Every family is different but for MY family, a few of your comments do not ring true. I have ds7 and dd5 but we've done the plan since they were younger too.
1) Even though my kids are on a schedule - they DO NOT want to sit at a restaurant for their 3 meals a day. Restaurants involve a lot of sitting, a lot of needing to be quiet and some amount of waiting (for the table, for the food, etc.) - my kids DO NOT want to do this 2 or 3 times a day - 1 time a day works just great for us.
Actually - we even do 1 or 2 two credit meal because the whole family gets very sick of the restaurant scene by the end of longer trips.
2) You THINK that snacks will be easy to use up, but really, you're likely NOT going to want MORE ice cream. I always thought that even on the basic plan - that I would use my credits on ice cream every day. However, each meal includes a dessert - and the TS ones are often ice cream. How many sweets can you really have in a day? We do get mickey ice cream bars - but likely only about 3 days that we're there and Mom and Dad don't usually even want them - so we only use 2 Snack credits on them.
3) We bring cereal in our luggage and do a quick breakfast in the room most days (with a couple snack credits too for a banana or muffin). For us, this works great as mom and dad can shower while the kids eat and we're out the door and to the bus much more quickly.
4) Now that they've removed the appetizer from the basic plan, I, for one, likely won't consider it 'too much' food for our family - but JUST ENOUGH. If we end up with unused credits it would only be a few and only due to mis-management, not because it was too much.
5) Going to some buffets and paying an occassional OOP for the 2 year old who has to share would be much less expensive than the deluxe.
6) Honestly even if I could justify (which I couldn't) getting the deluxe, I wouldn't want to pay all those tips too! That adds up to WAY more than I would ever spend on food on a vacation.
Good luck with your decision.
1) Even though my kids are on a schedule - they DO NOT want to sit at a restaurant for their 3 meals a day. Restaurants involve a lot of sitting, a lot of needing to be quiet and some amount of waiting (for the table, for the food, etc.) - my kids DO NOT want to do this 2 or 3 times a day - 1 time a day works just great for us.
Actually - we even do 1 or 2 two credit meal because the whole family gets very sick of the restaurant scene by the end of longer trips.
2) You THINK that snacks will be easy to use up, but really, you're likely NOT going to want MORE ice cream. I always thought that even on the basic plan - that I would use my credits on ice cream every day. However, each meal includes a dessert - and the TS ones are often ice cream. How many sweets can you really have in a day? We do get mickey ice cream bars - but likely only about 3 days that we're there and Mom and Dad don't usually even want them - so we only use 2 Snack credits on them.
3) We bring cereal in our luggage and do a quick breakfast in the room most days (with a couple snack credits too for a banana or muffin). For us, this works great as mom and dad can shower while the kids eat and we're out the door and to the bus much more quickly.
4) Now that they've removed the appetizer from the basic plan, I, for one, likely won't consider it 'too much' food for our family - but JUST ENOUGH. If we end up with unused credits it would only be a few and only due to mis-management, not because it was too much.
5) Going to some buffets and paying an occassional OOP for the 2 year old who has to share would be much less expensive than the deluxe.
6) Honestly even if I could justify (which I couldn't) getting the deluxe, I wouldn't want to pay all those tips too! That adds up to WAY more than I would ever spend on food on a vacation.
Good luck with your decision.
