And just to make things even MORE confusing, LOL - if you wouldn't normally buy an AP, then you need to factor the cost of THAT into your break-even point as well!
Honestly, I am beginning to think there IS no plan for Gophers! I have done the math for the DDE and the
DDP backwards and forwards. We fall in a very unique demographic pool: 2 adults, 2 kids (who count as adults by Disney standards at age 12 and 11 but don't eat like them!) and one child. We do NOT normally buy an AP - we buy non-expiring park hopper or MYW passes. We visit WDW for 1-2 weeks every other year. We do not go to the parks every day - for a 9 day stay, we might do the parks for 4 or 5 whole days, intermittent with days off at a water park or two, or just hang out at the resort.
So a DDP for us would not make sense - we would have to pay 37.99 each day for our two boys to eat like birdies. Yikes! And DDE seemed like a good choice... except it doesn't work at snack stations, doesn't work for a lot of CS service, and while it offers 20% off, we first have to mitigate that against the cost of the AP and the DDE card ($370 plus another 65, so $435.) DH isn't a big drinker (as in, hardly EVER) and our bar tab is minimal, so DDE doesn't help us there, LOL! By my calcs, it would take a food bill of at least $2175 for us to break even, taking into account the AP and DDE! Now, maybe that's fudged a bit, because, after all, we can use the AP to get in the parks on our trip. SO let's say we use it (per our usual practices) for 4 days out of our 7 day stay. Ok, that was like getting a 4 day pass with hopping (which I would never do because it's more cost effective to buy more days and add the "no expiration" clause, but WHATEVER), well, then 435-273 is $162, which means I would still have to spend over $810 in TS and applicable CS to break even. Now, we could probably spend that much over a 7 day stay if we did some nice TS - but not by all that much. At $115 per day we would need to spend, that's near break-even for 4 adult and one child buffet/character meal at most ofthe places in the parks, and perhaps on the low side of a "nice" meal at say, Le Cellier (but my boys would likely not both get an adult meal there - they might get a single adult meal and share, or one adult, one kid meal. You get the idea!) And there's still the tips to be paid for every $ we spend, too. I usually tip around 20% so when I think about it, with DDE, I'm just breaking even with the tip! The more we spend to "offset" our inital cost... the more we tip! DOH! It's a never-ending cycle! We did DDP last trip because tipping was included, and at that time, our boys were young enough to still be "kids"....it was a pretty good deal. Heck, just one day for a kid was LESS than the cost of a TS, and you got an extra CS and snack as "gifts" on the side! Who can argue with that? But now even DDP doesn't provide the tip, either! AUGH!!!!! Someone stop the dining insanity!!!
So until my kids become much better eaters (perhaps in their teen years?
) or Disney gets educated about families with kids that aren't REALLY adult-sized and offers a "juniors" plan
or perhaps my DH turns to the bottle and runs up a massive bar tab
... perhaps there is no plan for gophers?
