We Dined Around the World 9/28 - 10/4

[LoraJ]

I might have had to have a couple of those cups of cheese soup from Canada...

When we went in 2006, the cups were twice as big. lol.

 

[LoraJ]

Why the DDP does not work for us.
Last month I was talking to a co-worker who had just come back from WDW. He raved about free dining. I told him we would not be doing the dining plan. I opted on the code that had a discount on our room, which I believe saved us $450. He told me I was stupid to not do the free dining. I tried to explain to him why it does not work for us, but he did not get it.

Our food, tip and alcohol total was $932.87. That includes meals OOP and off property.

The main reason is because we prefer to eat appetizers over desert. So if we did free dining, we would probably still order the appetizers OOP.
So if we used free dining, we would have paid around $450 more for the room.
We bought 10 day non-expiry tickets for our 2006 trip. We had two days left and bought another 10 day non-expiry for this trip that we used two days on. Should last us two more trips. To get a dining plan we would have to buy tickets - $168.28
We still would have paid $322.12 for the OOP restaurants.
$76 for appetizers and sides.
We would be 3 credits over on table service and only used half of our CS credits. So say I paid OOP for my last meal and my buffet - approx $59
Tips for our 3 TS meals were $75
Alcoholic drinks with those meals were $37
Thanks to the food and wine feasting, we had what would be considered 26 snacks. So 16 would be paid OOP. Picking the cheapest of the bunch we would pay $53.67

So "free" dining would cost us. 1240.79. Not counting the tickets it would still cost 1072.51.

So we saved around $140 by not doing "free" dining.

The Deluxe plan would not have worked out for us either since we were eating OOP. Seemed like a waste of credits. With tickets it would have cost us almost $900. Plus you still have to add in tips. It would have been great for the snack credits, but we would still have been over on those.

 

[travelmel]

great reviews and pictures.. nice job keeping close tabs on your budget. I am so impressed by people who can do that!