What is better TIW or Dining plan?

[lizaisabel]

I am contemplating if buying TWI versus Dining plan. I will be traveling with my husband in Sept for 5 days and then will return in December for 11 days with my three kids and husband, so I am evaluating what will be the best.

 

[Hopefully]

We have the DVC TiW card which cost $100. The general thinking is that you need to spend around $500 to begin to see a savings.
We are a party of 3 adults and we enjoy an occasional adult beverage each with dinner. We go for 2 7 night trips a year. We find that we begin to save on the first trip and it is all savings on the second trip.
You need to do the math on the DDP for your own family. What are the ages of your children? Are they "Disney adults" for dining? Do you enjoy adult beverages?
There are lots of variables to ponder.
We find the TiW card valuable.

 

[smiths02]

I think the TiW is much more flexible
It is also more of a "true" savings for us as we eat how we want to eat versus eating 1 QS and 1 TS meal a day with drink, entree, dessert for each person.

We also stayed at AoA where you can use TiW in the food court.

 

[smcabee]

Depends on how,where and what you prefer to eat.

 

[HopperFan]

You really have to sit and crunch the numbers and compare for your group.

Seriously look at your normal eating patterns:
- We normally order water.
- We never get dessert at QS locations.
- If we get dessert at TS we usually share one.
- We would rather get an appetizer.
- We will order alcoholic drinks at some dinners.

None of this works well with the DDP. We used to get DDP but have not the last couple of years. We have used our TiW.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

the best way to actually save any money on the dining plan is to have children under age 10 (the more the better) and attend lots of all you can eat restaurants. That will probably save you money. Otherwise, it's going to really depend on how you eat, where you eat and what you tend to order.

 

[han22735]

Pretty much what everyone else said above...but what we do is go over to allears and look at menus and pricing and get a pretty good idea on what we will order and price it out for comparison. We too drink mostly water with some adult beverages and very rarely eat dessert with dinner. So the DDP is not worth the cost for us.

 

[cedricandsophie]

We love the TIW card. Probsbly go t Disney two to three weeks a year and mostly eat at signature restaurants. We usually get a bottle of wine with dinner and maybe have drinks at other bars too. A dinner at Cal Grill with wine for four can easily cost more than 200 so thsts a substantial savings right there. I figured that we save well over 700 last year alone.

 

[JACKNAG]

DP

 

[Narawen]

My mom and I love TIW. We just got our APs this past April for a 4-day weekend and already recouped almost $90 of the cost. We have another long weekend in September and an 8 day trip in November, so I'm sure we'll more than make our money back. We've never used the dining plan, but it doesn't really fit with our eating style. I love buffet breakfasts, other "poor DP" values, and prefer appetizers over desserts. If you're looking for the prepaid aspect, just use cash or Disney giftcards purchased ahead of time.

 

[galaxygirl76]

For us on our upcoming trip it's neither. It will be cheaper to pay out of pocket over the dining plan and we barely would break even if we got the Tables in Wonderland card(neither of us are big alcohol drinkers, apps vary by location and same goes for desserts). However for our trip after that one the TiW card will probably save us quite a bit of money because it will be a longer trip and we will probably do more character meals because our daughter is coming on that trip(upcoming trip is adults only).

 

[loves to dive]

As others have said it depends on your eating style. I stopped getting the DP years ago, it just didn't work for me and it wasn't even a matter of money. I have a TIW card and in May DS,DIL and I started saving money 3 days into our trip. We like adult beverages with our meals and sometimes do a TS for both lunch and supper, usually just apps and desserts for lunch with an adult beverage.

 

[Dean Marino]

A little background to the comment (all personal, all our opinion)....

We've been getting TIW for about a decade. A GOOD part of this is our desire to go to the better dining establishments at WDW - Signature Restaurants - every night of our vacations. About 20 nights per year.

TIW has, on average (party of two) saved us about $500 per year beyond the cost of the card. It's a true bargain for us.

... and it has one other effect that we value GREATLY. Being a percentage based discount? It does not "force clip" offerings at the Signature Restaurants the way DDP does. I will repeat that these are our observations and opinions - DDP is why finer Disney Restaurants are being destroyed.

This occurs because of the unrealistic "anything on the menu" point approach that DDP currently uses. The backfire effect is simple: Fine Restaurants will NOT put anything, on any menu, greater than a 2 point DDP Compensation. Chefs are forced to live within the DDP walls - and NO ONE may be offered anything beyond that "2 Point" barbed wire.... Folks? It's KILLING a number of otherwise great Disney Owned Restaurants whose career managers "choose" to participate in DDP .

What does TIW do to these fine restaurants? Well, it's a 20% discount - it would be a 20% discount if a restaurant chose to offer a 12 ounce Kobe Steak at $450 a head. It does NOT force-clip Disney Owned restaurant offerings. That same (fairly insane) offering may simply NOT APPEAR on the menu of any Restaurant that accepts DDP... not unless they wish to go broke, very quickly.

You will (and should) choose your dining program based on what is best for you, and your family. In our case? We choose TIW both for it's savings, and for it's positive effect on what we think of as a Family Member - WDW itself. We want those fine Disney Restaurants to STAY that way, and would prefer to NOT have to go off site to find great food.

 

[xipetotec]

I am contemplating if buying TWI versus Dining plan. I will be traveling with my husband in Sept for 5 days and then will return in December for 11 days with my three kids and husband, so I am evaluating what will be the best.

It depends. *for us* we travel with a large party. AND most of us are adults meaning we always have a beer or a glass of wine with dinner. We did the math on our last trip ( 2014 ) and it was ridiculous how much money we saved over DDP. And we don't "skimp". We basically ate about the same thing as on the DDP, but with 20% off food and drink, it was a no brainer.

The only thing is I JUST found out for our next trip that Teppan Edo CAN accomodate our group of 18 ( in the past, I was told it couldn't because of alternating tables in rooms ). So I was pretty excited... except they are one of the few restaurants that don't take TIW... they DO take DDP... Oh well... We'll all be really happy with Akershus and Biergarten. No Big.

 

[robndani]

20% off on alcohol? Sounds good to me!

We always use TIW. Love it!

 

[supersnoop]

I am contemplating if buying TWI versus Dining plan. I will be traveling with my husband in Sept for 5 days and then will return in December for 11 days with my three kids and husband, so I am evaluating what will be the best.

How old are the kids? The dining plan works well with young children. Since my daughter is considered an adult, the dining plan is worse than just paying out of pocket for us.

 

[senadler]

As most everyone else has indicated, it depends. One big factor is what types of restaurants do you plan to eat at? We do not typically eat at QS locations, so the DDP does not work for us at all. The past two years we have done TIW, we had a larger group for one trip, and could still use it for our second trip.

For our trip in October we are going to go with the DDxDP. We have two rooms and plan on only adding it to one room. We are hoping to share credits with the rest of the group with the recent changes, but even if we can't when we are all together we are splitting up enough that it still made the most sense. We are also eating at a few locations that would not take the TIW discount, Yak and Yeti, Teppan Edo, and BOG for breakfast. We are also not planning another trip within the 13 month time frame this year.

 

[Jestocost]

It also depends where you tend to stay and whatever other discounts might be available.

I've run spreadsheets and the only time the DP made sense for us was when we got it for free with a rack-rate room when our only other option was a rack-rate room with no free dining. Not much to argue about there. Otherwise, it hasn't made a lot of sense for us.

 

[luvformickey]

We love TIW! We enjoy an adult beverage (or two) at dinner and I like the flexibility of ordering whatever I want to eat from a TS restaurant. Some days I want two apps and no entree, other days it's an app and dessert. And I enjoy not feeling like I need to order the most expensive menu item to make it all worth it.

 

[lizaisabel]

How old are the kids? The dining plan works well with young children. Since my daughter is considered an adult, the dining plan is worse than just paying out of pocket for us.

1 is consider adult but he normally eat kid stuff and 2 that are kids.