The Great DDP Dilemma - Math for DxDP, OOP, and/or Free Dining

[DISbot]

Hello!

I figured I would share some math regarding the Dining Plan dilemma for anyone else who may face a similar struggle.

First, the details:

The planned trip is September 2018, 5 nights, for 2 Adults, staying at Pop Century. One has an AP and we purchased discount tickets for the other already (This comes into play with the "free" dining dilemma).

We typically enjoy 1-2 sit-down meals a day, and have a few signature meals planned for this trip. It also overlaps with food and wine, where many meals will be considered.

Plan:

Day 1
50s Prime Time Lunch
Le Cellier Late Dinner

Day 2
California Grill Brunch (The best meal ever, totally worth $80)
Food & Wine Snacks
Garden Grill Dinner

Day 3
Kusifari Breakfast (for 1)
Be Our Guest Lunch (for 1)
Cosmic Rays Lunch (for 1)
1900 Park Fare Dinner

Day 4
Disney Springs Brunch TBD
Ohana Early Dinner

Day 5
Trattoria Al Forno Bon Voyage Breakfast
Food & Wine Snacks
QS Dinner TBD (or maybe a day of TS reservation)

Day 6
Pop Breakfast (for 1)
Coral Reef Lunch
Food & Wine Snacks

The Thoughts

With all our table service, the QS plan doesn't make sense, and optimizing the TS plan would be difficult.

I know we won't get an appetizer at every meal, or dessert. The alcohol will have an impact. I also need to account for the AP discount we could have if we pay out of pocket. I don't factor the mugs in at all, as given they are only good at the resort, while we'll use them, we would never buy them out of pocket. I've also excluded Early Morning Magic as well as a dessert party given that they wouldn't be included on the plan (but I have factored them into my assumptions on our food ordering habits).

The math





Assuming a $4.50 average per snack (food and wine, but conservative)



So, I have the Deluxe saving us $54, with assumptions that over 8 meals we will have 1 app, 4 desserts, 1 soda, and 7 alcoholic beverages beyond what is provided with the entree (buffets etc).

Given this, I was inclined to say we pay OOP and see how close we actually come to this, but then I looked at the Free Dining numbers...(To Be Continued)

 

[DISbot]

Free dining is not really free, but if you plan to book a package (hotel, tickets, and dining plan), it can save funds. Generally the savings are seen with larger parties, and children. That being said, I was curious how the math would play out.

The catch is that it requires a 4 day park hopper to be purchased, and as mentioned we already have tickets...but my annual pass expires this October, and our next trip is planned Jan 2020. Given that we could include tickets that expire Dec 2019, maybe it would be worth it to bump up our next trip (that's the crazy disney logic of course!).

It looks like as of right now our dates could get the free dining package, for Pop, with an upgrade to the DxDP. If I were to add the DxDP to our current reservation, then the only difference in prices is the 4 day park hoppers. Well, that difference comes out to $756.35...which is $150-$250 less than two 4-day park hoppers would cost us for our next trip (ignoring any possible price increases between then and now).

So, the questions:

Do I add DxDP or pay OOP?
If I'm adding the DxDP, do I switch to "free" dining to save on tickets for our next trip?
Do I change out any of our reservations?

Any thoughts, comments, or feedback are welcome. I will update once we make a decision, and hopefully come back in September with the actual numbers. I know I benefit from seeing the logic and numbers of other people, so I figured I would share.

 

[sharonabe]

Any thoughts, comments, or feedback are welcome. I will update once we make a decision, and hopefully come back in September with the actual numbers. I know I benefit from seeing the logic and numbers of other people, so I figured I would share.

There are also room discounts out there. I know for POP it's not a huge savings, but it might figure into your OOP cost savings and you wouldn't have to purchase tickets right now.

 

[DISbot]

There are also room discounts out there. I know for POP it's not a huge savings, but it might figure into your OOP cost savings and you wouldn't have to purchase tickets right now.

Thanks. This math is actually factoring in a decent room discount I currently have

 

[alltwelve]

California Grill Brunch (The best meal ever, totally worth $80)

Totally on the same page with you on this one- that brunch is the best WDW meal we've ever had!!!

 

[sharonabe]

If I were to add the DxDP to our current reservation, then the only difference in prices is the 4 day park hoppers.

Thanks. This math is actually factoring in a decent room discount I currently have

Now I'm confused. If you add it to your current reservation that has a room discount, then the difference in price is the ticket PLUS the cost of the room at rack rate for free dining. Did you do that somewhere and I missed it?

 

[DISbot]

Now I'm confused. If you add it to your current reservation that has a room discount, then the difference in price is the ticket PLUS the cost of the room at rack rate for free dining. Did you do that somewhere and I missed it?

I was leaving those numbers off, so no you didn't miss it. I currently have pop at a substantial discount. My current room and deluxe dining cost X. The free dining (room, deluxe upgrade, and four day tickets) cost Y. X + $756.35 = Y -> so $756.35 is the equivalent value of the two park tickets accounting for the room discount. Which is $150 less than the cheapest four day park Hoppers I can find.

 

[smiths02]

With the caveat that non-used tickets expire now, I wouldn't get free dining. Too much risk of not using the tickets or spending way more than you planned for an extra trip to possibly save $150

To throw another monkey wrench in it. Do you have enough sit downs to warrant a TiW card? (and your TiW card would be good for your January trip and beyond) That could potentially make the difference between DxDP and OOP. Also, personally, with only a $54 difference, I would err on the side of OOP because there could always be something that makes you eat less (case in point, my DH got sick and he missed a meal at Yachtsman, while some of us ate, he didn't...we would have been left with 2 adult credits to use up instead we just pocketed the difference). I know others would err on the side of DxDP so they could have it all pre-paid.

 

[sharonabe]

Have you checked to see if you can even get the free dining for your dates? Just because your dates fall into the time frame doesn't mean they have rooms available. That might make the decision for you. Don't try to modify your existing; go in and try to make a completely new reservation. Don't want to mistakenly lose what you have.

I'm leaning towards agreeing with smiths02. I think the DxDDP is going to be way more food than you want to eat and you'll probably end up spending less OOP then what you're projecting.

 

[♥ Mandi ♥]

Didn't make sense for us at all.
We are staying deluxe, Beach Club Villas, renting points for 14 nights. Total cost of room is about $8500 (splitting cost with my parents, so $4250). I budgeted $3,000 (yes) for food.
Couldn't get into similar accomodations for even close to that total price when paying rack rate.
If we were staying value, it might be worth it for us to do this and pay to upgrade to regular DDP.

 

[DISbot]

With the caveat that non-used tickets expire now, I wouldn't get free dining. Too much risk of not using the tickets or spending way more than you planned for an extra trip to possibly save $150

To throw another monkey wrench in it. Do you have enough sit downs to warrant a TiW card? (and your TiW card would be good for your January trip and beyond) That could potentially make the difference between DxDP and OOP. Also, personally, with only a $54 difference, I would err on the side of OOP because there could always be something that makes you eat less (case in point, my DH got sick and he missed a meal at Yachtsman, while some of us ate, he didn't...we would have been left with 2 adult credits to use up instead we just pocketed the difference). I know others would err on the side of DxDP so they could have it all pre-paid.

Have you checked to see if you can even get the free dining for your dates? Just because your dates fall into the time frame doesn't mean they have rooms available. That might make the decision for you. Don't try to modify your existing; go in and try to make a completely new reservation. Don't want to mistakenly lose what you have.

I'm leaning towards agreeing with smiths02. I think the DxDDP is going to be way more food than you want to eat and you'll probably end up spending less OOP then what you're projecting.

Thanks for the thoughts.

Dec 2019 is a planned family reunion and milestone birthday so it is 99.9% a sure thing, I don't see a lot of risk in purchasing the tickets on that front, and worst case could pay the difference for them in the future since expiring still holds value (which shouldn't mitigate the $150 in savings since they are "full price" in the package, just any price increases between now and when I use them).

We won't get our money out of TIW. Most people that do the math look at the 20% savings, but with the AP already giving 10% savings, it's only 10% additional savings which would require $3,000 in food to break even where I'm looking at $1300 (not all TIW eligible).

Free dining is available for my dates at my resort, that's how I was able to price it out. Whether it's still available when I decide will be another story...

I have tracked dining for multiple trips before and know the two of us pretty well, the odds of eating less than what I have above is very slim (I didn't allocate for many apps or desserts) which is why I'm right in the edge of the plan making sense. I could absolutely see you eating more because we want to try things, but know we won't do so OOP.

 

[DISbot]

Didn't make sense for us at all.
We are staying deluxe, Beach Club Villas, renting points for 14 nights. Total cost of room is about $8500 (splitting cost with my parents, so $4250). I budgeted $3,000 (yes) for food.
Couldn't get into similar accomodations for even close to that total price when paying rack rate.
If we were staying value, it might be worth it for us to do this and pay to upgrade to regular DDP.

Absolutely. Renting points can be a game changer. With the value room, discount vs. rack rate can be marginal, for example, a 40% discount at $125/night would be $50, only marginally more than the QSDP for one person (assuming you have a use for the park tickets).

 

[CouponGirl]

I’d personally forget about trying to do free dining - as you already mentioned, it’s not actually free. And considering you already have tickets, almost $800 is a lot to pay a year in advance for tickets that actually expire prior to when you originally planned to return. The idea of free dinning is enticing, but I guess it really comes down to whether or not you have the funds to prepay a year in advance and if you want to tie up those funds in that way.

 

[DISbot]

I’d personally forget about trying to do free dining - as you already mentioned, it’s not actually free. And considering you already have tickets, almost $800 is a lot to pay a year in advance for tickets that actually expire prior to when you originally planned to return. The idea of free dinning is enticing, but I guess it really comes down to whether or not you have the funds to prepay a year in advance and if you want to tie up those funds in that way.

I think the biggest nudge to go ahead and do it is the crazy Disney logic, because I have never seen the Christmas decorations and my birthday is actually December. So doing it is like, “well, I guess we have to go for my actual birthday and see the seasonal stuff, shucks”. Fortunately we have the resources where it wouldn’t be too painful to tie up those funds (They won’t be due until this October and I would probably be buying the tickets next Jan or Feb to avoid the price bump anyway...).

 

[DISbot]

I think at this point I am probably sold on adding the deluxe plan (the numbers don’t lie and I think they are fairly accurate founded on previous trips). Still debating the free dining - need to discuss with other travelers for the next trip.