How much money do you save by going of the Dp?

[Anthony1971]

we used it when it first came out, it was well worth the price back then but it was still hard for us to find a lot of value in it as we just don't eat that much food.. but as I said it was very easy to make it work so we bought it. Now I would say it costs us at most 50% of what the plan would cost us -- we have a 11 YO -- we have always ordered what we felt like eating and eat where we felt like eating. If we purchased the DP we would need to order the most expensive things to make it work period. While that is nice what happens if you really want the chicken one night?? if you do not mind paying for ability to have prepaid meals that is fine... that is not us do not look at what it costs but what I want... and we get 5% back every year as Chase Freedom runs a promotion when we go -- I still get the discounts not using the Disney visa as we own DVC.
on a side note if you are the type of person who looks at prices and it will bother you that much.... Buy the DP as truthfully even if you lose 100 or 200 on it what does it matter at the prices Disney now charges it would truthfully will be a rather small percentage of your total cost for you to enjoy your vacation rather than not.

 

[CdnCarrie]

Use one of the online calculators and see if it's worth it for you. https://www.distripplanner.com/

For me it's not as we don't do many character meals and no way are we doing 2 sit down meals a day.

 

[Momoftwins+1]

We feel we got our moneys worth with the DP but food wise we felt like we were always eating and trying to order enough to make it worth it.

I think the plan is great for those who love to have everything prepaid and have no surprises or for those who will always buy the cheapest things on the menu because it's hard to see themselves ordering a 60 dollar steak ( that's worth 10 at most) ... frees them that $ column portion of the menu.

We won't use it again because it was just too much food for us as a family but I'm glad their is an option for those that prepaying works for!

 

[brockash]

I had the great fortune of going on my dream Disney vacation this summer. It was awesome. I went all out on the hotel, got the souvenirs I wanted, and used the Deluxe DP. And after that first trip, my mom (who went with me) and I have both agreed that we need to go back. Thing is, as much fun as we had, I would really like this next trip to be cheaper. I was already thinking of downgrading to the regular dining plan but I've been seening a lot of posts that say any DP is s bad value. I knew I wasn't quite breaking even on the Deluxe, but I never knew how much I was losing. Does anyone know roughly how much I would save if we ate like we we're on the regular plan (1 qs, I tb, some snacks) but paid OOP? Sorry for formatting, on my phone. Thanks!

Unless you're going to purposefully choose the more expensive (generally character) meals and/or choose the most expensive thing on the menu a lot and ALWAYS eat 2 snacks and the full meals provided by the plan; the reality is you're just not going to save money. We often use the dining plan when we get it "free" so we know and like the convenience but there's no way I'd ever pay for it on trips that we're not doing "free" dining etc. I just can't justify spending so much more money just for the convenience of having it prepaid.

 

[Sue M]

I have no idea how anyone can make the dining plan into a cost savings measure. It has been years and I'm sure the values have changed but I set up a system of linear equations using the different plans to solve for what they are charging for a snack, counter service, and table service credit. I don't have the results any longer but remember there was no way eating my natural way I could make the cost of the credits equal to or less than the cost of an out of pocket meal.

The only argument I've ever heard that almost makes sense is that it allows for the cost of dining to be predetermined. That is just lazy though. If you really want to have a fixed cost of dining go get a gift card with the equivalent of the dining plan on it and use that. When it is gone you are done eating but unless you make a point of eating the most expensive things at the most expensive restaurants you'll have money left on the card to put towards some other part of the trip.

This is what we did the first time we didn’t get the DDP. We got a gift card and put the cost of the DDP on it and used that card only for dining.
We had $$ left over.
I can make the DDP work by going to the most expensive restaurants and eating the most expensive meals.
DDP doesn’t fit with our eating habits though. We are paying for things we don’t want with DDP.

We eat breakfast in our room. It’s easy to pack bagels, instant oatmeal, granola etc.
We aren’t pop drinkers and prefer a glass of water with meals, don’t want dessert right after dinner, prefer if we want to grab a dessert or snack later on. Don’t use a snack credit every day. We always end up in the resort store buying Mickey rice crispy etc to take home.
We have eaten oop for years now, we eat well, and come in under DDP cost.

 

[themommy]

Frankly, I don’t think we save any $ at all on the dining plan unless we get free dining. There is no way I would eat as much as I do if I didn’t have it. What the dining plan does save me is unneeded stress. Im a penny pincher and I love not worrying about what everything costs. I’m going to Disney to escape stress.

 

[Shanna-like-Banana]

Now that our kids are Disney adults, the dining plans just aren't a "value" for my family.

Now that we're not really into eating a character dining per day, our youngest eats like a bird, it's hard to justify the cost of $75 per day for him, it's just not there for us.

Some of the times, we would just order and pay cash for whatever he wanted, instead of using a dining credit for his meals. For example, he could live the week off those kids "snack" boxes that have the goldfish and fruit the entire week if we let him (which we don't)

We no longer have the stress of analyzing the menus to find the most expensive meals in order to feel like we got out moneys worth, even if it was the entree we wanted or not, DH would feel compelled to order it, to get the "value"

We have taken one of DD's best friends for week, they were 16 at the time, and she was the queen of soup. Soup all day, soup all year round, loved soup, she too ate like a bird, she would want just soup and a roll for lunch, I'm not wasting a dining credit on her having a bowl of soup, we'd end up paying for the soup OOP and use the dining credit on something else.

 

[Juliet25]

I had the great fortune of going on my dream Disney vacation this summer. It was awesome. I went all out on the hotel, got the souvenirs I wanted, and used the Deluxe DP. And after that first trip, my mom (who went with me) and I have both agreed that we need to go back. Thing is, as much fun as we had, I would really like this next trip to be cheaper. I was already thinking of downgrading to the regular dining plan but I've been seening a lot of posts that say any DP is s bad value. I knew I wasn't quite breaking even on the Deluxe, but I never knew how much I was losing. Does anyone know roughly how much I would save if we ate like we we're on the regular plan (1 qs, I tb, some snacks) but paid OOP? Sorry for formatting, on my phone. Thanks!

We just got back from a trip without the dining plan. We stayed 6 nights, so the QS plan would have cost our family of 5 (with a 7, 10, and 15 yo) close to $225 a night. In all, we spent about $800 on food. We had one TS restaurant (T Rex Cafe), but the rest was QS. We ate as we normally would... snacks when we wanted them, split a lot of meals, had alcoholic drinks a few times. Basically, we didn’t limit ourselves (though it pained me to spend $4 on Powerade at Starbucks for DD15 a few times a day).

All in all, we concluded that the DP is not worth it. We would have spent a lot more $ and thrown away a lot of food. YMMV, but I don’t see its value any more.

ETA: one thing I noticed this trip is that we were hardly ever asked if we were on the DP. In the past, it was always the first question from a cashier. I wonder if that’s a reflection of it not being as popular any more?

 

[DLgal]

IMO, the only "value" that the DDP holds is when you are traveling as a large group and one person wants to foot the entire bill.

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

The only argument I've ever heard that almost makes sense is that it allows for the cost of dining to be predetermined. That is just lazy though. If you really want to have a fixed cost of dining go get a gift card with the equivalent of the dining plan on it and use that. When it is gone you are done eating but unless you make a point of eating the most expensive things at the most expensive restaurants you'll have money left on the card to put towards some other part of the trip.

This is exactly what I've done with my family on our last several trips, except I buy all my Disney Gift cards at a discount (buy when Kroger has 4x Fuel Points with a cash back credit card). This way I get an automatic discount on my dining costs, and my dining is prepaid. The DP becomes even more expensive in comparison when I factor in my discount. There is a huge thread on the Budget Board about ways to get discounted Disney gift cards.

 

[robinb]

Now that our kids are Disney adults, the dining plans just aren't a "value" for my family.

It stopped being a value for our family too once my DD became a "Disney Adult". It *might* become a value again once she's 21 and will be able to order beer or cocktails with her meals. I think we may break even but that's still a little over 2 years away.

 

[PollyannaMom]

This has generally been our philosophy in the past:

Unpopular food for thought: I go on vacation to unwind and not think. I plan ahead for months and then enjoy the fruits when we are there. Yes, the DDP can cost more. You can find threads that nickel and dime everything and a million reasons why not to have the DDP. However, we've used it before and I love it. Why? I like ordering what I want to order instead of looking at the prices and worrying about the cost because I only budgeted for a certain amount. We try to maximize the TS credits (using 2 for HDDMR and for an early breakfast reservation). We have snack credits left over every.single.time. You know what? It's fan-freaking-tastic to pull out a Disney snack a week after you've left, so we spend them on ones we can take home and eat later.

because -
A) The first time we used the DP was when it was new, and included everything - appetizer, dessert, maybe even, IIRC, tip?
and
B) We used to do a lot of character meals when DS was little.

Now, it's more like this for us:

If you've eaten at enough places and eventually have some favorites and a pattern, the Dining Plan will lose its value to your family, as well as when your kids become Disney Adults.

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

As earlier posters have said, the dining plan can be used to help fix the cost of meals. Also, depending on your individual vacation plans, it can be used to ensure a varied dining experience, so you are not eating fast food all the time. As with everything Disney, there’s a built-in upcharge for convenience, which may or may not be worthwhile for you.

and for situations where friends are travelling together and the bill will be split. Takes the shock out of the $$ on the menu. There are always people in the group that don't look at the prices before they get there despite the forewarning.

 

[ILoveMyDVC]

This is a pretty good tool and was pretty accurate for our last trip.

www.distripplanner.com

We haven't used the DDP the last two trips. Once because we did an agency exclusive and couldn't buy the DDP and another time because we rented points and I didn't want to purchase the DDP. I would probably only ever do the DDP again if we got it for "free" since there is 4 of us, all Disney adults, and it would save us tons of money over a room discount IF we were in one room at a moderate or value.

Last trip we were there 10 nights and did 13 QS, 10 TS (including character buffet, Cali Grill, CRT, Ohana, BOG, etc), lots of snacks, two nights of drinking/eating around the world and Trader Sams one night and we came out cheaper than the DDP. We ate what we wanted when we wanted and still came out ahead.

Nice tool, thank you. Wish it had the capacity to do DVC, AP and TIW discounts!

 

[DomesticPrincess]

I think the main thing is to identify what you want from the meal plan so you can decide if it does what you need it to do. When my daughter went with her school group and when my cousin's two children went with a youth program they were in the DP did exactly what we needed it to do. It ensured the kids had options available to get some food where they had to choose a consumable. They may have eaten the least healthy options at every turn, but they were not going hungry.

My next trip will be a large extended family group trip. Since none of us has won the lotto - yet! - saving money is the goal. I went over information from several sources regarding the regular dining plan. The main takeaway was you only really save money if you both use all your credits and make higher cost choices when you use them. If you purchase lower cost items for just a few of your items you could end up loosing money. After talking it over we all agreed we're just not that organized, and some of our group would never use all of their credits anyways.