For anyone interested, and i wont share it in the open forum, i'll be glad to send the link to your inbox, but there is a website that has a tool that will calculate the estimated cost of a restaurant on Disney property and will show you if the
DDP makes sense for you or not. It'll break down how much it costs to pay out of pocket and what it would cost per dining plan option.
We were going to go with OOP this time, but after doing the research, it made sense for us to purchase the DDP.
As if free dining is worth it vs the room discount. It depends on where you stay, but its always been a better deal for us. I just booked free dining for early august, and against the room discount we already had booked, it saved us around $400 for a family of 4. I dont get the hatred for free dining, its a really good value for some people.