Dining Plan or Not....

[Ashleybs]

I know this is a question that gets asked ALL the time and yet here I am looking for advice!

We will be at Pop Century April 6-10 and at the moment have the DDP on our reservation but I just can't decide if the extra $1,33.54 is "worth it." One day I'm adamant that we've got to have it and the next day I question it. To help me decide let me tell a little bit about the back story as that has a lot to our sway both ways....

We haven't been to Disney World in 11 years because of the cost of a trip. The two times that we have been we used a friend's timeshare and stayed for free. So even if we had wanted to do the DDP it wasn't an option for us. We've always thought "oh wish we could go and back and get the dining plan." The reason we are not using the timeshare this time is because it was booked for some of the days but mainly because we are going for our 18th anniversary and my 40th birthday, both which we will be while we're there. So this is a big splurge and celebration trip for us. We're VERY much a paycheck to paycheck family so while this might not seem like huge trip to some, it is very much so for us and the DDP cost is a huge extra chunk.

Now to the DDP part..... is it worth the $1,33.54 for our family of 4 (myself, husband, 7 yr old son and 15 yr old son, who usually can eat more than us)? "Could" we spend less than that on dining? I know we could. But, I know we would be looking at pricing on menus, not necessarily ordering what we would "like" to order because of the price and would eat at more quick service places. It's very appealing(and fun!) to be able to try new restaurants, order what we would actually like and not have to worry about the price and eat at some nicer places. And I love the idea of our kids knowing they can have their 2 snacks a day and then they're done.

As of right now these are our reservations and meal plans -

Mon - Dinner @ Liberty Tree, Hoping to find BOG for lunch
Tues - Breakfast @ Garden Grill, Dinner @ Via Napoli
Wed - Lunch @ The Plaza
Thurs - Lunch @ Tusker House
Fri - Lunch @ Prime Time

I know we're 1 TS credit over and will most likely cancel Tusker House and do Flame Tree for lunch instead. If we do not do the DDP I know we will for sure keep Tuesday and Friday the same, others would change to QS most likely. I wouldn't mind having a second character meal but it's tough having boys and them being older too. Not sure where to add.

So all this to say.....I know this is a personal decision but would love to hear of things that maybe I'm not thinking of or realizing and just to see what other pros/cons there are with our own trip to help us in deciding if we should or shouldn't do the DDP.

If you've ready this far thank you, ha ha!

 

[xipotec]

We gave up on the dining plan. We found it to be too much food and planning.

I am sure the other DIS boarders would have a spreadsheet explaining the costs of the food vs the plan.

Overall , we ate less , touted more and enjoyed the meals we had without the DP.

 

[TheOneWithTheTriplets]

Your TS don't look like they'd be sufficiently expensive to warrant the cost of the DDP, especially considering your 15 yo will have to pay adult prices but won't enjoy adult beverages.

If you were to put the DDP value in a gift card and still buy what you want, you'll likely have money left over. Plus, you wouldn't have to limit yourself to the DDP offering. If you want an appetizer at a TS, or a waffle sandwich from Sleepy Hollow, for instance, they would have to be out of pocket. That's coming from someone who saved over 1k on the DDP when comparing what we would have spent. However, we had a) more Disney kids than adults and b) lots of character meals, neither of which is true for you.

 

[sharonabe]

As of right now these are our reservations and meal plans -

Mon - Dinner @ Liberty Tree, Hoping to find BOG for lunch
Tues - Breakfast @ Garden Grill, Dinner @ Via Napoli
Wed - Lunch @ The Plaza
Thurs - Lunch @ Tusker House
Fri - Lunch @ Prime Time

I know we're 1 TS credit over and will most likely cancel Tusker House and do Flame Tree for lunch instead. If we do not do the DDP I know we will for sure keep Tuesday and Friday the same, others would change to QS most likely.

I'm going to disagree with the others and say keep it. And, FWIW, we no longer get any dining plan, because it doesn't fit the way we eat. It just sounds like this is a good time for your family to try it. Can you eat cheaper than what you will pay? Of course you can. But if you've got the money in the budget, I think it's worth a splurge. Your 15 yr old may not be with you the next time you go, so make the most of this trip.

With all the character dining, your 7 yr old will more than offset the 15 yr old paying adult prices, but not getting alcohol. Just remember, he DOES get non-alcoholic specialty beverages with his meals, so look for and ask for those for him, if he wants them (and if he doesn't, he can still order it and give it to the 7 yr old!).

As to the 1 TS credit over, I'm not sure I would cancel Tusker. I would either do Via Napoli, The Plaza or Prime Time OOP. Via Napoli can be almost as cheap as a QS if you pay for a large pizza to share and maybe an app or a dessert too. Prime Time also has some cheaper options as does The Plaza. You could even do a mix of DDP and OOP at Plaza and Prime Time. If someone wants alcohol or an expensive entree, have them use a credit and others pay OOP. You can't do that at Via Napoli as they are very particular with DDP, but you could all use a credit at Via and then do a mix and match at the other two places. That would also give you a dessert or two to share at those two places.

 

[DW2010]

I would use a dining plan calculator, but based on what you have, I'd say it's not worth it. You can buy Disney gift cards instead at a discount to save some money and have the convenience of your meals being 'prepaid'. I go through Target and get 5% off using my red card. When I priced out the dining plan, we were going to have to eat character meal dinners every night to potentially match its value.

 

[5kidsmommy]

I'd sit down and go through the menus of the ADRs you have now and the other places you'll be eating at and see how much you'll spend. Everytime I do that I realize we won't spend enough to just the cost of the dining plan. It really just depends on how you eat. Now if you want to do it because you've already budgetted for it and don't want to add up the cost then just go for it. Some people just like the convenience of knowing they have x number of meals and snacks and it's paid for.

 

[KayaWildfire]

For our family, the cost of these items makes the dining plan worth it for us. We do a lot of character meals we do fine money wise, but it is really nice not to have to worry about the price of everything. We are a family of 8 and I can tell you that we wouldn't buy any specialty drinks(really probably any drinks at all other than water) and definitely a lot less snacks than we do with the DDP because we are mentally very frugal and just wouldn't be able to eat how we want without it. Yes, we could spend less, but we choose not to after saving when we go out to eat by all drinking water, etc. It's nice to splurge a little.

 

[Pumbaa_]

I always say it is a math exercise

if you haven’t already put in the time. Disney dining is very expensive. As are dining plans. Doing the work will either tell you it is a value or it will give you your food budget for the week

this is also something you can get the kids involved, let them look at menus, look at the snacks, make picks, then enter into a spreadsheet

it takes time, it is work. But it makes sense to know what is best for your family

i will advise, if it is close, get it. The sticker shock of paying for each and every meal will hurt otherwise and many folks will not order what they really want, but try to save money.

 

[Ashleybs]

Thanks everyone for the replies. The pros/cons that I've thought of were echoed by posters. Going to sit down and really look at the math now.

 

[dchronister]

If this is a splurge trip, do the dining plan! If you don’t want to be pricing out everything on the menu and Stressing over did we put enough aside for this, do the dining plan. Let them scan you band and you know that it’s all covered! We always rack up expenses very easily at Disney and when I get my bill before we leave, I’m like.... WHAT, and have to go over it 2/3 times, which is good to do anyway! But i know this because we stand in line and look at prices too! In my opinion, I just think you will have a more stress free trip if you do the dining plan! For 4 people, you are gonna pay a chunk for dining anyway

 

[brockash]

I know this is a question that gets asked ALL the time and yet here I am looking for advice!

We will be at Pop Century April 6-10 and at the moment have the DDP on our reservation but I just can't decide if the extra $1,33.54 is "worth it." One day I'm adamant that we've got to have it and the next day I question it. To help me decide let me tell a little bit about the back story as that has a lot to our sway both ways....

We haven't been to Disney World in 11 years because of the cost of a trip. The two times that we have been we used a friend's timeshare and stayed for free. So even if we had wanted to do the DDP it wasn't an option for us. We've always thought "oh wish we could go and back and get the dining plan." The reason we are not using the timeshare this time is because it was booked for some of the days but mainly because we are going for our 18th anniversary and my 40th birthday, both which we will be while we're there. So this is a big splurge and celebration trip for us. We're VERY much a paycheck to paycheck family so while this might not seem like huge trip to some, it is very much so for us and the DDP cost is a huge extra chunk.

Now to the DDP part..... is it worth the $1,33.54 for our family of 4 (myself, husband, 7 yr old son and 15 yr old son, who usually can eat more than us)? "Could" we spend less than that on dining? I know we could. But, I know we would be looking at pricing on menus, not necessarily ordering what we would "like" to order because of the price and would eat at more quick service places. It's very appealing(and fun!) to be able to try new restaurants, order what we would actually like and not have to worry about the price and eat at some nicer places. And I love the idea of our kids knowing they can have their 2 snacks a day and then they're done.

As of right now these are our reservations and meal plans -

Mon - Dinner @ Liberty Tree, Hoping to find BOG for lunch
Tues - Breakfast @ Garden Grill, Dinner @ Via Napoli
Wed - Lunch @ The Plaza
Thurs - Lunch @ Tusker House
Fri - Lunch @ Prime Time

I know we're 1 TS credit over and will most likely cancel Tusker House and do Flame Tree for lunch instead. If we do not do the DDP I know we will for sure keep Tuesday and Friday the same, others would change to QS most likely. I wouldn't mind having a second character meal but it's tough having boys and them being older too. Not sure where to add.

So all this to say.....I know this is a personal decision but would love to hear of things that maybe I'm not thinking of or realizing and just to see what other pros/cons there are with our own trip to help us in deciding if we should or shouldn't do the DDP.

If you've ready this far thank you, ha ha!

In our opinion it's really never worth it in terms of saving money. We've crunched the numbers many years and have always come out ahead paying out of pocket, even when we "splurge." I will especially say that once they took the tips out; in many ways it ends up costing us a good amount more since we feel obligated to do many more ts credits and the tips alone cost at least $50 and easily $100 for a family of 4. That is all out of pocket regardless. It's not worth the "convenience" of having it prepaid. If you want get discounted gift cards and you'll come out even more ahead.

 

[DisLiss]

Now to the DDP part..... is it worth the $1,33.54 for our family of 4 (myself, husband, 7 yr old son and 15 yr old son, who usually can eat more than us)? "Could" we spend less than that on dining? I know we could. But, I know we would be looking at pricing on menus, not necessarily ordering what we would "like" to order because of the price and would eat at more quick service places. It's very appealing(and fun!) to be able to try new restaurants, order what we would actually like and not have to worry about the price and eat at some nicer places. And I love the idea of our kids knowing they can have their 2 snacks a day and then they're done.

Since you already have an idea of exactly where you'd like to eat, I'd just make mock bills of what each meal would cost without the plan. Then go from there in deciding if it sounds like a good deal to you.

As a family of 4, with kids slightly older than yours, we're in a different position because our youngest hates sit down restaurants right now and he really hates the idea of them on a Disney trip. So we don't have any "restaurant temptation" so to speak for this trip. However, even knowing we'd be sticking to CS meals, we still worked up a few fake days worth of food spending, and even including more food than we ever thought we'd actually buy, the QS Dining Plan would still cost us significantly more money. So since we don't go very often due to cost, either, spending more on the dining plan was definitely not something we wished to do.

 

[Kevlar10]

As the previous posters have said, if your trying to save money overall, it’s not worth it. There are definitely cheaper options that you can eat at OPP. If you plan to have either character meals and or nice meals, at all of your TS restaurants, IMO, the plan makes sense. Last visit, we did 3 character meals, CRT, Boma, Jungle Navigation Company, and Tutto Italiano over 9 nights. We did pay one QS meal out of pocket. Our youngest son who was on the kid credits actually got adult meals most of the time at the QSs. The only down side is that we really struggled to use the snack credits.

 

[petunia]

Splurge trip=keep the ddp. Regardless if we "break even" we always get it because its so nice to be on vacation and not be thinking about menu prices/getting venti drinks at Starbucks with a snack credit/not just ordering water to drink as we normally would. We also dont spend a dollar extra on food aside from tips when on ddp..we either use a snack on breakfast, then QS lunch then TS dinner or just have coffee and have an early QS lunch, then early TS dinner and snacks whenever.

 

[eeyoreandtink]

DDP works for us. We like nice dinners, desserts, and cocktails and will definitely want snacks while touring. It sounds to me like your family is similar. DDP is pre paid, I don't have to worry about what DD or DH is ordering and how much it costs or dither about how much we are spending. Snacks are pre paid so that isn't an issue. The fact that you mentioned this in your post and talked about cutting meals if you don't do DDP makes me lean towards saying keep it. The piece of mind is nice, and it removes a lot of stress for me.