This, is in part, why I like being on the dining plan. It's not so much overall savings because we could go out of pocket for less money and I'm totally aware of that. But we wouldn't vacation the way we like to without it. We go to WDW, on average, every 3 years or so. We stay deluxe because I like the deluxe resorts overall and I like to stay on the monorail (I may branch out and try some of the Epcot area deluxe resorts in the future). We don't book a "top tier" room but rather a standard or garden view because I'm already trying my husband's vacation budget patience with me by staying deluxe. I know that if he is handed food expense after food expense, at Disney prices everyday of our trip, then he's going to have a less than magical time and his overall mood is going to impact the trip. We decided that if I present to him our vacation package (I'm the family vacation planner) with the majority of our food costs built into the final figure, he feels much more in control of our spending while we are in the parks and we can budget our vacation dollars for that figure easier. Because of this we are both fans of the dining plan. We like having ADRs and knowing that we definitely have a place to eat that we like. Also this allows us to eat in the signature restaurants that we like, along with the rest of our meals for less money per day most of the time. We like the TS over the QS places, we like character meals and we like taking a break from the parks and having family meals. Not everyone does and therefore those people probably spend far less on food than we do. The
DDP allows everybody in my family to order whatever they want and also allows for fun Disney treats and snacks for our kiddos without feeling nickel & dimed every day and you're right in that this becomes psychological to an extent. This is just how WE like to do Disney. I am personally more relaxed if I budget everything ahead of time. So
Free Dining is just a perk because I'm going to have a DDP anyway. If we can't afford to do Disney the way we like to do Disney on a given year then a free dining plan isn't going to change that for us. What it will do is make that bottom line look more attractive to us and sometimes that's totally psychological as well. The fact is not everyone has the same vacation priorities and that's ok. I'm sure there are people who got FD that have a much cheaper trip planned than I do and people who didn't get it that are paying a lot more than me and they couldn't really care less. Maybe we don't all have the same vacation budget this year or maybe there is a family that goes to WDW every year or multiple times a year so they want to spend less than I do per trip or maybe the resort itself is a different priority to a particular family than it is to the next family. In the end, FD is just a discount. It may decide your vacation or it may not. Just because I choose to spend money on certain things doesn't mean that I am doing so because I don't understand what I could be saving if I chose differently. Everyone loves a good deal but most of us also want the trip we want. That's where priorities come into play and no one's priorities are any worse or better than another's. They are simply YOURS.
Let me edit to add that I wasn't directing anything at you, MakiraMarlena. I was just expanding off of the "psychological" comment that I thought was accurate in my case!
