Disney Dining Plan

[BigG007]

is the Disney Dining Plan any good?

do you get you money's worth?

do you know of any limitations (maybe special events)?

:party::party:

[Strmchsr]

The DDP is good, and worth it, if you a.) like to eat a table service meal every day, which means with today's reality you have to make an ADR for every single day and b.) you like to eat a lot of food. Our family takes it in spurts. Sometimes we want a TS every day and therefore go for the DDP, some trips we prefer to be spontaneous and eat nothing but CS in which case the DDP is not worth it. Also, if you're not used to every person getting an appetizer and dessert it's probably not worth it.

[cruellalvr]

Also, the plan enables you to get some awesome character dining experiences. I won't go without it again. I saved quite a bit, but then again, you also have to account for what you would actually eat if you werent on the plan instead.

One perk with the plan is that you can have ALL your meals paid for by the time you walk into the park. This is such a wonderful convience!!! We didnt have to bring cash into the park except for for souveniors. One less thing to stress over or fight over...lol.

[Polynesian Dweller]

We have discovered that you don' t have to use every credit on it to get your money's worth. We don't use all table services, and we don't take deserts or appetizers just because they are available (so no huge amount of food). We have 1-2 credits per category left at the end of a trip.
Still, when we do the math, we come out ahead. Besides, the convenience is worth it. :thumbsup:

[faline]

I think it depends on your eating style. The dining plan does offer a lot of food. For each table service meal, you have an appetizer, entree and dessert for each person. (We would end up having the dessert boxed up and would eat it for breakfast the next morning.) Counter service meals also have a soft drink and a dessert. Then you also have a snack each day.

You can come out ahead if you plan carefully.

Did I see in another post that you're planning to visit later this summer? The popularity of this plan has made it difficult to get into the more popular restaurants unless you plan well in advance.

[Beast_fanatic]

This information on the Dining Plan (http://www.intercot.com/infocentral/dining/diningplan/default.asp) covers what is or is not included.

And this Dining Plan Estimator (http://www.intercot.com/infocentral/dining/diningplan/estimator.asp) can help you determine if it is worthwhile for you.

[BigG007]

Thanks for the good info

[CleveRocks]

One perk with the plan is that you can have ALL your meals paid for by the time you walk into the park. Well, since you put "ALL" in caps I figured I'd have to jump in here.:mickey:

The DDP covers 2 meals per day, one counter-service and one table-service. If you eat three meals a day, then that clearly doesn't cover "all" meals.

On vacation, we're NOT AT ALL table-service diners. We want nothing more than counter-service meals (plus most breakfasts in our room with the aid of a grocery delivery), and usually one character meal during our week.

I've done the math, and for US, the way WE EAT, the DDP is a terrible deal ... we'd pay more for the DDP than we pay out-of-pocket. So for anyone who eats like we do on vacation, the DDP is a bad idea.

But for people who like to eat table-service every day, then the DDP is a no-brainer GREAT deal (I've done the math there, too!).

And by the way, just so there's no confusion, you get a total number of credits when you check-in at your resort (for every NIGHT you are booked at the resort, you get one table-service credit, one counter-service credit, and one snack credit). You aren't limited to only one table-service meal per day; your only limit is the total number of credits for each category during your stay.

[kathiep]

We loved the DDP last year. It was definately a terrfic feeling to not need to open your wallet everytime we wanted to eat.

We are big breakfast eaters. We like to get up and get our day started early. We found that we did a lot of breakfast buffets. Then by lunch, only needed something small to eat so we did it OOP. Then, we could use our CS for dinner.

We didn't use a TS for every single night because we wanted a few nights that we could just wing it. On those nights, we were able to eat at a CS in the parks, but use our TS credits. Since we were only eating at a CS, we received extra snack coupons in exchange. I don't know if this is still possible or not.

We also used nowhere near the amount of snacks we had on the night before checkout we went to Port Royale and stocked up on goddies for our trip back.

The plan really worked for us.

[xipetotec]

is the Disney Dining Plan any good?

do you get you moneys worth?

do you know of any limitaitions (maybe special events)?

:party::party:

Do you get your MONEY'S worth? I would say imho, Definitely. However, you do have to plan on a table service, and counter service per day ( I mean you can mix and match, 2 tables one day, 2 counters another, for example, but you have to eat an an equal amount of both ). And there are a couple of restaurants ( though VERY few ) that aren't included, Rainforest Cafe, for example. Though that works out for us, cause we'll use a table service for a character breakfast, then just PAY to eat at RC.

That being said, you get a lot of food for the money and we thoroughly enjoyed it.

[mousetrapper]

Our family LOVES table service dining -- to us, those experiences are part of the magic that is unique to WDW!

So we do use the dining plan, but have the problem of doing more TS meals (a breakfast and dinner one day, or dinner or show at a restaurant that takes two credits, for example) than we're allotted on the plan.

We did end up with extra snack and counter service credits last time, but it was only a few and we ended up buying a few meals just before we headed out to the airport!

I do like to get my money's worth!

[KAJUNKING]

I've done the math, and for US, the way WE EAT, the DDP is a terrible deal ... we'd pay more for the DDP than we pay out-of-pocket. So for anyone who eats like we do on vacation, the DDP is a bad idea
the other way to look at this is, although without the dp we would probably eat just cs meals as well, and it may be cheaper, but for not much more money you can get the dp and experience some excelent ts dining and really take advantage of your dining dollar, while eating just cs meals may be cheaper, the dining plan is a better value