My experience with the deluxe dining plan

I did the QSDP for the first time in years in March, because I had a free breakfast offer upgrading to the full plan didn't cost so much. Would I do it again? Well, if I did I will not take the advice of bloggers and you tubers who advised to go for the most expensive snacks and meals to get 'more bang for your buck'. I would not advise anyone to listen to that. Get what you want and not because of the cost. I ended up not getting snacks because I followed the advice of not going for anything under $4 and ended up with a ton of snack and dining credits at the end and wasted them on stuff to bring home, in a panic getting any old thing. I went over my luggage allowance and luckily VA allowed me to put it over my cabin bag making that really heavy, but, they allowed me to take it on.
I've got the free breakfast again for next year, but, I don't know if I will pay the extra for the full plan. I can use those free credits for any meal apparently, so 14 will be plenty, I'll do BoG for breakfast a couple of times as that is easily the best use of QS credits, but, not on any other breakfast.
If I do pay for the full plan I will have what I want irrelevant of the cost, except for water. Lesson learned.
 
I loved the Deluxe when we did it last trip. We had a car which made it more convenient and also we only paid the upgrade from the regular dining on a bounce back offer. It is way too much food but it sure is a fun way to splurge on a vacation.
 
I loved the Deluxe when we did it last trip. We had a car which made it more convenient and also we only paid the upgrade from the regular dining on a bounce back offer. It is way too much food but it sure is a fun way to splurge on a vacation.
That sounds just like what we did on our last trip. Thought it would be fun to try the Deluxe plan, upgrade from our “free dining” offer. It was fun for the first two days. By the third day, our normally bottomless pit of a teenage boy was moaning, “oh no, do we have to eat again?!”
 


We usually do the regular dining plan, and by the end of our 5 or 6 days most of my family feels exactly like you did, that it was too much food and they're tired of eating big meals with desserts. And even though DH is always the one most tired of eating by the end, he STILL asked if we should upgrade to the DxDP for our adults only trip. If he asks again, I'm going to make him read this thread, LOL! We don't eat at many signatures and prefer a quick breakfast (snack credits or something in the room), so there's just no way we could make the DxDP work for us even if we financially "came out ahead."
 
I’ve never done the deluxe plan but I agree about the planning aspect. I need a worksheet to jot down reservations ... A lot of work!

Meh, not any more as the MDE has ALL that info, no need for extra paper work and yes it is a alot of planning but so is almost every vacation ones want to do and not freak out over it when one gets to the destination......
 
DH and I have done the Deluxe plan the last 2 years and are planning it again in November. We don't find that it is way too much food. We generally have either a late breakfast or early lunch at a 1 credit restaurant, then a dinner at a Signature. I really like character meals, so our breakfasts are generally buffets. At dinner, we generally get one heavier appetizer and one salad to share, our dinners and deserts. My DH isn't huge desert lover, so if he doesn't see something on the menu that looks really good to him, he will skip it, so it doesn't waste food and then we don't have to tip on something he doesn't really like.

We go during Food and Wine, so we use a good portion of our snacks there and do generally get a few krispie treats to take home.
 


Because we are only upgrading DDP I think it is worth it for us just becuase want to do signatures so would end up going over our credits very easily.

I also like appps much more than dessert and dont mind packing or skipping.

Cruise 3 nights and 10 nights dxdp... will be the size of a house after...

Are signatuee restaurants generally smaller portions.. i was hoping this was the case.

Normally on holiday we get full english for breakfast or fish and chips / burger fries for lunch and then go for a nice dinner... bistro or gastropub. Might grab an icecream and a snack. So was thinking the dxdp will be similar to that.
 
OP - AGREED!
It took me multiple trips to convince my wife that the DDP was costing us a lot more than we would ordinarily spend. One character meal is fine, but one every day? Nope - don't need that. You also, pretty much, have to do park-hopper to make all of your meal reservations work too. It's nice to know you can hop to another park, but we find it takes a long time to make the hop and we are perfectly happy spending the entire day in just one park. That's the only park you have FP's for anyway. Being tied to the hop because of a meal you aren't 100% enthused about is a complete waste.

One funny anecdote;
The last time we did DDP we found ourselves at the end of the trip with more snack credits than we wanted (another drawback BTW). We sat down to lunch that came with a desert but my daughter wanted the giant cupcake with some character on it. We had snack credits to burn so we told her OK, but she had to eat the cookie from the meal before she could eat the cupcake. It sounded perfectly rational as we said it but absolutely hysterical when we thought it through.
 
We do free dining each year and upgrade to the regular plan. There are always OOP meals, but not enough to justify DXDP cost. Last year we got TIW and ended up doing more TS than usual, wasting a ton of CS credits. For this reason, plus the fact that we are doing a room only the night before (so we will use dining credits for our full first day), we want to do a bunch of signatures, and the snack credits will be used for breakfast and F&W, we should come out ahead even if we eat a few CS meals here and there or don't order desert. I did an entire spreadsheet to figure out how much extra we'd be spending over 2 weeks than if we did reg DP and some OOP stuff, and it was about 224/person plus tips (or $16/pp each day). This is worth it to us to try appetizers and all the signatures we would've avoided otherwise (due to price). With the recent cost increases at WDW, we won't likely get the opportunity to do it again. Also, only going for this long due to the GE preview, so yayyyy.
 
I was there right after you and totally agree, as did my family. It is just too much food. Even with a TS breakfast and signature dinner, so two meals, it was too much time sitting, and then the amount of food was just insane. I'm not knocking it for people who enjoy it but we will not do it again.
 
I loved DxDP, but I totally get what you are saying about it being too much food. For me, I just don't eat the entire serving because the portion sizes are huge. I find doing that allows me to still enjoy all of the meals without feeling constantly stuffed. This works for me because I don't equate value with volume of food, value for me is in the quality of the food and my overall enjoyment of the meal. I realize not everyone would do the same and if you feel you are leaving money on the table by not cleaning your plate, then I can definitely understand how that would leave you saying it is too much food.
 
This is good info. I am possibly planning a DxDP on on of my three rooms so that we can spread the credits for 5 people across a total of 9 people. That should keep us out of 3 meals a day sit down. OP, your post affirms in my mind that I probably could never do it for my own party. Way too much food and, like you, I am kind of obsesses with making sure I get the value out of the meals. I would never get it for Signature dining either (which we do a lot of). Once I read how you get ripped off financially by using two credits on a signature meal, I just can't do it. We'd come out at a loss with that.

But I'm really intrigued by using it for a group booking. Thanks!
Signature dining isn't a ripoff as much on the DxDP as on the regular DP
DxDP is $116.25 for an adult. After the snack and mug, let's say that the meal entitlements are $108 or $36 each
Therefore, a $72 signature meal would be a good break even
Hoop Dee Doo is $67, so pretty close to
Yachtsman-wine $15 , caesar salad $12, steak $50, creme brulee $11=$88 plus tax


I think the only way I would want DxDP is if we were doing a lot of signatures or could spread the credits across rooms.
 
Can anyone share a template to calculate per meal? I have tried touring plans but their costs of meals within their own program are inconsistent. For example, all things static, if you only put in one meal at a time and track the cost of each, vs when you put all of your meals in and then look at the summary at the bottom, the costs for the respective restaurants differ from if you were to input them one at a time.
Hope that makes sense. I'm sure there's some reason for it but when you're almost at the break even, those types of discrepancies can swing your decision.
Thanks
 
I just use a simple spreadsheet in excel. Columns are days, rows are meals, there are just 2 of us so I just add it together for each meal.

I don’t add tip since I’m paying that either way. I don’t usually add tax but you can to be more exact. I add snacks at $5 each. I don’t add in the mug since I wouldn’t buy it without the meal

I guesstimate alcohol conservatively at $12 per cocktail and just one w dinner

Once you get started you can tweak it to meet your needs
 
Can anyone share a template to calculate per meal? I have tried touring plans but their costs of meals within their own program are inconsistent. For example, all things static, if you only put in one meal at a time and track the cost of each, vs when you put all of your meals in and then look at the summary at the bottom, the costs for the respective restaurants differ from if you were to input them one at a time.
Hope that makes sense. I'm sure there's some reason for it but when you're almost at the break even, those types of discrepancies can swing your decision.
Thanks


There was one here last year that someone had and darned if I can find it. It was really good because it had the daily cost of the meal at the bottom and it was laid out well enough to add your restaurant and menu items, etc. I know I could create it myself, but I'm not good at 'creating' in Excel. I can use it well enough, but struggle with formatting and formulas. I'm still looking for the one someone had back in 2018 but haven't found it yet.
 
We have always done the DXDP (except for the one time we were off property) and we love it. It is a lot of food but we don't feel compelled to finish every bite. We eat what we want when we want it. I like the all inclusive feel of it. I know that others say it is a waste, but I actually enjoy having snack credits left. This enables me to bring snacks home for my friends as I normally wouldn't probably spend the money to do so.
 
OP we felt the same way you did. We just returned from our WDW trip and we had the DDP for 10 nights. Never again. Soon as you sit down at places like Boathouse or Via Napoli, they tell you what you can and can't have. It was way too much food for my son and I. We were over it by day 6. We had 40 snacks. My son would huff and puff when I would tell him we gotta use the credits up. On last years trip, we ordered what we wanted, when we wanted without regard to price and we were satisfied. I just wanted to try the plan again to see if we would like it since it has changed from the first time we had it. Since we have gotten home we eat 2 small meals a day ;)
 
We’ve done the deluxe. Way to much food. Next time did QS still to much.
The last few trips we’ve booked a couple TS and wing the rest. We love snacking around the world and grabbing QS when we need more substantial food. Keeps our days more flexible and easy to change our minds on what we want to eat that day.

I budget $100 a day for myself and DD and put it on gift cards that I buy the months leading up to our trips.
 

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