Just food for thought. I'm planning our family trip for this December, during Free dining plan. We've already booked SOG at $100/night(which I believe he is eligible as tier 1 as well being disabled) I asked a
Travel agent to price out an onsite resort to see what it would be, so we could use the
DDP. First thing to remember is that you can't use the SALUTE tickets if you get a Pkg that includes the DDP. So you'd have to pay extra for the DP if you use any type of military discount, even for the room. The resort she quoted happened to be POR, and below is the breakdown:
SOG: $100/night x 7 nights=$700. No taxes.
POR w/o DP: $1261(for 7 nights in a room for 6 people)
POR w/ DP: $2574 (2 adults, 3 kids on DP)
The room included the military discount, no tix as we'd still have to get SALUTE tix. She wouldn't even give me a quote if we did the whole pkg no discount (so face value resort and tix to get the free DDP) because she said it was not cost effective at all.
So for $700 for a week's stay at SOG, $200 each for park tix ($4-600 for them depending if he's married), and, for the 2 or 3 of them, $1,000 would be more then plenty for food. You're looking at $2300 for 3 people, and that's staying for 7 nights. We're extending our time by going to Sea World one day (free for military and should be for him), spending a day at DS, and purchasing tix to
MVMCP for another day.
Point being, if he's limited on funds but wants to take his daughter, staying at SOG, using SALUTE tix and paying full price for food will be cheaper than staying on property (and SOG is considered on property for some things like EMH) and using the DP. And that's taking into consideration price of Character meals too. We're also doing things a bit cheaper by eating breakfast at SOG every day ($5.99 and $9.99 respectively children/adults). Other than that, we will eat when/where we want and STILL make out cheaper than using the DP and staying on property.