Justifying Meal Plans

[nutsnbolts]

A family of 5. 3 kids. Is it a good idea for a meal plan? I called and they stated it would be about 1440 for 7 days. 1 sit in, 1 Quick and 1 snack.

I'm not sure how the meals cost will come out to but I do have like 3 reservations and still working on two more.

The reservations do range from expensive to moderate but how expensive I'm not sure as I don't have experience exactly how much this is really going to cost me.

Can someone help clue me in or the thought process to justify it

Sent from my SM-N900V using Tapatalk

[Speedy1998]

It really depends on how much your family eats. It is less than if you bought those individual items listed in the plan, but allot of people have trouble eating that much food, especially if you start hitting the buffets for your sit down meals.

[John]

Honestly, I've never been able to justify it for our family. We just don't eat that much. However, there are folks on the podcast who swear by it. I usually figure 10 - 15 - 25 per person per day. That means on days where we eat less it usually balances out. That $50 a day per person includes snacks.

Here's the way I look at it - if you don't spend that, the money stays in your pocket as opposed to Mickey's! For those who like to pay for everything up front, go get yourself some prepaid amex or visa cards for your meals. If you don't use them all, spend them when you get home!

[nutsnbolts]

That does seem like a lot of food. Especially the 3 kids are 2x 4 year old and 1x 9 year old so how much could they really eat?

Anyone else think this is too much for a meal plan and possibly get away without a meal plan?

[Strmchsr]

I agree with the posts above. We never use the Disney Dining Plan. It just doesn't work for us, even though we do a table service most days. Not doing the DDP we can share meals if we like (except at buffets) and save in other ways while still enjoy our meal. In order to justify the cost you have to eat everything on the plan and get the most expensive things on the menu. Just doesn't do it for me. The kids are a little different as their plan is less expensive but still some meals my youngest hardly eats anything but he and my wife share a meal and that works great. So, as John mentioned, there are plenty who use the DDP every trip but that doesn't work for us.

[nutsnbolts]

This definitely will require more thought. Looking at some of the places we would like dinner has adults at 30 dollars per person or something like that and it may become a wash if we splurge or if we want to be frugal we could save. The problem is I don't have reservations to everywhere we would like to go to because of lack of knowledge of what is available but once we are there, there is no stopping us in saying let's eat hear (sit down) and it coming out expensive. Multiply that occurring on the span of days it could add up. Sigh

[Goofy4TheWorld]

...but once we are there, there is no stopping us in saying let's eat hear (sit down) and it coming out expensive.

Actually, there is something stopping you, and that's the fact that you can't just walk up to a Disney restaurant and expect to get seated. Now there are random places at infrequent times that can do this, but as a general rule you cannot expect to eat a sit-down meal at WDW unless you have a reservation already made. The worst thing in the world you could do is to pay for the Disney Dining Plan (DDP) thinking that you can decide "on the fly" where you are going to eat.

It's a rare treat to find someone who has truly crunched the numbers and found that they spent less using the DDP, and it's like finding gold if someone saves money after paying full price for the DDP. I also believe that a WDW "newbie" has absolutely no chance of coming out on top with the DDP, and if you pay for it you WILL pay for more food than you will ever "get out" of your trip. Sure, you see menu items that are $30 per plate, but the DDP is $62 per person per day!

There are arguments for the DDP, but I feel like that there is so much work that goes into "maximizing" your bang for your buck with the plan, you would be far better off paying for your food as you go.

[j2k]

I do not think DDP is worth it.

In my opinion, $1,440 is ALOT of money for 2 adults and 3 kids to eat for a week.

[BrerGnat]

We never do if. The thing is, the plan still leaves out a whole meal per day, while still being "too much food." Like, for example, say you use the quick service credit for lunch, then dinner is the sit down. And you get a snack. What about breakfast? Maybe you can use your "snack" for that, but what about when your kid wants waffles? Then you have to buy a whole meal out of pocket. Every day. But then the credits include dessert, twice a day. And a drink, even if you just want water. So, really, you might end up paying for desserts and drinks you really don't want or need (at least we do).

We do much better paying as we go, ordering what we want (sometimes just appetizers and a salad), and dining where we want.

[Kerry823]

I can only justify it if it is "free dining". Walk ups are limited and honestly the plan has just too much food. My husband and I can share an entree and are very satisfied. Not knowing the appetites of your kids, it may be that your can share as well. It might be worth looking at the current menus posted along with the prices and do a mock day just to get an idea. Then you can expense it out for your whole trip to see what you think. Have fun!

[ibelieveindisneymagic]

If you have a lot of kids on the plan, then it can work our for you, since the buffet and "all you can eat meals" are pretty expensive for the kids. However, you would have to be eating a number of these, and at least a sit-down meal each day.

If you don't want to be that tied to reservations, or think you may choose more quick service, or sharing of meals, then it isn't a good financial choice.

[joonyer]

We (2 adults, 2 kids) paid for the DDP one time; back when the plan included appetizers for each person, and it was more food than we could enjoy. We've found that we could pay OOP for all the food we wanted and spend hundreds of dollars less for food during a week long vacation than the DDP costs. No, we did not eat a TS meal every day, but unless you were going to eat more than at least one TS meal for each day, you are pretty much guaranteed to spend more money purchasing the dining plan. Disney knows this of course, and that's why they promote it so heavily. It may be convenient, but it is not a money saver.

[sorcerer fan]

and with the dining plan you have to plan your whole vacation around where you'll be for your next meal. its easier to eat oop with gift cards or use rewards from Disney visa.

[Itchy]

We really like the dining plan for convenience but if we cannot get it during free dining we will pay out of pocket. Either way you should make dining reservations at any of the sit down restaurants you would like to go to.

Hope this helps... Happy planning..

[1DisneyNut]

I haven't seen it mentioned yet, for the popular sit down restaurants; you will have to make reservations at the 180 day opening mark or the popular times will be gone and not long after there will not be any times available. So there is not really any buying the dining plan and then winging the sit downs when you are there.

We never get the dining plan and always 100% of the time come out paying substantially less for our meals. We got the free dining once and it was enough food to feed horses. We left so much food on the table every sit down meal it wasn't even funny. We also didn't use all the snack credits. I just don't see how anybody could ever eat so much each day.

Another thing we don't like about the dining plan and someone already mentioned it, you end up planning your day around dining reservations. You have to start not long after lunch, thinking we can do this ride and this show and then we may have to head out for our dining reservation. Now you throw in FP+ reservations along with dining reservations and it is just about enough to stress a person out. The time we had free dining, we ended up cancelling all our sit downs the second day and just finding somewhere to eat the rest of the week. A few times we did counter service for dinner so we didn't really even need the sit down credits. I think they gave us snacks or snack credits or something for the difference which we still didn't use.

[BrerGnat]

I haven't seen it mentioned yet, for the popular sit down restaurants; you will have to make reservations at the 180 day opening mark or the popular times will be gone and not long after there will not be any times available. So there is not really any buying the dining plan and then winging the sit downs when you are there. .

Not necessarily. Since they instituted the 24 hour cancellation policy, it is quite easy to get last minute ADRs once you are there. I have had very good luck doing this. I don't make reservations in advance anymore.

[1DisneyNut]

Not necessarily. Since they instituted the 24 hour cancellation policy, it is quite easy to get last minute ADRs once you are there. I have had very good luck doing this. I don't make reservations in advance anymore.

Sure that is possible but not a guarantee. I don't know that I would recommend to someone who is new to the system to pay for the dining plan and then bet on being able to find a suitable dining time and restaurant reservation in the park you are in every day. Besides that, many of us don't like being tied to a dining reservation but you know what would be even worse than that......walking around the parks constantly looking at my phone checking for dining availability. I personally will pass on that but to each his own.

[snowflakegirl]

On our last trip, I looked at the menus of the TS and QS restaurants we were planning on eating at, and made educated guesses about what we'd be likely to eat and tried to do a price estimate. Often my husband and I were more likely to split and appetizer and split a dessert than both having desserts, and we rarely, if ever, got desserts at our QS meals. Some days we didn't do snacks for ourselves, although we did buy items that would ahve qualified as snack credits for our 2 year old son. I used a site that estimated cost and which would be a better value as well. Either way it came out about 50 +/- OOP vs DP. I decided to take a chance and we didn't do the dining plan this trip. I totaled up my receipts when we got home, only adding in the meals/snacks that would have been covered. We ended up saving money because of where and what we ate. Had we wanted desserts with ever meal, we definitely would not have, but it worked out better for us. I think it depends on your own family and eating habits. With two four year old, I would lean towards it being a better value not to use the dining plan, but again, it depends on your own family.

[nutsnbolts]

Not necessarily. Since they instituted the 24 hour cancellation policy, it is quite easy to get last minute ADRs once you are there. I have had very good luck doing this. I don't make reservations in advance anymore.

Ironic you said that because when I was trying to book for several of the popular sit down places, I actually accidentally booked for a day in January (which was the next day) which was supposed to be a February Month date instead and I was surprised that there was availability. I was like wow, but then when I got the email confirmation I realized my mistake that I booked incorrectly.

My point is and when i called Disney as well they stated that it's no guarantee but with the 24 hour cancellation policy, spots do open up.

At the end of the day, I do have a couple more places I would like to book but as I'm trying everyday to see if any spots open up, I do expect to call/reserve and try again when I get there.

[nutsnbolts]

Sure that is possible but not a guarantee. I don't know that I would recommend to someone who is new to the system to pay for the dining plan and then bet on being able to find a suitable dining time and restaurant reservation in the park you are in every day. Besides that, many of us don't like being tied to a dining reservation but you know what would be even worse than that......walking around the parks constantly looking at my phone checking for dining availability. I personally will pass on that but to each his own.

LOL, you're so right, the last thing i want to do is constantly plan plan plan for something. Oh the things we do for our kids. I guess the next question is and looking at all that I have reserved thus far.

4 character breakfasts (may cancel one)
1 Lunch
1 dinner
Expecting at least 2 more dinners to be booked when I get there.

Does this change the justification?