Dining Plan worth it or not? What say you?

[oogie boogie]

Sorry if this has been answered already. We r goin 12/2 and the plan sounds pretty good. It would my parents (dad)52, (mom) 50, daughter (10) and myself 32.

Opinions? Thanks!

Sorry I haven't been on the boards in awhile.

 

[Wendy1953]

As DVC members it's definitely worth it to us....I'm not sure what they charge for non-members, but it's $37.99 pp/pday(tax and tip included).....you get 1 TS meal, 1 CS meal and a snack/day....if you eat at lets say Liberty Tree Tavern for dinner (TS) it would be $24.99 plus tax and tip(without the dining plan) for each adult, lunch at Toy Story Pizza (CS) it would be anywhere from 7.49 to 8.19 for the pizza and a drink plus tax and tip (without the dining plan) and on the dining plan you also get a dessert (I got the rice krispie bar and took it back to the hotel for a snack later in the evening, and then you get an ice cream, pop corn or drink during the day (S)(up to $4.00 for the snack) it would run into a lot more $...and that's just LTT....if you go to any of the other restaurants that aren't buffet/all you can eat places...the meals you can order could run up a big $bill...sometimes $37 for just the entree...so yes, we love that they are now offering DVC members the meal plan as well!

It breaks down like this for every night of your stay:
Table Service Meal(TS) includes appetizer, entree, dessert, non-alcoholic beverage (includes tax and tip)

Counter Service Meal (CS)includes entree or combo meal, dessert and a non-alcoholic beverage (includes tax)

Snacks (S)are pretty much any snack type of item valued up to $4 (funnel cakes, ice cream, cookie, popcorn, single piece of fruit, single bag of Frito-Lay chips, apple juice, or non alcohol beverage(including bottled water).

PS even though the tip is included in the meal plan....we always leave extra tip money for the server

We also choose to pay out of pocket or eat cereal in the room for breakfast as we find that is the cheapest meal of the day!

 

[kcashner]

If you will eat one full TS meal a day (appetizer, entree, and dessert), it is worth it. You will save $. However, if your style doesn't involve eating one TS and one CS per day, it may not work for your style. We had several restaurants where our bill was over $100 while our DDP cost $76 for the day.

Reality check--we had a lot more food on the plan than we would have bought with cash....but I enjoyed not worrying about what people were ordering! We brought home snacks....and had plenty of food for the airport on our last day.

 

[Redwitch]

We stayed for five nights in January with the plan. We did not try to maximize the plan. Several days we shared an early CS lunch, then had a CS Bakery Snack (two pastries and a beverage) to tide us over for a late dinner. We had nice TS meals, including two signiture meals. We also brought home 11 Mickey Rice Crispie Treats.

We kept track of the costs, my DD wrote down the totals before they were "zeroed out." We paid $379.90 for the plan. Our total for food with tip and tax was $678.86.

We would eat at TS without the plan. However, the cost would have impacted our menu choices. It was fun to just order!

We had free dining last September and have our trip booked for free dining again this year!

 

[Aimeedyan]

It is not worth it to us if we have to pay for it =)

We get a CM family discount on rooms and free admission due to a CM. That right there saves WAY more than the dining plan ever would with food. Add to that the CM dining discount and it's really not worth it!

However, we did decide it's worth free dining but only at value level. We had to pay rack, which stinks but is still cheap, but we only had to buy 1 day park pass.

So, if you're used to getting discounts like that, the dining plan is not worth paying rack rate for. If you aren't doing free dining, you can get a AAA discount and the dining plan. I am not sure how much AAA saves (?). I do believe that's the only discount on rooms you can get and still qualify to purchase the dining plan.

 

[bookgirl2632]

I absolutely think it's worth it. To be able to order from the menu and get anything you want, regardless of price, is enough to sell me on it. At $37.99 a day, I think it's a bargain. I know we'd easily spend that much OOP. I plan to keep track of our food bills this time to see just how much we save. Of course, we're getting free dining in September, but I'll compare it to what we would have paid for it.

 

[Cookie Princess]

We loved the dining plan. We tried some foods and restaurants that we probably wouldn't have without it. We still got a discount on our room when we booked through AAA. This year we are getting the FREE dining as we are going at the end of August. The price was cheaper than if we had gone through AAA and gotten a room discount and paid for the dining.

We ate like piggies, and planned to buy the dining plan again this year! I am thrilled we are getting it for FREE!

 

[bicker]

I computed how much we would pay for meals (not including breakfast, which we plan to do in our villa, anyway) if we didn't have the Dining Plan. For the four of us (all adults; us and my wife's cousin and her husband), it would have cost around $902.50 including tax and gratuities. That's basically assuming that we'd have a CS lunch each day (no appetizers or dessert), buy a bottle of water at the parks each day (or have a midday snack), and a TS dinner every day (again, no appetizers or dessert -- also, no signature restaurants this year).

The Dining Plan would cost us $759.80, so that means we'd save $142.70 on the Dining Plan, just compared to what we would have spent ourselves, without the Dining Plan. By getting the Dining Plan, though, we would also have the freedom to try a bunch of things (appetizers and dessert) that we probably not have tried otherwise due to the cost, and so conceivably would be getting about $1,274.94 worth of food and service for our $759.80.

 

[themooch]

I think so! We have utilized it our last 3 trips and will do so this time as well. It is great not having to worry what everyone is ordering all of the time. Granted, our choices are more expensive than if I were actually paying for it on the spot. It gives us a chance to try things we would not normally try.

However, we do end up with TONS of food! So, we as a family of four, for a sit down meal will usually will go ahead and order the 4 appetizers and 4 desserts and talk to others around us to see if they would like an appetizer or two. Same with dessert...we usually ask to see if someone next to us wants a dessert and let them pick (especially families with several children). The server never minds doing it and it makes for lots of smiles from other guests! We have met some really nice people this way too. It makes it an even more magical vacation.

You usually come out over what you paid for the meal plan easily making it a very good value. Last trip we thoroughly ENJOYED the FREE DINING and are looking forward to it again!

Anna

 

[JimMIA]

Here's our experience this week:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1116871

 

[slk537]

Kinda and YES!

The Kinda: we would never, ever, ever spend the kind of money on food that the DP allows. DH and I had a date at Spoodles and if we were paying DDE and OOP, we wouldn't have ordered an appetizer because of the wonderful bread and tapenade, we would never have ordered the seafood add ons to our steaks, and we may have split one dessert if there was anything that really sounded wonderful.

The YES!: We LOVED it!!! The best thing in our minds? Prepaying our food and not worrying about charges later. But the word we kept coming up with was FUN! Did we pay less for the DP than the "cost" of the food we ate? Most definitely. We paid $521.82 for six nights and more than spent that on about 4 TS meals alone. We are big eaters so I actually thought it wouldn't be enough food - you know, we'd eat breakfast in our rooms to supplement and then split two lunch CS's between the three of us and then use another as a snack and use the snacks for sodas. But I didn't count on a few things:

1. They changed the snacks to include so much more so we even covered breakfast a few mornings with one snack credit by buying a box of doughnuts. And we could have skipped the trip to Target for English Muffins and cereal and just used snack credits for those.

2. Disney portions are HUGE.

3. We're not used to eating dessert with every meal.

4. Heat does make your appetite drop.

We are DDE TS people so it was an adjustment to drop some breakfast and lunch TS's and eat CS. But I have to say we loved it! WDW CS food is great! And it was just so fun to hand over the card and use credits. We split a lot of meals. At first, we wanted to save them but truly we were all getting plenty of food by splitting. On our checkout day? We had 6 snacks, 3 CS and 3 TS credits to use up. We had breakfast in our room at VWL, moved over to the Poly and then split one CS at MK Colombia Harbor House for early lunch, drove over to the Beach Club Marketplace where I bought two Princess sucker bouquets, two huge Mickey jawbreakers, and two bags of Chip and Dale snack mixes to use up the snacks (all of which I added to gifts we brought home) and then we went to DTD where we split the final 2 CS credits at EOS (bringing the cupcakes back to the room for later) and topped it off with (3 TS) dinner at Spoodles. On our checkout day!

We were very disappointed we could not be on the DP for our last 4 days, as we were DVCers staying on points NOT at a DVC resort. I'd have sold my soul to be back at my beloved VWL or BCV on the DP.

 

[oogie boogie]

Thanks everyone! This makes me feel better about the decision to go with the plan! Plus what I'm really looking forward to now is a nice SIT DOWN MEAL and ordering whatever and not feeling the pinch in my pocket at the end of the week! I'm hungry already! haha!!

 

[ktbugsmom]

I would have to agree with oogie boogie... I am so excited to take advantage of this plan in January and not worry about how much it will cost to stop for a sit down meal each day. My step daughter is only 11 - but she is taller than me and eats a lot. It will be nice to tell her - "Order whatever you want!" She will be thrilled! My husband always likes to have a "real" meal, so he is excited too! And I know my 6 year old will LOVE the fact that there will be a dessert at every meal.

 

[Barbers2005]

I have to agree that it is a ton of food on the DDP, but it's still a bargain even if you don't eat it all. We had 5 adults, 1 child when we went and we would usually all give a little bit of whatever we ordered to my Dd4 so she could try everything. Also, we would order different appetizers/entrees/desserts so everyone would get to try all the different things. That worked out great. Even with all the sharing, there is no way we could eat all the food and we usually skipped breakfast b/c of the big dinner the night before. (woo-hoo, save even more money )

 

[Tam1067]

We rarely get dessert, never get appetizers (sometimes I get salad, though), but when I ran the numbers, I found that those "extras" generally ended up being almost free if you get the DDP. If you intend to eat a TS (dinner in our case) a day, and a CS at lunch, you'll get your money's worth. I ran the numbers several ways using the menus at allearsnet and kept coming up with the DDP saving us money. Of course, if you rarely eat at TS and prefer to do all CS meals under normal circumstances, you'll spend more than you normally would if you go to the DDP.

 

[ro80]

We just came back a couple of weeks ago and we did the DDP for the first time. It was definitely worth it. We are big eaters in my family and for us to pay outright for the amount of food we received would have cost us alot more than $38 per day. With the tax and tip included you can't go wrong. We are going back in September and are doing it again. With special going on right now where Disney if offering it for free, you'd be crazy not to take advantage of that!!