Does the qsddp ever save you money?

I also have the "free" QSDP. I'm considering upgrading to regular dining. Is that more of a value?

The cost to upgrade is roughly $23 per adult and $4 per child per night of stay. If you want to do a sit-down meal every day instead of just quick service, it's definitely a good value. If you just want to do one or two sit-downs for a week stay, then it may be better to pay OOP for those one or two meals.
 
I’m sure this is probably a grey area so mods feel free to delete if I’m discussing something forbidden.....but we save money with the loophole that doesn’t differentiate between child and adult credits. Last trip we were 3 adults / 1 child and we all just shared 2-3 adult meals for every meal and were able to stretch our credits to cover 3 meals a day. Definitely saved money doing that. I’d say we probably came out a few hundred ahead.
 
Will it save you money if you already plan to eat all that food? Maybe, depends on the menu items you order.
Is it cheaper than BYOFood? Goodness no.
 
We have never done the QS plan, only DxDP, and we purchased the QS plan for one night for our upcoming trip. We plan to break the credits into three snacks (at the same booth) at the Festival of the Arts and sample a bunch of different dishes that way. I did the math and we will come out way ahead compared to paying OOP, especially with one actual QS lunch in there with an adult beverage each plus the kiddo’s obligatory pretzels.
 


We’ve only purchased the regular DDP once. Never again. We had to order most expensive meal each time just to break even. We’ve gotten QS free dining twice and just booked it again for this summer. The only way to save money IMO is to stay at a value paying RR and take the free QS that comes with. Paying rack rate at a mod that still only comes with QS is no deal. I did the calculations of paying RR at a value w/QS fd vs a room discount at a value and paying for QS dp. It was slightly cheaper to do the fd offer.
Since room discounts are always lower for value resorts (10-15%) we either do free dining at a value or stay mod or deluxe with a room discount (20-35%) and pay out of pocket for food.
 
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The folks on the DIS podcast said it's difficult to break even on the QS plan unless you always order the most expensive thing. None of the plans are designed to save you money but it is possible.
 
The folks on the DIS podcast said it's difficult to break even on the QS plan unless you always order the most expensive thing. None of the plans are designed to save you money but it is possible.

For those who want an alcoholic beverage with both meals, this is no longer true. 90% of these beverages are $10 or more, so you only have to "spend" $10 on the entree to break even. I would say at least 90% of the entrees are over $10, so you don't have to get the most expensive thing anymore.
 


If you get a beer/wine/etc. with each meal I could see it being worth it. Or if you spend a lot of time in Disney Springs (lots of good QS meals there).

Otherwise I'm not sure I'd get the QSDP myself but it all depends on what you plan to eat each day.
 
The times I've priced it out, it hasn't been cost effective for us with the way we eat. Sure, if you go for the super expensive food and always get an expensive drink, or do lots of character buffets then I could totally see how it works out to be financially better. For us, it just isn't the way we eat. We did everything we wanted to do on our last trip and were still about to save about $500.

But it was sure fun to set up my excel sheet with my calculations!
 

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