DDP - Our Thoughts

[garada3]

We spent a week at WDW using the dining plan. We are a family a five which according to Disney requirement, was three adult dining plans and two kids plans.

Overall we saved $300+ dollars.

We had counter service for lunch almost everyday and used our table service in the evenings.

At CS places there was not any distinction between adult and child credits.

Our oldest DS wasn't always thrilled with adult options, even when he ordered things 'plain'. He did better at the begining of the week and I think just wanted more familiar foods towards the end of vacation.

Our middle son was often frustrated by the kids meal options at TS places. But between the five of us, with appetizers, entrees and desserts no one walked away hungry.

CS places included the bakery in Norway, Tusker House, Lottawatta Lodge at Blizzard Beach, Cosmic Rays, the food court in the Land pavillion, the counter service place in Disney Quest (twice) Gasparilla Grill at the Grand Floridian.

Table service places were the restaurant in Morrocco, Boma, California Grill( ), Sci Fi,Narcoosee's and Hollywood Brown Derby. We cancelled Crystal Palace.

We did use the kids clubs two nights to that we could enjoy CG and Narcoosee's as a couple. So the cost of the kids clubs used up just about all the savings from the dining plan but oh well. The memory of the California Grill meal - it would have been worth out of pocket costs for both the meal and the kids club!

We left WDW with two unused TS meals and 2 snack credits.

We know it wasn't the most efficient use of credits (2 each at HBD for a not so good meal).

It was a lot of food! DH and I talked about how nice it would be if Disney would allow unused credits to be 'donated' to charity (their equivalent cost) or if we could customize the plan to our needs rather than base it on how many nights we are there, as we really don't need to have a CS and a TS everyday.

Our snacks were mostly drinks and two rounds of Mickey bars. Even with the expanded options for snacks, we were just not hungry for them. We did 5 waters and 5 bags of chips for the plane ride home.

We stayed concierge so we did enjoy the food offerings in the lounge but didn't gorge on them so I don't think it affected our appetites too much.

We did have a bar bill every TS but planned for this

DH didn't like the tipping being already taken care of.

Not sure that we will use the plan again. All three kids will be priced as adults by then. If it was free the YES!

So anyway that it is the long version of our experience with the dining plan.

 

[BCV23]

Couldn't your oldest order from the children's menu if he wanted? Two of our used to do that at times on the old Gold plan as well as when we were on no plan.

And for that matter, couldn't your older and middle son swapped respective credits since one wanted kids meals and the other didn't like the option on those meals? Or maybe he didn't like the options on the adult menu either? Or maybe it just happened at different meals!

How was counter service at Norway and Cosmic Rays. If we do the plan again, I need to find more CS options. We used almost all of ours for breakfast.

Thanks for the report.

 

[garada3]

We tried to encourage our oldest to try new things, and yes he could have ordered from the kids menu anywhere which is what he did several times.

The only real hassle was when he was looking at menus and would say that he didn't like anything offered. We would eventually find 'something' but once the food arrived there were so many different items between the five of us and the portions were so large that we had plenty of food.

We enjoyed CS in Norway, we had yummy soup, open face ham and turkey sanwiches and the incredible desserts! Cosmic Rays was good value too - DH had the chicken/rib combo the kids had burgers & chicken fingers but I can't remember what I ate there. DH gave it a

We tried to expand our choices at meals too. We get tired of the burger,chicken, pizza thing as most parents do. I have heard good things about the CS in Morocco but we didn't try it as we ate TS there one night.