Upgrade to DDP?

[d0naldduck123]

IF I'm able to get a FD reservation (so far the rumored dates match up!!) the difference between the QSDP and the DDP is about 21 per person per night. So, it'll cost 2 adults $168 for a stay of 4 nights. Originally the plan was to do QS if we get the FD offer and do a character meal OOP. Now that I look at the numbers, if we do even 2 character meals or 1 character meal and 1 dinner package, paying to upgrade is cheaper.

We're looking at Nov 15-19, so the week before/leading up to Thanksgiving week, with 3 full days and 1 half day(arrival day) at the parks. I've never been in November, and noticed that the park hours are shorter than during the holidays - and MVMCP is on the 16 and 17 (we're unfortunately not going this time).

From your experience, should we upgrade? Would we have enough time to do the attractions at the parks and do 2-ish character meals? I've only been during the holidays when there's bigger crowds but longer park hours and haven't done character meals before so I don't really have a sense of how things will work out time-wise. Any help/advice is appreciated!

 

[LoopyDoopy]

Did you try using one of those online calculators to see what the difference would be? Do you already know where you're going to be eating?

Try this one: http://www.distripplanner.com/

 

[Hopefully]

Did you try using one of those online calculators to see what the difference would be? Do you already know where you're going to be eating?

Try this one: http://www.distripplanner.com/

This site is not totally helpful as it uses averages.
Your best bet if you are looking at prices is to look at the menus at allears.net and look at what you would actually order. Then price those items and compare vs a generic average.

 

[d0naldduck123]

Yep we've looked at prices! Thank you for the websites!

Just looking at prices, it's cheaper to do the upgrade to DDP rather than pay for two character meals (or 1 character meal and 1 dinner package) OOP. So from just a financial perspective, if we're gonna do character dining and a dinner package, we might as well upgrade to DDP. But, I guess my main concern is whether we'll have time for character meals (we'd try to keep it inside the parks) while trying to do all the parks?

Compared to the holidays, the parks open later and close earlier, so less park time in general, but on the other hand I'm assuming November will be less crowded so maybe it'll offset the shorter park hours giving us time for character meals anyway? I've only been during the holidays when park hours are longer, so I have no idea how the shorter hours will affect things!

 

[parkgoer]

How short are the hours? A 90 min character meal in a 10 hour park day is time we'll spent I'd say. It's part of the experience.

 

[22Tink]

We went in November 2015 and upgraded our FD. It was definitely worth it for us and I'd do it again in a heartbeat! We did 3 PPO breakfasts (2 were character breakfasts) so those meals didn't cut into our park time at all. We also did some character lunch/dinners as well and found it was a nice break from the parks.

 

[leebee]

I'd upgrade. DD23 and I found the upgraded dining plan worked really well for us. Between us we had 2 cs and 2 ts credits a day. We would use one cs credit for a bounty platter to share at breakfast, and find a cs lunch that we could also share (Flame Tree BBQ has a "big" lunch, Tangierine Cafe at Epcot, Cosmic Ray's at MK) and then we each had a ts credit for dinner. If you get 2 snack credits per person, per day, you could use a couple of those to purchase sides to "fill out" a shared meal, if you think it's not enough food, and still have a credit each for a yummy snack! I just think that for $168, it's worth it to have a table service meal each day.

 

[amberpi]

If the parks close at 9, just have a late meal, NBD and your problem is solved. I do this often as a personal preference.