Talk to me about NOT doing dining plan

[baseballnut]

When we first went last December we got free dining (regular, with table service). Well, since DD was then 2, we fell in love with all the character meals and paid for DDP for our following July trip.

We're going next month on the SPD plan, so we're all set there. BUT we will upgrading to an annual pass so wondering what to do on future trips, like one in April.

We love the character meals and a couple other table service as well. Trying to decide if the money we will save by paying out of pocket and only doing two character breakfasts will be worth it, all things considered.

It will be me, DH and DD4. Figuring if we get the Tables in Wonderland card we would save at most $50 a day --by eating the cheapest thing on the menu, lol.

I accounted for a snack as breakfast and CS lunches and dinners. Do the non-dining plan meals still include a drink and dessert? Because we usually stock up on those and use them for snacks later, lol. If they don't then I'll be spending money on extra snacks.

We really like the convenience and ease of DDP, not paying attention to prices, being able to snack, only using magic bands, and of course the character meals. But saving $300 (+tips) would be nice.

And I guess we could spend more money on food and still come under budget, lol. I just don't want to spend any thoughts on tallying up what we've spent.

I know this is "the great debate" and I'm mostly in the DDP is worth it for us at this time...but is it really?

Thoughts?

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

To my knowledge, meals do not include drink and dessert unless specified. And that may be limited to buffets.

We have not found that dining plan is cost justified unless we have some pricy tS meals. We have found that we end up with food uneaten at meals and an abundance of snack credits by our last day.

So just said--of you find that you are eating everything, then it may be worth it for you. TIW, I think, only world at Table Service. It does include alcohol (unless that has changed). We really liked it when we has it.

It doesn't work for QS or snack places. So that is the trade off. (There are some exceptions such as food courts at the All star resorts since there is no TS as well as locations at AK.)
Best you can do is check menus and compare what you would spend OOP with TIW compared to what you might spend OOP with the DDP.

Here is the info. Another thing to watch out for is black out dates.
http://www.wdwinfo.com/disneydiningexperience.htm

 

[SweetMissy]

I always go back and forth about the benefits of the DP or paying OOP. We got free dining a few years ago and it was great! We paid for the DP the following year and wondered why, lol. It's too much food for us! It's nice because it's convenient because you just hand a card (well now use your MB) and it's paid for. But we've priced out before vacation the prices of meals and it always works out for us to be cheaper just paying OOP. I hope we get the free dining again, but until then, we'll probably always stick with not buying the DP.

 

[Tissa]

I have been debating too so I just went and looked at the menus where we are going to be eating and picked what we normally eat and we come out $300 cheaper by not buying the ddp. We do not normally eat dessert or a bunch of snacks.

My friend says she has her own version of the ddp. She takes the amount that the ddp would cost and puts it on a gift card. That way you are still pre-paid and can just swipe a card but can use the leftover balance on souvenirs or off dining plan things.

 

[holden]

We only get the dining plan if it's free. It's too much food for us. Sometimes at dinner I like to order a small salad and an appetizer. I can't do that on the dining plan. For us it's just not worth it to pay for the DDP.

We use the TIW card. With two week long trips and one 4 night trip, we have definitely saved some $ with it. Plus it covers alcohol, which we enjoy with our dinner.

 

[amyren]

In my opinion with 1 child you're better off getting a room only discount. On our last trip we stayed at Beach Club and paid for food out of pocket. We shared entrees and snacked a lot so we came out better without the dining plan. Really it depends on where you stay and how much / often you eat.

Edit to add that we have no expiration tickets and the Free Dining promo had us ad 2 day tickets which is another reason room only worked for us

 

[BellsFam]

We are headed there in April(3 of us), though I had a whole trip planned out for August of 2014...going off of those numbers, it was cheaper with a room only discount and adding tickets (purchasing through Disney), and paying for food OOP than it was to get the dining plan...it was even cheaper to do that way also than with the free dining plan that was offered if we had ended up moving our trip to September...

I used the calculator spreadsheet, and mostly planned our meals/reservations around buffets, (because they offered a choice for all), and QS for the rest... it works for us budget/price wise... and we don't utilize the TIW.

 

[Bronxgirl]

On our last trip we did the DDP, but won't be doing it on our next trip. we definitely got our money's worth last time b/c we did daily character meals. I added up everything we would have spent and e came out ahead by being on the DDP, but this time we'd rather just do counter service and share meals when possible, so I'd rather save the money. part of the reason the DP worked well for us was b/c DD was just under 3 so she ate free. This time around we would have to pay for her.

 

[baseballnut]

To my knowledge, meals do not include drink and dessert unless specified. And that may be limited to buffets. We have not found that dining plan is cost justified unless we have some pricy tS meals. We have found that we end up with food uneaten at meals and an abundance of snack credits by our last day. So just said--of you find that you are eating everything, then it may be worth it for you. TIW, I think, only world at Table Service. It does include alcohol (unless that has changed). We really liked it when we has it. It doesn't work for QS or snack places. So that is the trade off. (There are some exceptions such as food courts at the All star resorts since there is no TS as well as locations at AK.) Best you can do is check menus and compare what you would spend OOP with TIW compared to what you might spend OOP with the DDP. Here is the info. Another thing to watch out for is black out dates. http://www.wdwinfo.com/disneydiningexperience.htm

Didn't know it doesn't include CS. Hmm. Thanks!

 

[baseballnut]

I have been debating too so I just went and looked at the menus where we are going to be eating and picked what we normally eat and we come out $300 cheaper by not buying the ddp. We do not normally eat dessert or a bunch of snacks. My friend says she has her own version of the ddp. She takes the amount that the ddp would cost and puts it on a gift card. That way you are still pre-paid and can just swipe a card but can use the leftover balance on souvenirs or off dining plan things.

At home we snack a lot so we do get the snack as breakfast and use the desserts and beverages for milk and snacks to eat later. Lol.

 

[baseballnut]

On our last trip we did the DDP, but won't be doing it on our next trip. we definitely got our money's worth last time b/c we did daily character meals. I added up everything we would have spent and e came out ahead by being on the DDP, but this time we'd rather just do counter service and share meals when possible, so I'd rather save the money. part of the reason the DP worked well for us was b/c DD was just under 3 so she ate free. This time around we would have to pay for her.

We definitely did all character meals!

So basically it's worth it for those, but not if we don't? Makes sense.

 

[baseballnut]

I have been debating too so I just went and looked at the menus where we are going to be eating and picked what we normally eat and we come out $300 cheaper by not buying the ddp. We do not normally eat dessert or a bunch of snacks. My friend says she has her own version of the ddp. She takes the amount that the ddp would cost and puts it on a gift card. That way you are still pre-paid and can just swipe a card but can use the leftover balance on souvenirs or off dining plan things.

Great idea! Thanks!

 

[7KLucky]

We rcvd the DP free one time and LOVED it. It was incredible and although it was too much food, we didn't worry about "getting our money worth" so it was just GREAT! That being said, I can never justify purchasing it. I have 5 children and would have to purchase the adult price for 4 of them even though only 2 would eat the moneys worth, but are also picky eaters...... so it just depends on the place.
We are doing 3 character meals and another TS meal and still saving almost $700!

 

[Mousemommy1]

We have done the DDP 3 times in the past but our last 3 trips were without the DDP and we LOVE not having it.

We find the DDP to be too much food. We almost never get dessert and often found ourselves asking for bottles of water instead of dessert. We would always have QS and snack credits leftover over at the end of the trip. A waste.

Once we became AP holders in 2012, we started using TiW which has been fantastic. We can order whatever we want off the menu. We get 20% off on alcoholic beverages.

We still average about 7 TS meals per trip including character and signatures but end up spending about $500 less by paying out of pocket.

There is really no way we'd go back to the DDP. Besides, we typically stay deluxe and the room discount is far more valuable to us than the free DDP, so that's not a draw for us either.

Also, we put our "dining money" on Disney gift cards prior to our trip, so just pay using those. It's much better than handing over our debit card a million times.

 

[MandiC]

We definitely did all character meals!

So basically it's worth it for those, but not if we don't? Makes sense.

This also depends on which character meal, two credit meals are NOT a good use of the dining plan. We did use our dining plan for one two credit meal but we ate at two other two credit meals and paid for those without the dining plan. I think I figured out that each 'credit' is worth a certain amount of money and two of them was WAY above what you actually pay if you pay the price.

We enjoyed the dining plan for the convenience. I don't believe it saved us a ton of money because I feel like without it we would have likely done a lot more CS and a lot less TS but it was our first trip so we wanted to do a lot of the TS meals. We will probably do the dining plan again next time because it will be the first trip for our boys but on trips after that? Probably not.

 

[puffkin]

We go quite a bit and we have never done the dining plan. I would say we are moderate eaters at best and the dining plan is just too much food for us and it doesn't really match up to our eating style. We have been doing the TIW card for awhile now and it is definitely much better choice for us. Especially with the discount coming off the entire bill (including alcohol).

I will say though that next year I'll have to start paying for my youngest DS and my oldest will become a Disney adult, so I think we will be dining much less on Disney property. Ouch

 

[Ginny Favers]

Before I used to rely heavily on the DDP for the convenience of having it pre-paid, but I am definitely a convert to NOT having one. The convert happened a few years ago when I was on the DDP and my daughter came down with a stomach bug. Had I not been on the DDP, the silver lining would've been that we saved money on food, because we missed a slew of reservations. Unfortunately, we ended up losing a lot of money.

The past two years, not being on the plan has been great. We make our reservations same as always, and it's just as simple to pay for things using the Magic Bands. I don't have to scour the menu to find the most expensive item out there to make it "worth it" (anyways, I HATE steak!!) and our trip is no longer controlled by our reservations. If we want to eat three counter service meals a day or not, if we want to just get appetizers, it's up to us. It's FREEDOM.

Mind you, it was more worthwhile when our children cared about character meals, but we've BTDT, so we're perfectly fine not going to any of the more hyped table-service places. If someone was going on their first trip and would do a lot of character meals, they'll obviously get more out of it than we would.

 

[ladyjubilee]

We had free dining on this trip.... and won't do the dining plan again. It was just WAY to much food. Frankly it felt like We were always rushing to get to the next meal. Then at the meal we wasted over half the food.

I definitely would not pay the dining plan.

 

[Gracie09]

We are planning on getting tiw for our next trip in June. Previously we did dining plan but I felt like we were always eating and we still had snacks left at the end (and maybe some kids qs). Dh thinks it will be a wash money wise, I think we will save a decent amount. We will see who is right.

 

[msmama]

OP, if you are a snacker NOT having the dining plan may be better. Often DS and I will share meals and then end up getting snacks later (we eat a lot of Mickey pretzels). We often take bagels or something with us so we eat breakfast in the room (or waiting for busses) which takes care of another meal.

Our upcoming trip we are staying club level so will be taking advantage of those food options, too.