To DDP or not with 2 "adult" children?

[tiggercrew]

We are trying to decide if the DDP is a good decision for our next trip for DH, myself, DD14 and DS10. Both children are now considered adults, but neither of them are big eaters (both will sometimes order off kids menu).

We usually eat breakfast in (except for maybe one character breakfast during stay), lunch and dinner out. We don't usually order appetizers or desserts with meals. We have used the DDE card in the past and can renew it if we decide we want to.

Based on your personal experiences and with our eating habits, do you think the DDP is a good value for our family?

Thanks for your input!

 

[disneymom06]

I would go to the menu section and, hypothetically, pick out what your family would eat at each place on each day. Remember to include the tax and an 18% tip to your total. Plan it out for the trip. This will give you a rough idea. The two adult "children" will not be able to order for the price listed on the child's menu. My son, 13, always gets chicken strips and I get charged for an adult meal. I don't remember the exact price, around 14-16 dollars, depends upon where we ate. My daughter, 11, loves to try foods and the DDP frees me from fininacial limitations. Would you order appetizers? AT those prices, we don't allow the children, maybe one per table to try, but it really is too much food and not an option if I am paying OOP. (They were only allowed when we had the DDP!) Same goes for desserts. Don't forget to include beverages. Don't forget about the snack options.

You know your children. For each family the pluses and minuses are different. I like having paid for the plan and not worrying about more expenses on vacation. But I do make every effort to optimize my value. We always have eaten a dollar value of more than we paid. At many meals with all of the appetizers and dessert included, the six of us were able to order only 5 meals, once only 4 and we still had leftovers. At CS we had the same experience. This was done, not to save credits, although that was a plus, but because we couldn't eat all of the food, and I felt it was a waste to only eat half a plate.

Good Luck!

 

[FayeW]

If I were to stay onsite, I would be more likely to go with the DDP now that the kids are "adult", just because it IS a lot of food, and we could probably get away with 2-3 app/entre/desserts/ for the whole family, and save a few credits to do things like HDDR, or more than one sit down each day. Obviously, at buffets we would use a credit for all of us, but if we shared some meals, we could do a few extra.

That is actually the only element of this which might entice me to try staying onsite sometime.

 

[tiggercrew]

Thanks for the replies. So, if I understand it correctly, even though the 4 of us are sitting down at a restaurant (not a buffet type) it is possible to only order say 3 meals and share them and save the other credit for another night, right?

I also had not thought about the buffet restaurants...we don't normally get our monies worth of the "all you can eat" places since the kids eat with children's appetites and we pay adult prices...the DDP would help out in that case even though each of us would have to use one TS credit.

I think I'll do the math a little more and see which works best. I appreciate the input.

 

[bookworm61]

I am doing the DDP next week with my family of 4 (me, DH and 2 kids - 12 and 16). This will be our first time tryiing it and really only because we will be on a grand gathering/family reunion and it will be so much simpler to avoid a bill at meal times.
I have given some thought, though, to whether I will use it again. If it goes well this trip, I might do it again or perhaps find out whether I can get it for 1 room (2 of us) and not for the other room (the other 2 of us). That way, DH and I can get a nice meal and the "kids" can get a burger at burger prices.

 

[GOODoldPAL]

I would go to the menu section and, hypothetically, pick out what your family would eat at each place on each day. Remember to include the tax and an 18% tip to your total. Plan it out for the trip. This will give you a rough idea. The two adult "children" will not be able to order for the price listed on the child's menu. My son, 13, always gets chicken strips and I get charged for an adult meal. I don't remember the exact price, around 14-16 dollars, depends upon where we ate.

Where exactly did you get charged for an adult meal when kids ordered off the children's menu? First I ever heard of this happening and it doesn't make sense to me if someone wants, and is receiving, a smaller kid's portion.

BTW, good advice on hypothetically picking out meals from menus and adding cost w/ tax + gratuity.
When we did this for our "adult priced child" it was obvious that 9 nights of DDP would not benefit us.
However, because we booked a split stay (in the same resort for convenience), we WILL realize a savings on a 4 nt DDP: $200 less than OOP and I consider it another $200 savings by paying OOP and NOT purchasing the DDP for last 5 nts.

Another suggestion I'd like to add: Decide on your likely touring plan & style first so that what you want to DO at WDW remains a priority rather than what you eat.
To realize the savings we expect, we had to list all the places we wanted to eat at (and meals we would likely order), which we chose mainly according to which park we would be visiting each day. Then we managed to stack the most expensive ones into the 4 nt DDP time.
It was alot of calculating but worth it IMHO.

 

[n2mm]

We had no problem using all of our credits and that was with 4 adults, and 1 adult child (12). When our grandson ordered his adult meal, he had no problem finding things to order. Usually shrimp or a salad for an appetizer, and steak for his meal. He always read the menu to see how the dish was prepared and asked to hold the sauces or things he didn't want. He also changed the side orders everytime, usually asking for a baked potatoe or fries. It was never a problem for him. He ate steak for 5 nights. Deserts was never a problem either, because if he didn't like the adult desert, he usually got the kids desert (which is usually ice cream). Everyone in our group used each of their credits everyday.....afterall, why save them if they expire when you leave. The only thing we had a lot of was snack credits, so on the last day, we hit the candy store in MK and split up the amount of credits we had and everyone went wild trying to find things to take home as gifts or snacks for the plane. I think the dining plan is an excellent value. I always break it down like this. $38 ($4 snack; $12 CS; which leaves $22 for dinner. There is no way to get a basic meal for $22 at Disney because your entree would have to be around $14 of less, then add a $$2.50 soda, add taxes and tip and you would be lucky to come out at $22) so why limit yourself. The DDP is great for my hubby, but for me, it is alot as we usually split the appetizer. I have learned to order a small entree, because normally I would order something smaller, a drink and a desert and after taxes and tip, it would always be higher than $22, so it's a no brainer. We just need to start using our CS credits for a few breakfasts to stretch out the eating marathon that it sometimes turns in to. It's been 2 weeks since we returned and we were there for 14 days, so it took a couple of days before I was hungary again.

 

[Calgary DISHeads]

We also had two adult children, 10 and 12. Our DD10 is a very light and picky eater and only ever ate once off the adult menu, pasta at WP and hated it. The rest of the time we paid OOP for kid's meals or I shared a meal with her. We then saved her credits for extra meals. Never had any problems at all, ever. Never so much as a raised eyebrow. In fact we never even asked for kids menu's she was always given one, and in general so was DS12, although he scowled every time he got one