We're thinking of NOT using the DDP!

[CJK]

It seems like each family needs to decide whether or not the dining plan is worth it to them. For dh and myself, it is not worth it. We only plan about 2 table service meals per trip and even then, we share an appetizer and dessert. On the dining plan, we'd be spending far more money, than we would just paying out of pocket.

However, we do use the plan when free dining offered (last year and again this year). We love the freedom of it. But, I doubt we'd ever buy the plan b/c we just don't do enough table service meals to warrant it.

 

[formernyer]

That is really the best way to decide. If your 11 yr olds would enjoy the pricer meals then it may be more worth it. My 11 yr old enjoyed eating like a king last year. Do remember to factor in the tip and taxes too. I think it all depends too on if you really want to eat a TS every day. If you think doing two CS places a day and eating only 2 or 3 TS during your trip better suites your family, then skip the DP. It can be a tough decision when your preteens cost as much as an adults but if they can eat like adults then it really can be worth it.

She already said she's planning on 7 TS meals, plus CS for breakfast and lunch. That's why I think that the DDP will be her best option as long as they meal-share. The cost would probably be a break-even or only slightly more with the DDP, but they'll end up with a LOT more food, plus 35 "free" snacks.

 

[formernyer]

It seems like each family needs to decide whether or not the dining plan is worth it to them. For dh and myself, it is not worth it. We only plan about 2 table service meals per trip and even then, we share an appetizer and dessert. On the dining plan, we'd be spending far more money, than we would just paying out of pocket.

However, we do use the plan when free dining offered (last year and again this year). We love the freedom of it. But, I doubt we'd ever buy the plan b/c we just don't do enough table service meals to warrant it.

I agree with everything you've said here. Without the plan my family would eat no TS meals at all, and very few CS. We'd end up eating mostly at places off-site in Kissimmee, plus sandwiches in the parks for lunch. I'm just too cheap to pay Disney prices.

I used the plan (paid for it) last month, but only because it was just me and two kids. For $60 a day for three of us it was a huge bargain.

We'll be there in the Fall for the free dining. One of my kids is now 10, but since it free it doesn't matter at all to me.

If I had to pay for it now with two adults/one child I'm not sure if I'd do it or not. If I opted to do it, I'd be doing it because I loved the "luxury" of the meal plan and it would be a semi-cost-effective way to eat like a king for a few days.

After next March it will be a whole different story. DS will turn 10, so I'd have to pay for 3 adults (me, DD11, and DS10). There's no way I could justify $114 a day for food.

Honestly, I probably won't go back to Disney again after DS turns 10 unless there is another free dining promotion. I can honestly say the plan spoiled me last month and I don't think I could enjoy a trip to Disney as much without it now.

 

[Lewisc]

So if I do the MM w/Fantasmic I can't pay OOP for the 11yos to order off the child's menu?

Everyone must order the FDP in order to get the special seating. The child cost is $11 +tax +tip but your child is over 9 and has to pay the adult pricing. You can't order off the regular MM menu, child or adult, and get passes for Fantasmic.

I don't know if a helpful CM will let you pay for child pricing if your child eats almost nothing but I wouldn't count on it. I think the appetizer and dessert is served family style. The Fantasmic Dinner Packages sell out so there really isn't any reason for them to provide any addtional breaks.

I wouldn't call in advance, I think you're more likely to get a yes if you ask in person.

 

[jmurphy625]

I just found this great board yesterday (just after I made my reservations for June -POLY/BCV/AKL) and am taking my time absorbing all this information!


When we went on Easter in 2002 we used the DP (may have been a little different, as some other "wishes" were included) We made reservations for 4 meals over the 9 days. The first day we grabbed some hotdogs/drink at the park (because we couldn't get seating at anyplace in the park) then we tried to sit down at Whisp Canyon around 4. The only time they could sit 7 of us was 9:00 (too late for a 4 and 7 year old). So I grabbed them something at the cafe and ate with them in the room-the other adults waiting to eat at 9:00. We had all planned on going back over to the MK around 6 but with the reservations there wasn't really enough time. I think the value of what I ate that day was about $12.

That night we called Dining services and took 1 hour to plan out the rest of the meals for our trip. The seating was very limited for 7 people and most of the time got some odd times, like 11:00 for breakfast..but were happy to get in somewhere. We also had to separate at a couple of places (like made ps for a party of 3 and a party of 4 at a close time)

Our biggest complaint, wasn't really the with the cost. From that point on our trip -every day-really revolved around where we had to be/at what time for our meals. We were constantly watching our watches. Also, it was so crowded that you still waited to be seated...and of course we had to get appetizers, dessert, coffee etc..So each meal turned into a 4 hour production. We felt like we were sitting in resturaunts the whole trip-our waistlines will prove it!

That was probably our 8th trip to WDW and we never had a problem "sitting" at a resturaunt before. My question is if you want to have a sit down meal do you have to have priority seating?

If you do use the DP my recommendation would be to plan well in advance, as to where you want to be, which days and plan your meals accordingly. I think we got our money's worth, but we're going to wing it this time (since we'll be staying on Concierge levels and also at Beach Club villas w/kitchens.)

Good Luck

 

[kizmac]

She already said she's planning on 7 TS meals, plus CS for breakfast and lunch. That's why I think that the DDP will be her best option as long as they meal-share. The cost would probably be a break-even or only slightly more with the DDP, but they'll end up with a LOT more food, plus 35 "free" snacks.

Yes, I did see that after my post formernyer. I agree. She should just do the DDP.

 

[kizmac]

I just found this great board yesterday (just after I made my reservations for June -POLY/BCV/AKL) and am taking my time absorbing all this information!


When we went on Easter in 2002 we used the DP (may have been a little different, as some other "wishes" were included) We made reservations for 4 meals over the 9 days. The first day we grabbed some hotdogs/drink at the park (because we couldn't get seating at anyplace in the park) then we tried to sit down at Whisp Canyon around 4. The only time they could sit 7 of us was 9:00 (too late for a 4 and 7 year old). So I grabbed them something at the cafe and ate with them in the room-the other adults waiting to eat at 9:00. We had all planned on going back over to the MK around 6 but with the reservations there wasn't really enough time. I think the value of what I ate that day was about $12.

That night we called Dining services and took 1 hour to plan out the rest of the meals for our trip. The seating was very limited for 7 people and most of the time got some odd times, like 11:00 for breakfast..but were happy to get in somewhere. We also had to separate at a couple of places (like made ps for a party of 3 and a party of 4 at a close time)

Our biggest complaint, wasn't really the with the cost. From that point on our trip -every day-really revolved around where we had to be/at what time for our meals. We were constantly watching our watches. Also, it was so crowded that you still waited to be seated...and of course we had to get appetizers, dessert, coffee etc..So each meal turned into a 4 hour production. We felt like we were sitting in resturaunts the whole trip-our waistlines will prove it!

That was probably our 8th trip to WDW and we never had a problem "sitting" at a resturaunt before. My question is if you want to have a sit down meal do you have to have priority seating?

If you do use the DP my recommendation would be to plan well in advance, as to where you want to be, which days and plan your meals accordingly. I think we got our money's worth, but we're going to wing it this time (since we'll be staying on Concierge levels and also at Beach Club villas w/kitchens.)

Good Luck

I'm sorry you had such a bad experience while using the DDP. Yes, due to the dramatic increase in people using the DDP.....priority seating ,or ADR's are a must and people are now booking them 180 days out from their vacations. That can be hard for last minute planners to find any good times left.

 

[kizmac]

Honestly, I probably won't go back to Disney again after DS turns 10 unless there is another free dining promotion. I can honestly say the plan spoiled me last month and I don't think I could enjoy a trip to Disney as much without it now.

Isn't that the truth! Once you have free dining two times in a row....how will we ever be able to go without it again!? Disney must really want to make sure we are all hooked by running this promo again. Honestly, they had me already because we were booked and paying for it. $$$$$ I am thanking the Disney Gods that my prayers were answered.

 

[jjohnson]

3 adults plus 1 child should be $124.96/day, not $200.


edit: just realized you probably meant 4 kids PLUS yourself and your spouse. I thought you were talking about 4 people total.

I wish $125 would be a bargin for the 6 of us.

 

[01Sweetpea]

Well, I just sat down with 2 of the kids. My 11yo didn't like ANYTHING on the adult menu... which does NOT suprise me! He was picking pizza, grilled cheese, spaghetti with meat sause, etc. The 13yo liked the adult menu, but didn't like ANY of the appetizers...go figure.

So now it's time to break out an excel spreadsheet, and start estimating the cost of meals per day using the menus.

Any chance for FREE dining during Thanksgiving? Would sure make my life a WHOLE lot easier!

 

[formernyer]

Any chance for FREE dining during Thanksgiving? Would sure make my life a WHOLE lot easier!

Not likely, but in your case it might be VERY worth it to change your plans to August or Sept for the free dining, even if it means your kids need to miss a week of school. Have you checked their calendar for next year? My kids have off the first week of October for Fall break, so I'm pulling them out of school on 9/29 so that we can be in FL by 9/30 to make the free dining cutoff.

 

[01Sweetpea]

When the free dining came out, I asked DH if we should switch... that was a big NO!

Our kids will all be in middle school by then, and I wouldn't want them to miss more than 2 days of school. In 2004, when they were still in elementary school, I pulled them out for 6 days. Although they caught up, and their grades were never effected, they both told me that they would never want to miss that much school again.

So if we were to switch, it would have to be the last week in August, and DH doesn't want to go to FL in the heat of August and with it being hurricane season.

Thanks!

 

[calie_j]

This seems awfully expensive to me at $1330 for 5 people on the dining plan. We had 5 people for 8 days, 4 adults (teens 14 & 15 who insisted on ordering off the adult menu) and 1 child and our cost for food was $1400 using the DDE card for 20% off. But we had 13 ADR's in that 8 days not 7 like you're looking at (11 of those were for all of us 2 of them the teens went on their own and ate CS). We ordered 1 app to share, each had an entree and 1 or 2 desserts to share for the TS that weren't buffets. The few CS we had we didn't get dessert and only had 4 snacks the whole week for all of us to share. We also brought breakfast food for the room to eat most mornings. Just so you have a good idea of what we did to compare the costs better.

I think you're right to question if the dining plan will work for you and put in the time & work looking at menus which will give you a much better idea on what to do. I do like the idea of getting a split reservation (if possible) with part dining plan part room only. Another thing to consider is will your 11yr olds share an adult meal so you're only using 4 credits each meal for your family. But then will you be able to use the extra credits you saved whether you shared or paid OOP for a child's meal? Alot of things to think about and I give you alot of credit for looking into this so thoroughly I also had the whole family look at menus and pick what they would order (we timed them to make a racing game out of it), I thought it was fun but they said it was lame

.

 

[formernyer]

This seems awfully expensive to me at $1330 for 5 people on the dining plan. We had 5 people for 8 days, 4 adults (teens 14 & 15 who insisted on ordering off the adult menu) and 1 child and our cost for food was $1400 using the DDE card for 20% off. But we had 13 ADR's in that 8 days not 7 like you're looking at (11 of those were for all of us 2 of them the teens went on their own and ate CS). We ordered 1 app to share, each had an entree and 1 or 2 desserts to share for the TS that weren't buffets. The few CS we had we didn't get dessert and only had 4 snacks the whole week for all of us to share. We also brought breakfast food for the room to eat most mornings. Just so you have a good idea of what we did to compare the costs better.

I think you're right to question if the dining plan will work for you and put in the time & work looking at menus which will give you a much better idea on what to do. I do like the idea of getting a split reservation (if possible) with part dining plan part room only. Another thing to consider is will your 11yr olds share an adult meal so you're only using 4 credits each meal for your family. But then will you be able to use the extra credits you saved whether you shared or paid OOP for a child's meal? Alot of things to think about and I give you alot of credit for looking into this so thoroughly I also had the whole family look at menus and pick what they would order (we timed them to make a racing game out of it), I thought it was fun but they said it was lame

.

I agree that each family is different and for many families you really need to analyze if the plan would work best for you or not.

Just looking at the facts you presented it seems to me that you would have ended up with a LOT more food on the DDP than you got without it (and it would have been a few dollars less). The trade-off is that you would have had to sacrifice a few TS meals in favor of CS meals. For my family, that's a good trade-off because it would be too much time taken out of our day if we had to do two TSs instead of just one. There are a lot of other reasons why I find the DDP to be much more convenient and less stressful for my family than paying OOP for meals, but everyone has their own personal reasons for preferring one thing over another.