The Ideal dining plan would be...

[havoc315]

I am frustrated with the choices of the 3 plans. There really needs to be something in between the basic plan and the deluxe plan.
And it's frustrating, that if you step up from the quick-service plan to the regular plan, you actually lose some positive features (the refillable mug and 1 less snack).

So your choices are basically, if you stick to a plan without going OOP:
1-- Do all your meals as counter service and snacks
2-- Have 1 "regular" restaurant meal on average per day but without appetizer, plus 1 counterservice meal, and then nibble on a snack (or pay OOP to turn the snack into a breakfast, such as buying coffee to go with your bagel)
3-- Likely pay for way too much food.

Thus, I wish Disney would put together something like this:

-- 2 snacks per day (to allow for an easy pastry + coffee breakfast)
-- 1 CS per day.
-- 1 TS per day --- allowing for choice of Appetizer OR dessert. (Thus, a couple may share an appetizer and share a dessert).

Or quite possibly
-- 2 snacks per day
-- 2 meals per day (interchangeable between CS and TS, but with no appetizer included)

 

[MHSweb79]

Actually, the regular DDP is too much food for us. Dessert with lunch AND dinner? Plus another snack? We end up saving a lot of our desserts for snacks or breakfasts (often you can get a muffin, pastry or fruit for dessert, and they will box it up for you) so we always have lots of leftover snack credits at the end of the week.

When the DDP included appetizers, a lot of food was thrown away. People would order things just because they were included.

Now, Disney should have reduced the price more than $1 when they got rid of appetizers & gratuities, but as for quantity of food, the old plan was way too much and this plan has plenty of food for us. I do think a lot of people would prefer appetizers over desserts, but I don't see that happening as appies are much more expensive for Disney than desserts.

 

[catne]

My ideal plan would be to allow you to order exactly how many of each type of meal you want...so if you were staying 5 nights, but you wanted 7 table service meals, and 3 counter service meals you could order components like that. However, Disney's walking a balance line here between offering plans that will appeal to the masses, yet still turn a profit on the operation so I can't see them offering more flexibility than what is already available. Your example of having a couple share an appetizer & share a dessert illustrates my point: they would never offer that kind of flexibility because it would be too costly. Desserts are cheap to make & cheap to serve...can be pre-made & stored overnight in most cases. Appetizers are not cheap to make -- generally prepared one serving at a time, fresh...cannot be premade in mass quantities. And your scenario would have tables tied up longer, too -- with both an app course & a dessert course that table is not going to turn over as fast. By offering desserts only, Disney sees another reduction in expense of the plan: a fair number of people skip the dessert because they're too full at the end of the meal...even though they're entitled to it, they don't take it.

And not to be snarky, but they do have a totally flexible plan that a whole lot of people can & do use: pay cash. Order what you want, where & when you want. The discount here comes in that you don't pay for any food you don't want to order. Dont' like all those lunch desserts...well don't order, and your meal comes out $2.50-5.00 cheaper.

If you want the advantage of "pre-paid" meal plans, just buy Disney gift cards in advance and use those to pay for your meals. Lots of people do that, too.

When you do the regular dining plan, if you're wanting coffee from the counter service every morning, why not buy a refillable mug? Or even cheaper alternative is to make coffee in your room...that's what we do when we're on the regular dining plan: pastry from bakery & coffee from the room coffee-maker.

 

[francie57]

We use the regular ddp and the only thing I would want is the choice between an appetizer and a dessert. We used the ddp on our trip a week ago and it is definitely worth the money since we spent way more than the cost of the dining plan per day. As the pp said we could have the choice to pay cash but by using the dining plan we don't have to figure that into the budget and we also don't have to carry large amounts of cash with us. I know you could charge it but we don't want to come home with large cc bills.

 

[bamagirl@hrt]

We've used the dining plan since 2006. In all honesty, it was too much food when each person got an appetizer AND a dessert. I would love the opportunity to choose an appetizer OR a dessert, as previously mentioned. In our family of four, 2 appies and 2 dessert would be perfect to share. On one trip, my son got tired of desserts. He asked me one night at dinner, "Mom, do I HAVE to eat dessert tonight?" On our trip last fall, I noticed that more places are at least offering fruit as a dessert. Sometimes we'd take it "to go" and have it for breakfast the next morning.

 

[Joie]

getting to choose either a dessert or appy would be great if they let us do that. yes appy's are more so what restaurants should do is for ddp only they have maybe 2 or 3 appy's to choose from and a maybe big enough for one ....I can wish for this to happen....it could happen

 

[canoe86]

I like having the appetizer and dessert. We have three kids of four on the kids menus and the oldest wants different food. Allows use to share. In fact, I'm sure to watch my family eat is funny, everyone trying something from everyone's plate.

 

[aubriee]

I'm not a fan of counter service and seldom use a snack credit down there, so am stuck running to Goofy's at the end of every trip to use up snack credits. I'm also not a breakfast eater, but love an early TS lunch then dinner about 7:30pm. I'd like a plan that included two table service meals/day and the mug. There is no way Disney could possibly make a plan that would suit everyone. So what we do most of the time is use the DxDDP, eat an early TS lunch then do a Signature restaurant every night. Since we seldom use a snack credit, we then have tons to use at Goofy's on our last day to bring home.

 

[disneyfav4ever]

I wish the would do a points system or let you choose how many snacks, CS, and TS meals were included each day. If they did a points system, they could make you buy a minimum number of nights per night, and then each item would be worth a certain number of points, like 5 for a snack, 15 for a CS meal, 25 for a TS meal, etc.

 

[patsal]

I am happy withthe QS plan, the regular is not workable for us as it isn't he way we eat and deluxe is simply too expensive since we do not eat that way either--the gratuties would kill me anyway with all that signature dining.

Ideally, I'd like the choice of an App or desert that is why no dining plan actually works out to be greater savings for us!
Funny how that works, overall the DDP is designed to save $$ only when you eat exactly like it is set up, if you do not than paying OOP will be a savings to you.

 

[2Tiggies]

Dining plans have become something of a science to try and get your head around - especially for those who are not familiar with them. Much as it would be nice to tailor your plans to your specific needs, I actually think there are four options that cover pretty much every scenario

1. QSDP: Plenty food for those who don't want to be tied down to reservations
2. Regular DDP for those who love their TS reservations and want a good sit down meal each day plus one quick meal and a hearty snack
3. DxDDP for those who love appetizers, signature meals, structure and routine to the day and like to have two or more full meals a day
4. No dining plan: for thos who want to eat some CS, some TS and don't want to eat exclusively at restaurants participating in the dining plan.

 

[Colleen27]

The deluxe is perfect for us. Anything with fewer TS credits would force us to cut out a lot of our signature dinners, room service, and other splurges.

 

[SlightlyGoofy]

I like the idea of a points system as everyone could adjust it to suit their circumstances.

Some folks love sweets, some are vegetarians, some folks like breakfast, some do not, some want more TS and some want less. etc.

The only time share I have ever considered is the DVC so it seems as if they have the points system down pat and could easily apply it to the DP.

Slightly Goofy

 

[DaniB]

We don't want the DxDP (money-wise it's just not cost-effective for us), nor the QSDP (as we want some TS meals). The DDP still leaves us looking at paying for another meal OOP.

I'd love 2 CS, 1 TS and 2 Snacks. I don't care about the refillable mugs.

 

[yankeepenny]

I love the idea of a point system!
that gets my vote.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Funny how that works, overall the DDP is designed to save $$ only when you eat exactly like it is set up,

I'm not sure I understand what's humorous or unusual about that. When used as designed, the Dining Plan saves money. That makes perfect sense. When people try to adapt it, then it doesn't work so well or save the intended money.

 

[2Tiggies]

I'm not sure I understand what's humorous or unusual about that. When used as designed, the Dining Plan saves money. That makes perfect sense. When people try to adapt it, then it doesn't work so well or save the intended money.

OR you get the dining plan of your choice accepting that it is not saving you money but you like the idea of pre paid.

 

[toobie75]

We do eat like the plan is designed on vacation. We eat way too much fast food and way too many desserts, but just like WDW, it's a splurge for us.

With that being said, I do wish we could pick either an appy or dessert so that we could share both between us.

Other than that, my only other request is the ability to add on another meal, whether CS or TS, per day so that all 3 meals are covered. Another snack would be nice as well for those days you want another drink or something. We enjoy the convenience of having it prepaid. With the current plans it's only convenient 2/3 of the time (2 out of 3 meals) without that 3rd meal being covered. I know that DxDP covers 3 but it's so much more expensive we would lose money if we didn't utilize at least 2 TS a day. Some days that wouldn't be an issue but we go to Disney for Disney and not running around trying to make ADRs.

 

[webbmom]

Hey, your at Disney and its all pre-paid. A point system sounds wonderful, and having a choice of App OR Dessert. We have tried each of the plans each has its pros and cons. We are going this weekend with 1-1-1. We dont usually do any meals OP maybe a snack. but this trip we may end-up doing a TS out of pocket. We are only staying two nights but it ends up as 3 full days.