Upgrade Dining Plan or no?

[whovian31991]

I have 436 days to figure this out, but should we upgrade to the Premium Dining plan? Is it worth it? We already have the regular plan booked, but I'm still considering if upgrading is worth the extra $670. I'm worried about my husband and sons being hungry with just two meals a day and a snack each. Is the Premium mainly for people who book a lot of signature restaurants? It looks like a lot more money than it's worth, but I'd like to hear some opinions. We plan on using all our TS credits for character dinners, maybe one character breakfast.

I'm leaning toward it being more wallet friendly to just buy an extra QS meal to share if they're still hungry. It seems like the standard is a lot less food than it was in 2016.

 

[srwarden1928]

I wouldn't do either personally. I did an analysis of how I eat, and while the regular dining plan was the least expensive for me of the three, it would cost me in excess of $100 more to use the regular dining plan than to simply pay everything OOP. I would suggest that you do a similar analysis, and choose what would be the most cost effective for your family.

 

[whovian31991]

I wouldn't do either personally. I did an analysis of how I eat, and while the regular dining plan was the least expensive for me of the three, it would cost me in excess of $100 more to use the regular dining plan than to simply pay everything OOP. I would suggest that you do a similar analysis, and choose what would be the most cost effective for your family.

Thank you very much! I will definitely do some research in that direction as well.

 

[jessiegirl1982]

It is the same amount of food from 2016, they just took away the dessert from the QS, and gave you another snack credit instead. Honestly 2 meals a day doesn't sound like enough, but trust me, you will probably end up with credits left over (and my DH is an eater)! We always to a grocery run for snacks and breakfast so we don't "waste" a QS credit on breakfast at the resort. We also split some of the QS meals too so the credits go further. you don't want to stuff yourself and walk around in the FL humidity. Not fun!

 

[FrankieWinthrop]

I think you'd spend your whole day feeling obligated to eat with the premium plan. Most TS restaurants take a bare minimum of an hour, but most are more since you'd probably do some character dining. We got the free dining plan (QS plan) this year - was hoping for standard with the moderate hotel, but it changed this year. I went ahead and paid to upgrade to standard for several reasons:
1. We had already booked at 180 days thinking we'd have the standard plan
2. By the time we paid for 2 character meals (Fab 5 for DS, princess for DD), it was only about $200 more to upgrade and have TS/day the rest of the week

Like a previous poster said, there will be plenty of food! There are always posts on here about "HELP! I have one day and 20 snack credits left, what do I do?!" If you use some of those standard TS credits for buffets or all-you-care-to-eat, he'll definitely not go hungry.

 

[LadyCerri]

We have done Standard twice and the Quick Service meals are INSANE portion size. There's also a great list to be found on how to spend your snack credits, which I ended up taking advantage of when we had like 8 leftover on the final day and I was getting bags of candy as stocking stuffers.

One caveat: we always scope and book during the Free Dining which has been worth it both times. You just have to plan for that 180 days out and then watch the drop board for your month if you don't manage to get something. We're currently trying to hunt up a slightly earlier O'Hana's and last time, we found it about a week before.

 

[ESO]

We did the Premium once. It worked out on paper. We were doing a lot of character meals and signature restaurants, but it was waaay too much food. Like a miserable amount of food. We had a ton of snack credits left at the end. We took a bunch of snacks home, so nothing went to waste, but we won't be doing that again. Lesson learned. We did standard the next time and it worked well. Two meals and 2 snacks each day was plenty for us. We shared some meals and made meals from snacks. No one went hungry, and we still had a couple of snacks left over on the last day.

 

[ajwolfe]

We always do the standard plan. When the kids were younger it was a deal, we always saved money. Now as the kids are aging up to being considered adults for the dining plan and the price keeps increasing we break even. The thing is we like knowing it's pre-paid and that if the kids want a $40 steak for dinner we don't feel the sting of that as much or feel like telling them no to keep the budget in check. We realize we are paying some extra for that luxury, but it works well for my family. Now we fully realize this is probably upcoming trip is our last trip doing the dining plan because as they age we do less character meals and our eating habits are differing.

 

[LongLiveRafiki]

We just got home last night after a 12 night stay with 4 adults, a 7 yo, and an almost 2 yo on the reg DDP. We had 2 TS, 7 QS, and 55 snack credits left over (and this was after using 5 QS and over 20 snacks at Food and Wine the previous day). We converted all of the meal credits to snacks and ended up having to use 82 snack credits before catching Magical Express. It was nuts. We will have TONS of snacks for DD for school this year from the haul.

My advice though, especially if it's your first experience with the dining plan, go for the regular DDP. There will be tons of food, and don't feel bad using snack credits on a pop or bottle of water. It may not be the best value, but sometimes you may just want hydration and not food, and if you pay OOP for those drinks and end up having a gazillion snack credits left over, it's hard to get a lot of value out of a million bags of candy and Mickey lollipops that you might not otherwise have bought (plus, when you have to use snack credits your last day on a bunch of stuff to take home, it takes up a lot of weight and space in your luggage!)

 

[disneyfan128]

The standard dining plan is a lot of food. Also, now you get 2 snack credits we use 1 of our snack credits on breakfast. The cinnamon roll at Gaston's Tavern is a snack credit, and its huge!!

 

[shellyj]

I wouldn't do either personally. I did an analysis of how I eat, and while the regular dining plan was the least expensive for me of the three, it would cost me in excess of $100 more to use the regular dining plan than to simply pay everything OOP. I would suggest that you do a similar analysis, and choose what would be the most cost effective for your family.

We're the same way. We have never saved money on the dining plan, even when we did a lot of character meals. And we find me we are so much happier not trying to do a TS every day. We wouldn't do it again unless it was free, and even then it's been much cheaper for us to rent DVC points in off peak seasons and pay food oop

 

[Arielfan98]

Do what's best for your family. However, I noticed you said 2 meals a day and so I'm wondering do you not pay out of pocket/pack food for a 3rd meal? My family has always paid for breakfast because it's the cheapest meal. If that's too much, you can always pack granola bars, cereal, and just pay for milk when you get there. My family consists of total foodies so we must eat the expensive things, but we definitely feel premium is too much money and food. Standard is a good way to go if you want QS and 1 sit down a day.

 

[Fosteringaprincess]

We have had the standard and my family are eaters! We we're miserable by day 5 and still had more to go. We ate way more than we normally would eat and had trouble using our snack credits. Our check out day we had to blow all our credits left on snacks to take home with us.

 

[quandrea]

We did the premium plan for a very short three night trip. I only bought the plan for two nights though. We had a split stay for this was possible. It allowed me to stretch the plan over three whole days. We shared credits, ate at a signature, used snacks for fancy drinks, ate leftover desserts for breakfast. We never ate at counter service. We only ate out twice per day. Didn't waste any snack credits. In the end I saved several hundred dollars; which is easy with the deluxe plan. I could only do this plan for a few days though. A longer trip would be OOP no question. You could go dxddp for a day or two, stretch it, eat like kings and then shift to OOP. Would require you to check out and check back in though.

 

[quandrea]

We have had the standard and my family are eaters! We we're miserable by day 5 and still had more to go. We ate way more than we normally would eat and had trouble using our snack credits. Our check out day we had to blow all our credits left on snacks to take home with us.

This is why the ddp is often a poor choice. Bringing home snacks is a sure sign you paid too much. Those snacks were items that didn't need to be purchased.

 

[Fosteringaprincess]

This is why the ddp is often a poor choice. Bringing home snacks is a sure sign you paid too much. Those snacks were items that didn't need to be purchased.

Exactly! We would never buy the dining plan bc we spend less paying out of pocket for what we want to eat. We rarely get snacks on our trip unless it is to take place of a meal if we aren't that hungry. The year we had the dining plan was bc we got it " free". And then it was desserts with both meals and a snack.... Just too much food. And bc we got it with our meal we ate it..... Hints why we were miserable a few days in....I can't imagine 2 table service meals every day.

 

[DrunkJam]

I love bringing home snacks, but then, I live in UK, and can't get some of the foods over here. It is my goal to have plenty of snack credits left over!

 

[jlee003]

we always do the deluxe plan. honestly doing the math we tend to break even for our family of four. My wife and I are both foodies though, so we want to eat all the great places with no thought of costs at the time. Of course, what will always seem to get you is the tips. we have a trip upcoming that will be 11 nights at the poly with the deluxe dining plan. we went through with the kiddos and with the menu's online figured out an estimated order. we did this to understand our tip expenses. for the dining plan cost, we will break even by about the 8th day. The tips however came out to about $800-$1k for the trip.

 

[dmea10]

We have the standard meal plan for our trip. We have never used the food plan before. I am going to try and keep track and see if we come out ahead or not. With a character meal just about everyday I think we will get our moneys worth. I can not imagine the deluxe plan. I just feel like your would be spending way too much time eating and not getting to do the parks. But that's just me.

 

[hsmamato2]

I don't really like either plan. I prefer to choose what we want to eat,not ordering junk we don't want or need. That said, the regular DDP is a lot of food. If you eat breakfast in room, a big QS lunch (with an overabundance of fries and soda on the plan IMHO) and then a buffet dinner nightly, that is a LOT of food. Plus a snack somewhere in there? we were never hungry- you could even use that snack credit on regular DDP for a breakfast item daily.(check your menu options) I would never ever want to try the upgraded plan. Never.