How Can Quick Service Be Worth It?

[E-Ticket4]

We used the Quick service plan last fall and felt it was worth it - not a great savings, but worth it and convienent. We have also used the "free" dining, and the deluxe dining. But I am wondering how this year with 2 meals, 1 snack, and the mug how can the quick service possibly be worth $35 a day?
Can anyone make some sense of this for me?
I am hungry for answers! Thanks!

[Fangorn]

Simple answer: it's not. Disney certainly wouldn't promote the dining plans as heavily as they do if they didn't make a LOT of money on them.

Using Cosmic Rays as an example, a burger will run you $9+, a drink is $2.49 and the dessert is $3.59. Total is $15.08. Do that twice in a day and add a $3 snack, you get $33.16.

Of course, you can pay $5 more for the chicken/rib combo and find a snack that is closer to $4, but are you realistically going to do that twice a day, every day? Probably not. Personally, we usually drink water and rarely get dessert, so that's $12/day/person we'd not spend anyway.

I'm sure there are some people for whom the dining plans are an OK deal, but overall, the dining plans vastly favor the house (or mouse).

Steve

[tjstrike]

We're a family of 5 with 3 teenagers and we all know how teenagers eat. For us going all day long we eat well and use the majority of the snacks. I've done the math and it might not be a bargain but you can't beat the conveinience. Paying for the QS up front and not having to stress during your trip about you much money you're spending on food. IMO

[BrerGnat]

It's totally not worth it. None of the DDP are, in my opinion.

If you have to "stress" about how much money you are spending on food during vacation, then should you really be on vacation? I don't know. When we go on vacation, we eat whatever we feel like and don't worry about it. We include the food costs in our overall budget and we always come out WAY under what we budgeted for the food. For our family of 4, for a week, I budget about $1000 on food. This has ended up being a gross overage the past two trips. Our real cost has been closer to about $500-600 and we have not been wanting for anything, food wise, at the end of the trip.

[Fangorn]

If the goal is to remove the psychological "stress" about worrying how much you're spending on food and/or to pre-pay for your meals, IMHO a better option than the DDP is to put the amount you would spend on the DDP onto a Disney gift card and then only use that card for all food purchases. We've done this and then we truely eat what we want, when we want it (even if that's an appetizer or adult beverage) and even using the card for tips as well, we have always had money left on the card at the end of the trip (which makes our last day shopping trip at DTD a bit more fun too).

Steve

[E-Ticket4]

It is convienent and removes the "stress" of money planning. I just think with that extra snack removed, the break even value is gone. I like your idea Fangorn to put it on a gift card and I just may do that and "test" the value. Thanks everyone.

[BrerGnat]

The only issue with having a prepaid Disney gift card is that what happens if you lose it?

Or, what happens if you want to eat at a Non Disney establishment?

A better option is just having that much money available in your bank account so that you can put everything on your KTTW card and pay it off at the end of your trip. All this stuff of pre paid gift cards is just another place to stash your money.

Your money is safest in an FDIC insured bank account.

[minnie-mouse]

If the goal is to remove the psychological "stress" about worrying how much you're spending on food and/or to pre-pay for your meals, IMHO a better option than the DDP is to put the amount you would spend on the DDP onto a Disney gift card and then only use that card for all food purchases. We've done this and then we truely eat what we want, when we want it (even if that's an appetizer or adult beverage) and even using the card for tips as well, we have always had money left on the card at the end of the trip (which makes our last day shopping trip at DTD a bit more fun too).

Steve

Where can you purchase a Disney gift card worth $1,000? I want to do something like this but was thinking of getting a Amex gift card.

[minnie-mouse]

[QUOTE=BrerGnat;2246065]The only issue with having a prepaid Disney gift card is that what happens if you lose it?

Or, what happens if you want to eat at a Non Disney establishment?

A better option is just having that much money available in your bank account so that you can put everything on your KTTW card and pay it off at the end of your trip. All this stuff of pre paid gift cards is just another place to stash your money.
QUOTE]

How does that work? Do you just tell them to put $1,000 debit on your Disney KTTW card at checkin then pay it when you check out? I like this ides rather than giving every dining place my debit card #.

[BrerGnat]

How does that work? Do you just tell them to put $1,000 debit on your Disney KTTW card at checkin then pay it when you check out? I like this ides rather than giving every dining place my debit card #.

When you stay at a Disney resort, you can elect to have your room key function as a charge card for the duration of your trip. You can disable this ability for kid's room keys, if you wish. The key is accepted everywhere Disney accepts credit cards. It just gets charged to your room account. When you check in, they will ask for a credit card (but you can use a debit card if it has a Visa/MC logo on it). This is just to secure the room account. Throughout the trip, you can go to the front desk at any time and ask for a print out of your room charges, so you can see how much you've spent so far, and make sure the charges are all accurate. The night before you check out, they will slip a copy of your room charge under your door for your final verification. If you do nothing, they will automatically charge whatever card you left on file upon check in. If you want to settle your bill another way (cash, check, or a different credit card), you can do so at the front desk before you check out. It's a very seamless process, and allows you to tour the parks with nothing more than your room key and park tickets (and you can even have your park tickets attached to the room key as well, most of the time.) If you lose your room key, all you have to do is notify the front desk of the resort, they will deactivate all of the ones you have, and they will re-issue you new keys so that no one can make charges on a "found key".

Depending on what level of resort you are at, your account will have a "charge limit". I think it's $500 Values, $1000 Moderates, $1500 Deluxe. If you reach your charge limit, the account will automatically charge through to the card on file. Once this happens, they will reinstate your limit again so you can keep charging. This is for your safety as well as insurance for Disney that they will get payment and not get a "declined" when they try to charge off a huge balance at the end of a guest's stay.

It's much safer than relying on a prepaid card, cash, or carrying around a credit card with you all day.

In your situation, if you have a debit card with a Visa/MC logo, and you make sure you have $1000 sitting in your bank account before your trip, you can safely charge that much to your room charge on vacation. As mentioned, you can keep tabs on your spending along the way, so you won't go over.

[minnie-mouse]

Thanks so much Natalie. I appreciate your help! I think we will definitely use this idea on our next trip.

[E-Ticket4]

I hope this isn't a silly question, but do you still get a KTTW if you have an annual pass? Or is that based of simply staying onsite?

[BrerGnat]

I hope this isn't a silly question, but do you still get a KTTW if you have an annual pass? Or is that based of simply staying onsite?

You get a key to the world card when you check into a Disney resort. Doesn't matter what kind of ticket media you have.

[mom2morgan]

I agree with you. I've run the numbers every which way I can and we DO save money on the regular DDP - often a fair bit because we enjoy the nicer meals at the TS locations - but I honestly couldn't save a penny with the Quick Service plan.

[disneynarula]

Especially since they changed it to one snack I can't see how it would save money. Unless you are going to order the most expensive meal, a soft drink, and dessert every time. Even then you might only break even.

I think the only time we spend that much on a QS meal was at Wolfgang Puck Express. You would have to carefully select where you ate to come out even.

I might do the QS if I was traveling with teens that were going to be on their own in the parks. That way you guarantee they are going to eat and not spend the money on other stuff. It is also safer than cash or gift cards.

I don't like using gift cards because if they get lost/stolen anyone can find them and use them. This happened to me a few years ago with gift cards that I bought for teacher gifts. My purse was stolen and I lost about $100 in gift cards.

If you want to deal with cash only I might use traveler's cheques. We used them a few years ago. We put everything on our room card and then paid the balance with traveler's cheques that we kept in our room safe to pay the balance.

We usually come out even with the basic dining plan but we pick expensive places to eat every night. Because we have three kids on the DDP after the character meals and buffets it really saves money. If we were not on the dining plan we would probably be way more conservative in our dining options. We only go every three years so the DDP is a big splurge for us.