Why do you use the DDP?

[OasterP]

We have done the Deluxe DDP for the past 4 years for a few reasons:
1. We've always gone during free dining promotions and the cost to upgrade was minimal.
2. We are always traveling as a large party and it saved us more than doing the room discount.
3. The convenience of being able to pay over time and then arrive and have to deal only with gratuity was a lifesaver. No waiting for mom to hem and haw and try to order the cheapest thing on the menu or trying to split the bill and figure out which jerk ordered the steak and who only had a dinner roll. 4. I love a great meal and I LOOOOOVE Disney restaurants!
5. I am a planner, a list maker (can you tell?) and a rather meticulous person by nature. Having reservations made and meals taken care of ahead of time was huge (and you pretty much have to in order to use all those credits to your advantage!). Never once did we have to suffer through ten people saying "I don't care, what do you feel like?" as we're starving and it's 300 degrees. Reservations are set. Show up and shut up.


LOL I love this!!!

 

[bdoyledimou]

i like having the convenience of knowing my meals are covered in advance.

but if you are looking specifically at savings, if you Google dining plan calculator there are a number of tools to help you decide. its fun to play with too.

 

[apicozzi]

We purchase the Deluxe Dining Plan when we visit for a few main reasons:

1. We enjoy visiting Signature dining restaurants. It allows us a great meal and time to relax in a restaurant after a long day (we are just two adults traveling). Deluxe gives you the ability to dine at a Signature restaurant and still have one table service (or QS) meal available for lunch. We usually use the snack credits for a bagel/OJ in the morning.

2. Unlike some people, we find that we save money by using the Deluxe plan. We just came home from a 6 night trip (5/31-6/6) and I kept every receipt for snacks/meals to calculate. The cost of the Deluxe Dining Plan is approximately $109 per person, per night, so for our trip the total cost was $1,308.00. After tallying our totals (removing tip and alcohol), we would have spent $1,419.00. The Deluxe Dining Plan saved us $111.00 and that wasn't even eating the most expensive item on every menu.

3. Even if we broke even using the plan, we like having the peace of mind that our meals are "pre-paid" and don't have to worry about how much the bill is at the end of our meals!

 

[LeeLee'sMom]

We do the DDP for peace of mind. Paid off in advance and we don't have to worry about prices--order what you want and end of conversation.

 

[Auntrosie]

We upgraded free to deluxe for our Sept trip 6 Adults 1 Child
We'll be doing the Luau, Hoop Dee Do Revue and LeCellier each two dinning points.

Days in the world start early for our group and end late so most days.......

breakfast at 7:30 or 8 - I prefer getting character pictures here less waiting
lunch between 2 & 3 - a midday break to relax and chat about the day
dinner between 8 and 9 - decompress, share the days experiences.

We'll be taking our snack credits to the Food and Wine Festival!

I like to think we've saved some money. I'm not going to check. I know one thing for sure, I won't be using the check as a measure to judge weather we have enjoyed that dinner show or that meal "enough" .

Have a wonderful vacation!

 

[tinkerbesh]

Whenever we've gotten it, the only reason we got it was financial- if it saved us $. But yes- the convenience factor was a great bonus- being able to be that far away from the real world where you have to take out a credit card or money for every single meal... It's nice to only have to do tip.

The way we figure out if it will be worth it on any trip is to use the menus on allears.net and plan out a day of where/what we think we will eat. Then compare to what we calculate the daily DDP rate to be, and voila - decision made!

 

[SydneyFalco]

Figured I would ask this question in hopes that I can see if it actually saves people or not. The last trip I went on was the first ever that I had a DDP. I usually always paid OOP. We had Deluxe which turned out to be pretty good Since we got to try tons of great food. I am trying to decide whether or not to do it for my upcoming trip. So, for those that do the DDP, especially if you do DDDP, why do you do it? Do you do it to save money and if so have you ever figured how much it saved you? Or do you just like having the convenience of having all of your meals already paid for once you get there?

We do it:

1) Cause we're staying inside the bubble the whole time anyway
2) Cause we love sitting down and taking our time to eat
3) Cause it's mostly prepaid
4) Cause, being without kids, it rarely ends up being "too much food"

But I highly doubt we ever did better than break even. Except maybe on the deluxe plan; that does probably save a few bucks over doing a bunch of signatures all-out, but still OOP.

If it were me without my wife, or me with someone other than the wife, I could save money by doing things OOP. But my wife is dreadfully embarrassed by the idea of ordering just an appetizer, or splitting a meal, or anything of that sort, so the plan's ideal for us.

 

[IceSkatingPrincess]

I have it for the first time this trip.

Reason? This is my spoil myself trip. I want everything already paid for so I don't have to think about food costs. I did a calculator and I'm only coming out ahead like $3, but whatever. It's easy and I want to try it!

This is my time to myself to get cheered up and have some me time. I'll guilt myself out of more expensive food without the DP in an effort to be cheap as I usually am, so that is why I got it. I need to maximize the stress free environment, not survive on yogurt in my room and hot dogs.

 

[dbramer]

We use DDxP every time we go. It is for the convenience of having meals paid for up front. We don't look at the cost as a burden, but the ability to go where we want and eat what we want without watching the pocketbook. It is a vacation, after all.

 

[SWofDisorder]

We have it because I am lazy. I make breakfast and I pack snacks but even with a full kitchen, I don't want to cook and do dishes on holiday.

After spending all the money to get to WDW, the tickets, etc, why not just going and get the DDP and make life easy.

I like the mindlessness of going in and not having to look at the price on the menu.

 

[LovesTimone]

When have done both plans and enjoyed both.

DDP - When our DD was little lets say 3 years through about the 4th or 5th grade - the right plan for us was DDP - As it took care of the Character meals, and a counter service, and a Mickey Ice Cream snack. But we still had food items in the room for breakfast, and stuff for a sandwich or something at night when returning from the parks.

DDXDP - As she got older our touring style changed, we started trying other dinning options other than the Character meal, and as adults we wanted something other than buffet style meals. We started ordering an appetizer, and were paying oop for a extra counter service, so after weighing out the options... we tried DDXDP... and that was it for us, we were hooked.


We love it and we get it ( DDXDP) every time we go. now. DH and I both love the fact that everything is paid for up front, except for tips, and adult beverages. When ordering its about what you want instead of ordering what you should based on cost. It makes the trip for us more relaxing.

 

[mskay2014]

Figured I would ask this question in hopes that I can see if it actually saves people or not. The last trip I went on was the first ever that I had a DDP. I usually always paid OOP. We had Deluxe which turned out to be pretty good Since we got to try tons of great food. I am trying to decide whether or not to do it for my upcoming trip. So, for those that do the DDP, especially if you do DDDP, why do you do it? Do you do it to save money and if so have you ever figured how much it saved you? Or do you just like having the convenience of having all of your meals already paid for once you get there?

We got the basic dining plan and I've done the math...With our character meals we are absolutely coming out ahead.....As far as deluxe goes. Again I've done the math and I belive that plan is more for convenience the to save money....it come out farrrrr cheaper to get the basic plan and pay OOP for breakfasts and any extra snacks or apps you might want....it would have cost me $1100 to upgrade to deluxe. I a have all character breakfasts planned and to OOP then I'm looking at about $800 still leaving me 300 to spend on extra snacks or apps before I'm around what the deluxe would have cost. Plus with deluxe you get app....for each person....that you have to order. My family NEVER orders an app per person...append all that extra food that you may not need nor normally order is going to increase your tip since it's based on your total bill.

 

[Aliceacc]

On our last trip, we didn't get the DDP... we had YES tickets, which meant no Magic My Way package.

And I hated it. Really hated it. (Not the YES classes-- they were wonderful!!! But I hated not being on the DDP!!!!)

It felt as though we were hemorhagging money. It got to where we would go to a restaurant, and I would look at the prices before the entrees.

As far as saving money, for my family the DDP is a better deal than eating OOP. I did the math-- I'm a math teacher, it's what I do. And we just about broke even; the money we saved from the YES tickets was pretty much eaten up at the restaurants. (And now that YES tickets are less of a value than they were 2 years ago, the DDP would most definitely be a better deal for us.)

You've got to do the math and see what works best for your family. For mine, it's the DDP. The Deluxe would be too much food, and too much time spent out of the parks.