports and such. A while back someone took the time to post a pretty complete list of things you can use your wishes for, maybe someone knows the link. So if you had left over wishes, remember not to waste them, use them to get gifts.

I know this plan is great for some and for others it just doesn't pay. If it was just my oldest DD and my hubby and me, we'd probably do the plan because we'd do a lot of the extras and eat at places like V&As, Cali Grill and the like, but this time we're not so it didn't pay.

If you do go with the plan it won't be as much of a wing it trip, but you'll still have a ton of options!

Good luck deciding! Take your time and don't rush into deciding, you can always add the plan at a later date. And remember which ever way you go it will be a wonderful trip!!!

Pam

 

[Reflection]

KIS

Here's how I broke down the costs to determine whether the plan was 'worth it' for my situation:

Total cost for 28 wishes: $927 (based on 2 people--one adult; one junior)

Activities I know I will do:

3 spa treatments: value (tax and tip included) $171
16 hours of child care: value $140

Number of wishes used thus far: 6

Remaining wishes: 22
Total value of remaining wishes: $616 ( $927 minus $311)
Per wish value: $28

If I pay $28 or more for a meal, then I get my money's worth.

I hope this is helpful.

 

[KIS]

I really appreciate you folks responding, Pammy, Scratch and others. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences.

I am getting more clear. I guess I feel like a little kid in a candy store. I want it all. I forget that I am with my 5 y.o. daughter. She's a very pleasant, forbearing kind of child. But, I really will take my greatest delight in watching her delight and sharing in it. There will be some things that my husband and I will surely do for us, but she's the catalyst for our first disney trips in our life times. Neither my husband nor I have ever been to WDW nor Disneyland. When I start with her, can envision how she will want the parks and want to push herself beyond her capacity to overexhaustion. She will probably be entranced with the first thing she sees on Main Street and we will have to practically drag her to Fantasyland on her first day in the MK. When we take her out for a fancy dinner, she is well behaved, but she likes Friendly's better. We will have some compromising to do, surely.

I am aware that we want to have a relaxing time. I fear packing our schedule in so tight that I'll become a commanding officer barking orders, frantically rousing the troops to go here or there. That's not much fun. I know we're going to need some down time, may be even a couple of rest spells, where my daughter just swims, plays on a playground and in the sand.

I'm the one who wants to do it all as I learn about all this stuff.

I think being a first timer, it's hard to judge what our preferences and habits will be. I would like to be somewhat flexible. I know that while I like a nice, special meal, my daughter will want to play and explore more and sit to eat less. I know we can compromise with some character meals. Some of which don't sound half bad, but let's face it, it's more for the character interaction than the food that we'd be doing it.

If my daughter were ten or more, I might be leaning more toward the silver plan. Right now, I'm leaning against it. If we don't get to do it all. We can plan to come another time and do some other things when she's older.

KIS

 

[Amaris]

We always get the silver plan ( or whatever plan is like it, they keep changing the name..)

We did not use them for kids meals. The meals are so huge we could often share, but where they come in handy is for KIDS CLUB visits... and big events ( dinner shows) If you spend them wisely, they are really worth the ease of showing your card to cover your meals, never having to think about money, and not worrying about tipping.

 

[CarolMN]

Something else to consider is time! My understanding of the add-on deals like the silver plan is that they are added on to a room/UPH ticket combination package. If that's not true, then ignore the rest of my post.

UPH (Length of Stay) tickets are the most expensive park admission media. IMHO, you need to spend quite a bit of time in the parks every day to justify that cost. My problem with the Silver Plan is that in order to "get my money's worth" or "economic value" from the plan, it will take away a lot of park time. After all, it does take time to use the recreational features and eat 2 or more sit down meals a day. That makes the $$/hour in the park cost a lot higher.

I'd personally consider the Silver Plan a lot more seriously if I could choose my park admission media. In other words, maybe I get a 4 Day PHP ticket and skip the parks one or more days during my stay to make full use of the wishes.

Bottom Line - For us, it's better (more cost effective) to buy the ticket media that matches our park touring plans and to pay a la carte for recreation and meals. Gives us a lot more flexibility without worrying about how much we may be "wasting" if we aren't hungry at PS time or don't have enough time to use all the wishes.

If we want to prepay for our trip, I stock up on Disney Dollars, Connection meal vouchers or send "extra" $$ to the credit card company before we go.

JMHO. YMMV.

 

[lovespugs]

Originally posted by CarolMN
Something else to consider is time! ... UPH (Length of Stay) tickets are the most expensive park admission media. IMHO, you need to spend quite a bit of time in the parks every day to justify that cost. My problem with the Silver Plan is that in order to "get my money's worth" or "economic value" from the plan, it will take away a lot of park time. After all, it does take time to use the recreational features and eat 2 or more sit down meals a day

DH and I did the silver plan in December and we LOVED it! However, I would be quick to point out that it is not for everyone. As two adults without children, we enjoyed lingering over long dinners every night. We were also there in December when the parks closed early, so all of our dinners were after the parks were already closed.

What we loved was that the plan encouraged us to do things we wouldn't have otherwise done - behind the scenes tours, Cirque, etc. Could we have paid cash for everything and come out ahead? Sure. But we would have also talked ourselves out of some of the extras because they were just too expensive. With the plan we got to do all the extras without any of the guilt (except for all of that dessert )!