To the budget minded - DDP is it worth it?

[SCQ86]

I'm really debating whether or not to take it. I will be in WDW 10/9 thru 10/13. However, I will be arriving at midnight on the 9th and departing in the afternoon on the 13th. If I purchase the the DDP it will run me an extra $600 for 4 days, but I don't see myself using it for the 4 days....maybe only 3 days. Let me know your thoughts.

TIA

 

[Nie0214]

Is it just you? Do you really think you could spend $600 out-of-pocket for food for 3 days for just you?

I think it's not worth in your case. Even if you eat at a signature restaurant two nights and pay out-of-pocket, I don't think you'd come close to $600 for yourself.

Check out the menus on AllEars and choose something you'd probably eat, factor in a drink, tip, and a possible appetizer/desert (which I'm sure you don't eat with every meal). If you are going to spend over $75 per meal you might want to consider it. I highly doubt you'll come close to that though.

PS I thought the Dining plan was only $40 per adult per day? I'm confused where the $600 is coming from!

 

[Goofy'slady]

Ooo, I'm interested to hear what people have to say, because my DH and I are on the fence as to whether or not we should get it for our family of 4 during next's year's trip. He seems to think it will save us tons of money I'm still wanting to be convienced.

T.

 

[SCQ86]

Just to clarify....it for me and my 3 kids...we enjoy a good meal, but we like to eat on the run....only when we are at WDW.

 

[Nie0214]

If you have teenage boys it might be worth it.

Honestly I am not a DDP fan. I do not have a desert with all of my meals, it would force me to eat more than I would like to eat and refrain me from getting things I might otherwise have gotten (an appetizer or an alcoholic drink with my meal). I also typically drink water with my dinner, so it's like I'm not even using the drink credit portion of the DDP.

 

[james'mommy]

I personally love the dining plan. It really does save us money. But if you like to eat on the run and don't mind doing counter services then the dining plan probably wouldn't be for you.

 

[labdogs42]

I think it is worth it, but you have to do the math to find out if it is worth it for you. I use the menus on AllEars and figure out what we would spend OOP if we went that way, and I always end up with the dining plan. We like to do sit down meals instead of an afternoon break. We sit down and enjoy the air conditioning for an hour or so and we are rejuvenated!! I also like that the meals are paid for in advance. That makes planning my budget a little easier!

 

[Darcy03231]

I'm doing it more for the convenience of having my meals prepaid than any cost savings. For me and DN its about $50/day. We're doing lots of Character meals which can get pricey. I'm planning on using the snack credit for breakfast and think we'll most likely break about even. I know I could eat less expensively if we just did counter service meals, but its her first trip (and most likely her last unless I take her again) so I wanted to make sure we got lots of character meals in.

 

[zoemurr]

I guess we'd really have to sit and figure it out. It is nice to have it all prepaid and not worry about what you order.

As for the too many desserts thing.. no we wouldn't have ordered them all the time, but often there is fruit for a substitute. The kids always ordered the fruit, and then we split the sweet stuff.

We like a sit down dinner each night, so we probably did break about even just from that. However, we found most CS to be a lot of food, and sharing 2 or 3 between 4 of us was fine. We hardly used any snack credits. (When our 8 days were over we had 8CS left and 16 snack credits. We got things to take home, and I bought food for strangers. So, we felt frustrated by that.

You definitely need to go figure out where/what you want to eat and just calculate it all out. For example, we went to Le Cellier one night and spent $120. DDP was $100. So even wasting the CS and snack credit that day we were ahead.

 

[tonilea]

For us, we can eat cheaper than using the DDP, but I think we will be more likely to try new things and eat at places that we wouldn't before, because of the cost.

So this trip we are trying the DDP. We will see about future trips.

 

[briarrose]

It's not worth it for my family. My children would rather be on rides that sitting at a table eating. My children can split a kid's meal. They are 10 and 7. We also eat breakfast in the hotel room and usually go back to the hotel in the afternoon. When we have a rental car my DH can go out and pick up something to eat. We also take snacks along to the parks.

 

[chocovrdmicears]

For us, a family of 4 (2 adults & 2 kids) is it definately worth it. As a pp said, we enjoy 1 table service a day as a cool down/break from the parks so it works for us. Plus I love going into a vacation knowing everything is paid for except spending $$.

 

[wickywinn]

It really depends. How old your children are, are they snackers, do you want to try some of the wonderful sit down restaurants or, when you say on the run, rely on counter service? If your kids are over 6 and you want to have 2-3 sit down than I would say it's worth it, esp if you have snackers who may not devour their whole meal and, two hours later, you're hearing 'mom they have popcorn...I want some poooopcoooorn!' like my kids. With the meal plan you're set as far as your meals go and don't have to keep track of what you're spending where. Plus each of you gets a snack each day. Ice water is free in the parks so you don't have to use a snack option for a drink during the day, if you don't want to.

The plan saved us money since the buffets and TS we ate every night, alone, came really close to paying for our pp cost per day for the ddp. And, if your kids are 9 and under the plan is very reasonable.

Also, I'd probably continue doing it on future trips even if it didn't save us much. The fact that I can pay on it within the package, a little at a time, until we go is very appealing. When I'm making small payments I don't feel it like when I'm having to come up with money all day everyday for food while I'm there. And having to compromise on where we want to eat and how much because of it.

 

[ajk912]

I think it's a great value for $42 an adult and $12 a kid (or whatever it is now!) and you can certainly eat VERY well for that $42. But, is it budget friendly. Nope. If I was on a budget, I could eat a heck of a lot cheaper in the parks. Utilize the room fridge and get milk- you can have cold cereal for breakfast, make cold cut sandwiches for lunch (either pack a lunch for the parks, or take a break) and do CS for one meal around $10 a head (drinking water, no dessert!) I can see how you can easily feed an adult for $17 a day in the parks..and put the $25 back in your pocket! That being said, I am on vacation, I would probably get the DDP even though it's not budget friendly!

 

[eliza61]

I'm really debating whether or not to take it. I will be in WDW 10/9 thru 10/13. However, I will be arriving at midnight on the 9th and departing in the afternoon on the 13th. If I purchase the the DDP it will run me an extra $600 for 4 days, but I don't see myself using it for the 4 days....maybe only 3 days. Let me know your thoughts.

TIA

For my family, no it wasn't worth it. We do like sit down meals but usually not every day, we ended up with a lot of extra credits. We very rarely have dessert at the restuarant prefering to hit one of the many bakeries or ice cream shops in the parks at the end of the day. DH & I will have a beer or a glass of wine occasionally which we still have to pay OOP. I think it turned out that we saved only $60.00 bucks which was not worth the hassle the ddp is.
If you are only going to use it for 3 days then you lose out on the credits.

 

[CarolA]

Just to clarify....it for me and my 3 kids...we enjoy a good meal, but we like to eat on the run....only when we are at WDW.

Then it's not worth it. You have to do the one table service meal to make it worthwhile.

For me it's not worth it. At most on a three or four day stay I want one sit down meal....

 

[timzagain]

We just returned from a Free Dining week - gave me a chance to test out the dining plan.

DH, DD 10, DD 16 and I were in one room - in spite of our best efforts, we still ended up with something like 10 or 12 unused TS credits. At home, we only eat one "big meal" a day, and very often, after lunch (CS) we weren't usually hungry enough to eat a big TS meal. And some of the TS meals were so huge, they could have easily been shared between me and one of the girls.

Now, the snack credits disappeared in a hurry - a Danish here, a serving of fruit there and poof ... the snack credits were gone.

We were unable to secure a reservation at a Signature restaurant which would have used up 8 of those credits.

Based on our usage of the dining plan, I would not be tempted to buy even the basic dining plan. Free dining, yes! But other than that, not likely!

For a family with big appetites, the dining might make sense but for my household, it would have been a total waste!

 

[dislal]

when my family and I went in Jan of this year we had the dining plan and money wise I don't know if we saved or not, but when you ask my kids what their favorite memories are of their trip they would tell you it was one of the meals we had. We would not have done all of the places like hoop de du revue, 50's prime time, Tusker house character breakfast and we had dinner in France where we could not understand our server half the time and a few other places I cannot think of right now, we laughed and had a great family time at every meal even ones that weren't shows. We are planning on going back sometime in 2010 and all three have been begging to do the dining plan again.

 

[njziggy]

I'm confused why everyone keeps saying that your choice should be based on whether or not you would use TS credits. My understanding is that they are coming out with a 2009 DPP that is just CS & snack combo. It includes 2 CS, 2 snacks & 1 refillable mug for $29.99 adult & $8.99 kids.

 

[eliza61]

I'm confused why everyone keeps saying that your choice should be based on whether or not you would use TS credits. My understanding is that they are coming out with a 2009 DPP that is just CS & snack combo. It includes 2 CS, 2 snacks & 1 refillable mug for $29.99 adult & $8.99 kids.

Because this will be the first time they are offering they CS plan. Previous years you had 1TS each day that had to be used.