This Dining Plan thing is so confusing for me..

[Keepee]

Hey guys! Sorry, I'm having a "slow" day, but I really can't figure out if buying the dining plan is a good idea or not.

We (fiance and I) are looking in to getting a dining plan when we go on our honeymoon. Is it worth it the money it costs to get the plan? We're trying to budget ourselves, but I don't want to eat "cheap" burgers the whole time either lol.

What do you dining gurus suggest? Would it be better for us to just pay OOP, or go for the 4 day dining plan?

Thanks for any help you guys can give me! I'm so overwhelmed by all this information and planning.

 

[noseybuddy]

I don't really know what the dining plan cost is. I went last Sept. on the free dining plan and ate great. I was very surprised at how well I ate, the choice of restaurtants to eat in and the amount of food I got. I liked it so much I am doing it again this August. Hope this helps.

 

[yellowfish78]

I would say it depends on you. Do you like to eat lots of food? Have you been there before and know what the food will cost or do entrees priced at $20 or more scare you on a regular menu? Will you have a fridge in your room if you bring home dessert from the parks for late night snacks?

The dining plan costs $36 per person per night. So at $72 a night for the two of you, do you think you will eat that much in food? My suggestion is to check out menus on this board and on allearsnet to see if the cost is worth it.

If my opinion helps any, I will not go to Disney without going on some kind of dining plan. I like knowing that my food is paid for, and only having to pay for drinks. I like being able to plan out my days based around where I'd like to eat, which forces me to have a "plan of attack" for the parks. I like knowing that I can have the most expensive thing on the menu without having to think "do I have enough money to eat this?"

 

[Keepee]

That is good advice! I was browsing through some menus and saw that the Crystal Palace (yayy for Tigger!) was a whopping $27.99 each for dinner! I think we'd enjoy the park more with the dining plan, since we wouldn't have to "pay" that, we could just whip our little tickets out and roll on through the line.

 

[justplaingoofy]

I think it is a good deal unless you prefer to mostly eat sandwiches, don't want to do any character meals, and generally go for more inexpensive items on the menu.
The $38pp per night includes gratuity too.... Plus you can split meals (unless its a buffet)

You get a counter service meal(usually about $8-10pp?)
Snack ?$2-$4pp
Sit Down meal (Dinner) ?$20-$25pp (not including gratuity)
Total about $32-$40

Plus with Dining plan for the sit down you get appetizer, non alcohol drink, & dessert.
Counter service meal you also get non alcohol & dessert...

When is it you are going?

 

[Keepee]

We're going at the very end of May and in to early June.

With these voucher things, do you just walk in and use your tickets and can basically have anything on the menu? I think that is what confuses me the most. I'm used to college dining plans, but Disney's talk of vouchers completely throws me off! Haha, I'm so pitiful.

Mmm appetizer and dessert!! HOORAH!

 

[Cookie Princess]

We used the plan in November and ate great. We got to try some restaurants and foods that we would not have otherwise. We saved money with it. I will say that it is A LOT of food and we felt "Thanksgiving Day" feel each day. We agreed to buy it again this year, but now it is FREE when we are going. YIPPEE!

 

[Keepee]

I'm so jealous! I wish it was free in May too . *sigh* I think we've basically decided to splurge a little and get it. Otherwise, we'll end up spending more on nice food, and at least this way we get appetizers and desserts and won't have to worry about how much it all costs. (except right now when we have to pay).

 

[Tam1067]

The dining plan currently costs $37.99 per adult per night; kids under 10 are $10.99. We're going in July, and that's the price we're paying. To determine if it's worth it for you, go to www.allearsnet.com and do the math. Figure out what you'd pay for a CS meal a day (main dish, side, drink, and dessert), a TS meal (appetizer, drink, entree, and dessert), and a snack (about $2.00 each). I would bet that'll add up to more than $37.99 each. Plus, the DDP includes tax and tip which is not included in the prices on allears.

CS meals can easily be $10 each; TS will be closer to $30--and again, that's not including tax and tip.

Once I did the math, I decided to get the plan because we generally like to have a real dinner each night.

Food at WDW is higher than you'd expect, so the price, while sounding high at first, ends up being a better deal once you do the math.

 

[Keepee]

Haha, that makes me cry- I'm so cheap that it hurts to see the food prices.

Now, say we go to a TS place and want to get a meal that will cost......well let's say we get something super expensive and it's $35 (random number out of the air). Do we just flash our TS coupon and smile, or are there caps on the amount you can spend per meal? Like, once I hit $30, do I need to hand over money OOP

 

[bicker]

No specific dollar-amount caps, but a few restaurants are excluding certain items from inclusion on the dining plan, most notably the Japan restaurants. Check out the FAQ and the Exclusions thread for more details.

 

[budbeerlady]

We looked at as dinner (1 ts) being paid for and lunch (1 cs) and a snack free. Or we did this, share breakfast (1 cs) share lunch (1 cs) each our own dinner. Would we order and app, entree and dessert each normally, No Way! But it is vacation and this way I wasnt always getting chicken because I was worried about the meal cost. I ordered what i really wanted. Add up what you would normally get for dinner and counter service and see if this is a value for you.

 

[GeorgiaAristocat]

It's probably not much of a splurge once you really do the math, but you end up with A LOT more food. I love the dining plan. But it works for my family and how we like to eat. It makes me non-stressed about WHAT I order or if I want my kids to eat with Cindy, the Princesses, Pooh, and Lilo over the course of our trip.

How it works - the whole thing gets encoded onto your room key/card. Your server will usually ask you if you are on dining plan when you are seated, and will then tell you if any menu items are off-limits (there is VERY little that is excluded - things like adding a lobster tail to your filet mignon are usually extra!). At the end of the meal, you give them your keycard and the credits are deducted. They present you will a receipt that shows how much your meal WOULD have been if you were paying case, and a receipt that shows $0.00 charged and how many credits you have remaining. I liked to keep a running tab of how much my food WOULD have been - but we had free dining so it was academic curiosity.

If you want to do a signature meal while you are there, you would need to share TWO other table service meals to have enough points to cover two complete meals at the signature place. Whether this would work for you depends on whether you and your soon-to-be husband are "big" eaters. I could have easily shared most of my meals with my husband (well, except he likes his steak med-well to well and I like mine med-rare to rare, but that's another story). Most of the signature meals are EXTRAORDINARY. (Another option to afford one is to use the DDP for one meal at a signature place, share the appetizer and dessert, and then you only need to order one additional entree and drinks - not too, too expensive!) Splitting/sharing to get to a signature restaurant is obviously easier to do the longer you stay. Four nights is pushing the possibility!

Have a great honeymoon!

 

[Sleeping Jedi Beauty]

We decided to go with the DP for our trip in May because we have to eat and we felt like it was a good option. From pricing the CS meals, it looks like you're getting $12-$15 for CS meal. For fun, I decided to see how we would fare on the DP with my mom choosing what she wants to eat. Mom can't eat like my brothers and I can, and at most non-buffet TS restaurants we chose, the total cost of what mom would have chosen had we been there at that time almost always fell in the range of $30-$40 if not higher. Mom is not a steak lover like her husband and sons are, yet her choices almost always came very close to, if not exceeding the $37.99 we're paying per day, and this is not even factoring in the CS meal and the snack. As I've looked at some of the CS meals, you could easily pay close to $30 for two CS meals per person a day.

And last, it's your honeymoon. Do you really want to spend your honeymoon eating at CS places when there are so many nice sit down restaurants to eat at and celebrate your wedding?