Will we miss dxdp?

[donnaf516]

We love the deluxe plan and have only used this plan in the past. Yes its a ton of food but my children are used to eating 3 meals a day and dh and I enjoy an app with our meals once in awhile. This year we're trying to save some $ so we're going with the regular plan and will have to pay oop for some meals. Im worried that it will end up costing us more in the long run.

Has anyone who loves the dxdp made the change to the reg dining plan? What do you think? Were you disappointed? Did you pay alot oop?

 

[JJsmama]

I would guess that you will miss it since you have usually had it before. We usually do the regular and this year i have considered both the :
DxDP and the QSDP, eventhough they are so different. I think although you may miss the Dx for a moment, you can be happy on the DDP with a little OOP. I cannot choose which plan we will use either. my kids also eat 3x a day, but not in the huge amounts that the DxDP gives. (mine are now 'adults.'). When i wrote down where we would eat and what we would choose, only one day out of six days was equal to the cost of the DxDP. I wanted to do it, to have everything paid and more than enough credits for all meals, but it is hard to justify or my kids 12 and 10. I really wish there were a plan between DDp and DxDp.

 

[aubriee]

I love the DxDDP, but this past Oct at my husband's insistence, we did the basic DDP. We did miss the appetizers, so ordered a few OOP to share. On the DxDDP we always do a Signature restaurant most every night, so I also really missed those. I am not a big fan of most of the CS restaurants, so wasn't crazy about alot of our lunches, although since I go to WDW several times a year and am ususally on the DxDDP it was a nice change of pace at times. I went back to WDW in Dec on the DxDDP and swore I'd never go back without it. However, my husband enjoyed the basic DDP and talked me into trying the basic DDP again for our upcoming May trip, with the understanding that we'll be buying a few appetizers OOP and doing at least one Signature restaurant. We're also running over to Universal two days and will do TS restaurants over there, so will probably have some CS credits left over at the end of the trip.

Now I'm going back to WDW solo in Sept/Oct and thus far have decided to try going without any DDP. Due to always using the DDPs, it's been years since I've tried some of the restaurants that don't take the DDP, so decided to pay OOP for my meals in Sept/Oct and enjoy those restaurants. Hope I'm not making mistake. I feel a little panicked and scared everytime I even think about not going with at least some DDP.

 

[DisneyFamily123]

I would miss the deluxe DDP... We did the regular DDP in 2008, and deluxe in 2009 and 2010.

In 2008, it was a spur of the moment add on. It worked well for us because my father in law had already planned to pay for some of our dinners (love the inlaws!). I could see using the regular DDP again depending on who I was traveling with -- if they didn't want to do shows and signature restaurants... or if we didn't want to take time for table service.

I like doing all table service for lunch and dinner -- it gives us a chance to sit down and relax after a lot of walking.

For us, the additional cost to upgrade from regular DDP to deluxe was $684 for a 9-night stay (2 adults, 1 child). But, if we used the regular DDP, our additional out of pocket cost would have been $463 for 2 TS character breakfasts not covered, some additional quick service meals, the refillable mugs, appetizers at some dinners and some additional drinks/snacks not covered. So subtracting the $463, the real cost of going deluxe was only $221 additional (684-463=221). I figured that's well worth it.... about $25 a night to do all table service and have appetizers at every meal, plus lots of extra snack credits to bring treats home. But of course, we had to pay more in tips too.


Link to My Dining Plan Analysis - a bit overkill

 

[frannn]

We have gotten free DP for our past several vacations and upgraded to DXDP for the past 3 trips. Now that we have to pay to upgrade to the reg plan, plus my job is shaky, I'm looking at our costs much more closely. I did a similar analysis to DisneyFamily123, and found that it would cost about 465 (including tips) to upgrade to DXDP. The 465 cost was figured by taking the total upgrade cost less the amounts we would pay OOP (mugs, 2 TS meals, and all but 1 breakfast) for 2A, IC, for 11 nights. Normally it would be a no-brainer to upgrade, since we would be getting appetizers, an extra snack/person/day (used for some food souvies), and all fun TS instead of AS Movies food court/park CS. I'm just thinking afraid that that same 465 will seem like much more if I lose my job. We're still figuring on eating 3 meals/day, just only 1TS each day instead of 2 or 3. What I will most likely do is plan all must do TS at dinner, then add a few OOP, then add some more in the event we can afford to do the DXDP. If Disney comes out with a new free dining offer for Sept that gives the reg plan free at the values, or if my job becomes more secure, I will definetly upgrade to DXDP. Otherwise, we will find a way to make the reg plan work for us....maybe by eating some meals offsite. I'd also love to hear from others who stepped down to the reg plan after getting used to deluxe.