DDP is soo much worse!

[tguz]

Waiting to see if Free Dining will be offered to the general public, vacation in September. We love a dining plan.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

It's all about the convience of pre-paying(for the most part) your entire vacation. I use it strictly for budgeting, not to save money.

I don’t understand this mentality. “I’ll pay way more for food because I get to pay for it ahead of time!” If you really want to prepay then put what the ddp is costing you on a gift card. You’ll have more than enough money to cover your food and most likely quite a bit left over for souvenirs. And you can avoid all the DDP restrictions. Eat where and when you want, order what you want, not be wasting 2 credits on restaurants like the Boathouse that aren’t that expensive.

 

[TikiRob]

My biggest issue with the dining plan is we don't really order appetizers or desserts at table service because we snack before and after!

 

[Lewisc]

"Free Dining" , 4 in a room 2A and 2 teenagers is probably a decent deal.

Paid dining, maybe not the current version, might make sense if you're treating someone to a vacation. You want to pay for meals. You're treating people who will give you back the gift card, thank you and tell you how much money is left on the card.

Virtually every fixed priced dinner includes a starter, entrée and dessert. The starter might be choice of soup or salad. Might be an appetizer.

DDP is a grub plan, not really a dining plan

 

[reddog21]

I don’t understand this mentality. “I’ll pay way more for food because I get to pay for it ahead of time!” If you really want to prepay then put what the ddp is costing you on a gift card. You’ll have more than enough money to cover your food and most likely quite a bit left over for souvenirs. And you can avoid all the DDP restrictions. Eat where and when you want, order what you want, not be wasting 2 credits on restaurants like the Boathouse that aren’t that expensive.

Why can't people seem to understand convenience has a cost benefit and not everything has to have value to be worth it? Adding money to a gift card, having to add the gift card to MDE every food order(we mobile order a lot)...no thanks! I would much rather pay for it all upfront and be done with it. It costs me more money to hire someone to mow my lawn but since I don't want to do it it's well worth the money.

Not to mention if someone gets a hold of your gift card there's very little recourse to get your money back. At least if I put the money in the bank and lose my card I can instantly put a stop on the card, can't do that with a gift card.

We have always had the dining plan and never thought the restrictions kept us from eating what we wanted, when we wanted. It actually had the reverse effect where we eat at places we normally don't. Yak and Yeti made our must eat list years ago because of the dining plan.

 

[disneydreamer1980]

Why can't people seem to understand convenience has a cost benefit and not everything has to have value to be worth it? Adding money to a gift card, having to add the gift card to MDE every food order(we mobile order a lot)...no thanks! I would much rather pay for it all upfront and be done with it. It costs me more money to hire someone to mow my lawn but since I don't want to do it it's well worth the money.

Not to mention if someone gets a hold of your gift card there's very little recourse to get your money back. At least if I put the money in the bank and lose my card I can instantly put a stop on the card, can't do that with a gift card.

We have always had the dining plan and never thought the restrictions kept us from eating what we wanted, when we wanted. It actually had the reverse effect where we eat at places we normally don't. Yak and Yeti made our must eat list years ago because of the dining plan.

Agree to disagree, everyone’s different. I personally don’t think it’s “convenient” to keep track of credits, try to figure out what I can order, what’s covered what’s not, etc. and you don’t have to use a gift card to “prepay”, you could set money aside in a different account with its own card for this purpose (which would be protected) or whatever. Just my opinion as someone who goes to Disney a ton and does a lot of eating and spending there. But I’m glad the ddp works for you and hope you have a good trip and enjoy all the food you’ll eat no matter how you pay for it

 

[thanxfornoticin]

Waiting to see if Free Dining will be offered to the general public, vacation in September. We love a dining plan.

I'm not clear what you mean about it being offered to the 'general public'. I might be missing something. You can get free dining now with a package. Sorry, just curious.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I'm not clear what you mean about it being offered to the 'general public'. I might be missing something. You can get free dining now with a package. Sorry, just curious.

You must have Disney + to get FD right now.

 

[thanxfornoticin]

You must have Disney + to get FD right now.

Got it - thanks.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

I would never pay for the dining plan but free dining makes sense as a “discount” in certain situations.

For instance Four Disney adults in one room, especially a value and even a moderate. A 20-25% discount will get you maybe $40-75 off the room. You can’t feed a family of 4 on $40-75 a day. We did FD a few times and it was a great deal with kids and character meals. Does it make sense for a couple to get FD at a deluxe….probably not since a 35% discount on a $800 room is way better than FD discount.

My DD18 is going with a friend in September and they booked the QS FD promo. The room discount would’ve been $30 off. They planned on doing mostly QS since it’s a 4 night trip and they want maximize park time. With this they get a refillable mug, a snack and two QS meals a day which is worth more than $15 a day per person and it’s how they planned on eating anyway. They have two TS meals planned that they wanted to do anyway OOP. Since they plan on arriving early in the morning and leaving on a late flight they won’t have any credits leftover either.

 

[Lesverts]

I don’t understand this mentality. “I’ll pay way more for food because I get to pay for it ahead of time!” If you really want to prepay then put what the ddp is costing you on a gift card. You’ll have more than enough money to cover your food and most likely quite a bit left over for souvenirs. And you can avoid all the DDP restrictions. Eat where and when you want, order what you want, not be wasting 2 credits on restaurants like the Boathouse that aren’t that expensive.

Situations can be different. I have done the dining plan twice and no plan 9 times. I probably spent about the same with or without it. Just what I got changed. The plan is best for people that have 3-9s and are planning on doing many buffets/character meals. I don’t believe there is a buffet/character lunch or dinner under 50 dollars currently. So you have 5 nights and 3 of them are Ohana, Chef mickeys and garden grill you are getting a lot of mileage in those kids prices.

I am using the dining plan on my upcoming trip. When I downgraded hotels I was being charged a 50$ fee but the fee was being waived if I added the dining plan despite the total price being lower. I changed my mindset on what and how I was going to eat but I also am now going to restaurants that I would not have otherwise gone to because of their 60+ price tag. I figure I am at about even at 70$ for each of the character/ohana I am doing and can easily use most of the 25 dollar leftover. And if I am a few dollars short. Oh well

 

[Lewisc]

I would never pay for the dining plan but free dining makes sense as a “discount” in certain situations.

For instance Four Disney adults in one room, especially a value and even a moderate. A 20-25% discount will get you maybe $40-75 off the room. You can’t feed a family of 4 on $40-75 a day. We did FD a few times and it was a great deal with kids and character meals. Does it make sense for a couple to get FD at a deluxe….probably not since a 35% discount on a $800 room is way better than FD discount.

My DD18 is going with a friend in September and they booked the QS FD promo. The room discount would’ve been $30 off. They planned on doing mostly QS since it’s a 4 night trip and they want maximize park time. With this they get a refillable mug, a snack and two QS meals a day which is worth more than $15 a day per person and it’s how they planned on eating anyway. They have two TS meals planned that they wanted to do anyway OOP. Since they plan on arriving early in the morning and leaving on a late flight they won’t have any credits leftover either.

You can probably save $10/ day buying 3rd party tickets, more if you don't want park hoppers.

 

[mi*vida*loca]

You can probably save $10/ day buying 3rd party tickets, more if you don't want park hoppers.

They could. But being 18 and going in 9 months…anything could happen. They’d much rather have refundable options for the trip. They also plan on making monthly payments so it works for them and they definitely wanted park hoppers.

 

[MICKIMINI]

Why can't people seem to understand convenience has a cost benefit and not everything has to have value to be worth it? Adding money to a gift card, having to add the gift card to MDE every food order(we mobile order a lot)...no thanks! I would much rather pay for it all upfront and be done with it. It costs me more money to hire someone to mow my lawn but since I don't want to do it it's well worth the money.

Not to mention if someone gets a hold of your gift card there's very little recourse to get your money back. At least if I put the money in the bank and lose my card I can instantly put a stop on the card, can't do that with a gift card.

We have always had the dining plan and never thought the restrictions kept us from eating what we wanted, when we wanted. It actually had the reverse effect where we eat at places we normally don't. Yak and Yeti made our must eat list years ago because of the dining plan.

I have to agree that convenience is definitely why we buy the QS plan. We treat our son and DIL to a DVC villa and have missed the QS plan the past few years. It works well for four adults that can be at two different resorts who meet most days at a park and then often go our separate ways. We have spent WAY more since covid as we end up getting a last minute reservation to somewhere expensive LOL! QS keeps our spending on track and we can treat them no matter where they are.

 

[Princess Merida]

We stay on DVC points and also sometimes buy the plan for convenience. We are getting it for spring break. Will we lose money? Maybe. However, I cannot put a price on my husband not having a meltdown about the charges on the account during our vacation. Lol. I know I can buy a large gift card and have done so a few times, but I don't really find the cost to be that much different (we do both enjoy cocktails) and I also hate uploading the gift card at every purchase. I don't know why it can't be saved.

 

[ForceofWill]

We've done the QS dining plan before a couple times and have always made money on it. But it's a conscious deliberate planning choice to make it work and you basically have to drink alcohol(which we enjoy) and use your snacks on expensive starbucks drinks.

I did some pricing for a trip we want to take from 20JUL24-1AUG24 so I'll post the numbers here.

I'm active military so usually buy my tickets on base and not during the holidays can usually get between 20-30% discount on rooms. For this trip, it's actually a close call even with discounts due to the dining plan package option.

12 Nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge - Resort View trip
Military Discount room - ~$4800
Stay Longer discount room - $4213 - Winner

10 Day Park hopper tickets from base - $2691.25 (2 Adults, 11yr, 6 yr, so 3 Disney adults)

12 Night Animal Kingdom Lodge - Resort View Package with Dining Plan and 10 day hopper tickets - $9943.11

So using my best discounted pricing separately, that would leave me with $3038.86 in cash food for the trip to be equal. I'm fairly confident I can extract more than $3038.86 in food from the dining plan for 12 nights, especially since my 11yr old will be allowed to order off the adult menu. There are some assumptions for this trip that work for our family this time. We NEVER usually do character or buffet's when paying cash because it's too expensive, thus have never experienced them. With the dining plan built in, we would be able to enjoy Garden Grill, Boma, Tusker, Cape May etc "guilt free". So we've booked the package for now and I think it'll be a good experience. Old Fashions at every meal for sure.

 

[gottalovepluto]

You can probably save $10/ day buying 3rd party tickets, more if you don't want park hoppers.

Yeah, that’s a sneaky gotcha because it becomes a dismissed afterthought that you can’t save money on the tickets.

They could. But being 18 and going in 9 months…anything could happen. They’d much rather have refundable options for the trip. They also plan on making monthly payments so it works for them and they definitely wanted park hoppers.

I would maybe make sure they understand their package terms. I only mention that because we see packages kinda suck people into thinking they are more flexible because they don’t have to commit to buying tickets- they don’t realize at 30 days or less the charge to change your trip is $50 and to cancel is $200 because they’re used to the flexibility of a room-only res.

 

[Genie+]

I agree the current DDP is a big downgrade in value proposition years ago.

In the past we’ve done DDP many times between free dining and paying for the plan.

Back then I understood people saying it wasn’t worth it to them. It depended what you chose along with what you’d have spent regardless if OOP or DDP. If you already planned OOP on some of the more expensive options, with a little preparation it was possible to bang the plan to get more value than your OOP budget.

Not worth it for anybody anymore unless you plan paying out of pocket for daily character buffets (that are 1 credit on current DDP) and one expensive drink every meal. At least value-wise. Why deal with the limitations and reduced flexibility if there’s no advantage.

 

[Genie+]

We've done the QS dining plan before a couple times and have always made money on it. But it's a conscious deliberate planning choice to make it work and you basically have to drink alcohol(which we enjoy) and use your snacks on expensive starbucks drinks.

I did some pricing for a trip we want to take from 20JUL24-1AUG24 so I'll post the numbers here.

I'm active military so usually buy my tickets on base and not during the holidays can usually get between 20-30% discount on rooms. For this trip, it's actually a close call even with discounts due to the dining plan package option.

12 Nights at Animal Kingdom Lodge - Resort View trip
Military Discount room - ~$4800
Stay Longer discount room - $4213 - Winner

10 Day Park hopper tickets from base - $2691.25 (2 Adults, 11yr, 6 yr, so 3 Disney adults)

12 Night Animal Kingdom Lodge - Resort View Package with Dining Plan and 10 day hopper tickets - $9943.11

So using my best discounted pricing separately, that would leave me with $3038.86 in cash food for the trip to be equal. I'm fairly confident I can extract more than $3038.86 in food from the dining plan for 12 nights, especially since my 11yr old will be allowed to order off the adult menu. There are some assumptions for this trip that work for our family this time. We NEVER usually do character or buffet's when paying cash because it's too expensive, thus have never experienced them. With the dining plan built in, we would be able to enjoy Garden Grill, Boma, Tusker, Cape May etc "guilt free". So we've booked the package for now and I think it'll be a good experience. Old Fashions at every meal for sure.

I think free dining is the only way DDP can make sense.

 

[Lesverts]

I agree the current DDP is a big downgrade in value proposition years ago.

In the past we’ve done DDP many times between free dining and paying for the plan.

Back then I understood people saying it wasn’t worth it to them. It depended what you chose along with what you’d have spent regardless if OOP or DDP. If you already planned OOP on some of the more expensive options, with a little preparation it was possible to bang the plan to get more value than your OOP budget.

Not worth it for anybody anymore unless you plan paying out of pocket for daily character buffets (that are 1 credit on current DDP) and one expensive drink every meal. At least value-wise. Why deal with the limitations and reduced flexibility if there’s no advantage.

I can understand the sentiments about it being 'limiting' in some ways. But it can also be freeing in others. Prepay and take the kids to every and any character meal they want without guilt or sticker shock.

Everyone's situation is different.

I am currently waiting to see what another blogger/guide website says about the plan when it goes live. They tend to be fairly balanced with their opinions.

The proof of what people have truly thought about the new DDP will be in late 2024 when the first round of changes comes for 2025. Price increase/decrease, additions/subtractions, any changes in general.