Dining Plan for family of five?

[JJ&JSMOM]

We're not going until May 2007 but wondering if you folks felt the Dining Plan is worth it for a family of five (3 kids under 7). Obviously it is if you got the free dining but just wondering if its a good deal when paying for it. I'm not sure if they'll even offer a dining plan for 2007 but in reading the threads it seems like it was successful. I'm not sure if we'd use all the credits. Any credits leftover when you came home?

TIA

 

[kcashner]

You made a good point--none of us know how long the dining plan will be available and at what price.

As to whether it is a good value, it depends totally on how your family eats. If you basically eat one TS and one CS a day, it is an excellent value. The fact that you have 3 children under 9 makes it even a better deal.

The cheapest TS (table service) that I am aware of at WDW is the character dinner (ok, there are a few other places like Beaches and Cream). Cost for an adult at a dinner character buffet is $28 + tax + tip for a total of about $34-35. FOr a child, the cost is $9.99 + tax + tip. The meal plan for a child is currently $11, so if you eat one character dinner (or any other sit down dinner) you have gotten your money's worth. For the adult, the plan is $38, so you have nearly gotten your value on that one meal. If you add the CS and the snack, it is a great deal. Many restaurants are MUCH more expensive than the character buffet/family style places.

OK, would we order an appetizer, entree, and dessert for each person if I were paying OOP--no. However, I looked at the food we probably would have ordered, and it still came out as a good deal.

In addition, each of you (including the children) will have a snack credit for each night of your stay. Depending on how you like to eat, snack credits can easily be breakfast. You can get an entire box of donuts as a snack credit or a quart of milk. Doing this, 2 snack credits could be breakfast for a family of 4 if you are light eaters. Alternatively, you could bring a box of the kid's favorite cereal along and just get the milk.

If you would eat primarily CS meals (no TS) the plan may not be a good deal for you. Same if you would eat primarily signature dining. However, considering that one character meal for a kid basically costs the same as the entire day's DDP for them and you still have a CS and snack for each of them, it all adds up to a great savings! The snacks alone generally would cost from $2.50 - $4 OOP.

We did have some CS and snack credits left over, but we used them at the end to get CS packed "to go" for a meal at the airport and some on the plane snacks.

You currently have a 1 year old, so a year from now that child would still be "under 3." That child would eat free at character buffets and family style meals, and would not be on the DDP. He/she could eat off your food at other TS places and share your CS meals if desired. With little ones, I'd be doing a whole bunch of character dining, making it even a better deal.

 

[gigi1313]

i'll just ditto kcashner 'cause i could not have said it better myself

 

[Gina35]

We are going in August and are going to be on the DDP (we are DVCers, so we have to pay for it). There are 5 in our family and we are having 2 extra guests, and we really think we will make out MUCH better using the plan. I looked at the notes I made for meals on our last trip, and we will actually be saving money on the plan. However, our family DOES always enjoy one TS each day.

 

[HaleyB]

I think the above posts cover it pretty well. IMO the more kids you have (under 10) the easier it is to save money on the plan. The kids price is really a great deal considering the buffets alone would cost more, so the CS and snack are pretty much free.

With three little ones I would do a lot of buffet meals, and lots of breakfasts or lunches. By the end of a day in the parks, even with an afternoon break, my kids are not really in a sit down and use your manners mood. We find doing the sit down meals earlier in the day and eating counter service for dinner works really well. It will not give you the highest $ value for your credits, but you will still come out ahead.

 

[HopperFan]

Talked my Dsis into it last year with 3 kids that qualified as kids. She is very careful with her money, they were in the cabins with a kitchen and a DH who likes to cook.....but she gave it a try....even though he was totally against it. THEY LOVED IT ! Made them plan their days in advance and then no discussion about where to eat, kids love the character meals they chose, for the most part food was good and all those extra snack credits they loaded up on snacks for the ride home. She loved not carrying cash, it was all paid for before they arrived. She said under the same age circumstances she would do it again and again !!

 

[english rose 47]

We are also family of 5 going in May 2 are 11 and one is 5 and it is definately a good dealWe wouldnever eat at all the nice restaurants without it. I say go for it!

 

[daughterminnie]

We're (7 adults and one child) headed to WDW the week after Thanksgiving I'm contemplating the dining plan BUT. . . we plan on spending two days at Universal Studios also. Therefore, we'd probably not use any DP credits on those days. Has anyone else purchased the dining plan and spent time away from WDW? Was the dining plan worth it? Or do you think paying OOP for all meals would be a better way to go?
Any thoughts?

 

[gigi1313]

we were in orlando for 11 nights last year and spent two of those days at universal (even took a room at RPR so we could get the front of the line passes... cheaper to take a room for the night than buy the book of passes!) and still managed to use up all our ddp credits and get more than our money's worth! we did do a 2TS restaurant when we went to HDDR, which helped... but we have never had a problem using all our credits! LOL!

 

[daughterminnie]

Thanks! I'm new to the DISboards but have been reading for the past few days straight (DH calls me addicted!) all about the dining plan. I really never looked into it and my travel agent didn't do a very good job explaining it. The more I'm reading, the more I'm thinking about doing it. I just worry about being "tied down" to eating at certain times and in certain places. We really like to just let the day dictate what we do and when we do it. Most times we end up ordering a pizza or grabbing a burger before crashing for the night. Since the parks close early when we visit, we hate to lose valuable park time sitting down to eat. Last trip, we only at 3 TS meals the whole trip! I have some time yet to make a decision. Thanks to all the posters for taking the time to help us all out!!

 

[sorul82?]

Here's my mini trip report from our trip in March and my thoughts about dining:

We decided at the last minute (beg of March) that our family of 5 could go to Disney for spring break Mar. 25-31, but we had to be on a tight budget. No Contemporary for us! Oh well, after getting over the sticker shock of the price of the park tickets and absolutely no great bargains (Disney needs to meet Target), I swallowed my bargain hunter pride and paid 99% retail and dropped $900 on 5 day base tickets at Wal-Mart. You really only wanted to know my thoughts on dining, right? It wouldn't make much sense without some background info. We stayed off sight, I know, bad, but we got a nice room for $68 a night! And at such a late planning date, there were no rooms available for a family of 5. Anyhow, the only other place to cut costs was food. So, being the great researcher, I gathered all the info for my thesis on Disney for Target clearance shoppers. I planned to follow all the tips about eating in your room, taking food to the parks, blah, blah, blah. This got really old after the first two days! Pop-Tarts, milk, juice, whatever in the room for breakfast was no problem. BUT, packing drinks, snacks, camera, ponchos, change of clothes made for a very heavy backpack. But still we were determined to not eat in the World. What? We're in MK for all of 30 minutes waiting to see Ariel and I'm already dropping $10 on bananas, muffins, and water. It's hard work power walking from the Dopey lot to the Grotto! Anyhow, we left MK for lunch in our room, sleep, swim before heading back to MK. Of course, as directed, we ate supper before returning, but what to eat? Fast food? No, we needed some serious nourishment for we had a Kingdom to conquer! But where do we eat? I'm impatient and nothing is quick in Kissimee, so we had the seafood buffet at our hotel. Ok, the worst $70 I've ever spent! But, we're still less than the $109 we would have spent for the dining plan, right? Uh, nope! Did I mention we got sucked into the force field of the ice cream cart? $15 more, but wait, that brings our total to $95 plus about $10 for breakfast and drinks, so $105! WOO HOO!! Well, we aren't finished. Instead of lugging so many drinks, we got the bright idea to fill our water bottles at the fountains. Have you ever tasted the water at MK? It's BAD! Ok, $6 for bottled water....what's that? $111??? Oh snap! Where did I go wrong? We haven't even figured gas into this equation! We used a whole tank(about $10/day) driving back and forth to the hotel in an effort to "save" money.

Ok, that was just the first day! We still gave a good effort, but really, unless you can eat fast food everyday, you will spend the money either with the mouse or without! We bought fruit, carrots, etc. but what more can you do in a hotel room? Our other off-site meals were $50 at Golden Coral and $40 at Fridays.

If I think about the numbers for adults, it doesn't seem worth it:
$24 x 2=$48 or so for character meal (tip and tax)
$8 x 2= $16 counter
$4 x 2= $8 snack
$36 x 2= $72 The plan would be $76 for 2 adults.
But, when you add three under age 9, then the plan is magical!
$14 character meal (tip and tax)
$4 counter
$4 snack
$22- double the the price of the plan, so $66 oop or $33 dp for 3 children.

So, what was the question again? Oh yeah, is the dining plan worth it for a family of 5 with three kids under 9? For us, it definitely would have been worth it! We would have spent $545 for 5 days of dining. We spent way more despite our cost cutting efforts. I haven't even mentioned the time we wasted and the big honkin' blister I got from those extra trips to the car! That same darn spot blistered again during game 2 of the Stanley Cup Finals. I went straight to the game from work and had to walk in my dress shoes OUCH!! Oh well, the Canes have the cup and I'm on

Sorry this was so long and a little off topic! I hope my babble helps the OP and others!!

 

[Nasus]

We used the DDP in May. It was wonderfull for us. I have three boys, 8,5, and 4. It is hard making ADRs and sticking to them. We were able to make a change while there. I was so intent on getting our money's worth by eating at nice restaurants that I didn't think about the time spent there or the kids being on perfect behavior while hot and cranky. We are going back for free dining in Sept and will be doing Chef Mickey's and LTT instead of LeCellier and Boma. We saved a lot of money, and didn't have to worry about having extra for food!
Susan

 

[gigi1313]

Thanks! I'm new to the DISboards but have been reading for the past few days straight (DH calls me addicted!) all about the dining plan. I really never looked into it and my travel agent didn't do a very good job explaining it. The more I'm reading, the more I'm thinking about doing it. I just worry about being "tied down" to eating at certain times and in certain places. We really like to just let the day dictate what we do and when we do it. Most times we end up ordering a pizza or grabbing a burger before crashing for the night. Since the parks close early when we visit, we hate to lose valuable park time sitting down to eat. Last trip, we only at 3 TS meals the whole trip! I have some time yet to make a decision. Thanks to all the posters for taking the time to help us all out!!

about that tied down feeling... i hear ya... dh especially hears ya... he hates that... but he loves the dining plan... it truly is flexible... and my suggestion to you is to eat your big TS meal early in the day... make most of your TS's breakfast, before the parks open... you won't waste precious park time (and i'm guessing if your kids are like mine at that age, they'll be up early anyway!) and you'll get to see lots of characters (which means no waiting in toon town or judge's tent, again, giving you more precious park touring time!)

or you can do what we did a lot of was make our TS for "brunch" time by having a snack in our room before heading out, hitting the park at emh opening, and then around 11am when we're all getting hot and tired and cranky, stopping for a TS meal in the nice air conditioning, again, visiting w/characters at the same time (there's that killing two birds w/one stone thing), reviewing the map and seeing what you've done and what you "MUST" do before leaving the park... it's a great way to relax, refuel and regroup...

then you can do what your family typically does (based on your post) and have your CS meal before falling in to bed!

even by having breakfast on the ddp, you still get bang for your buck... figuring each adult plan is $36 and breakfast is about $25 w/tax and tip; $3-4 for snack; $10 for CS... and each child is $11 w/breakfast @ $14 (gotta remember that tax and tip are included); $3-4 snack; $5 CS = $20... and one nice dinner on the ddp will put you way ahead of the game...

good luck whatever you decide... i know it's very overwhelming at first... and it truly is addicting!

 

[patsal]

We are pretty much the opposite, as far as eating thecharacter meal or any big meal for our breakfast--we just don't do big breakfast very much, so character breakfasts are a huge waste and the kids want to get to the park, even when they were little they preferred this. We do all TS at dinner and have never had the kids get too antsy. Based on this the DDP price for adult becomes a much better value. An example might be CP at MK--with tax and tip the total of the meal per person would be $34.86, a CS at MK Pinocchios for the pizza salad combo and drink as well as dessert plus tax is $13.70 and then snack somewhere around $4.00. So $53.00 for $37. is pretty good, and if I did TS at a non buffet then the savings are usually even greater. All of my family is now considered adult so a character meal OOP would be less likely at $140.00 for the four us. Paying $152 for the DDP is a no brainer for us--the CS and snack are essentially "free". In December even with DD considered a child we found that most TS meals were around $160.

 

[Natalya]

Does anyone have a link to the Disney site where they post the price of the DDP per person? I know this site lists it as 38/A 11/C but I find it odd that the Disney site doesn't have a price listing for it.


I have been crunching the numbers myself for my family. I went to the menus and picked out what I thought we would eat at each of the ADRs I made. I was very conservative...knowing my DH doesn't normally eat dessert and I am trying to watch my weight I opted out of the dessert choice except for a few extreme situations (that Chocolate Wave dessert caught my eye and would be something I would order to share with DH). My kids do not eat appetizers so I eliminated that option for them...although I did include dessert choices for them because they love dessert (ice cream specifically). So far it seems to be just as much to eat at our TS restaurants as we would pay for the DDP (and I didn't even include any counter service items).

It is looking to me like the DDP is a good option for my family...maybe you could do the same and crunch numbers for yours based on what your family would NORMALLY eat. In our case...we are big TS eaters and would eat at the same places regardless of whether we are on the DDP.. We like a good sit down meal every night so maybe that is what tipped the scales for our numbers.


I just finished the calculations and I'm coming out with a difference of $70. I would be paying $70 more for the DDP than OOP expenses at our TS restaurants. I'm thinking for 5 days the 4 of us would eat up more than $70 at CS places (don't know how much the counter service places are that we will eat at...they are going to be chosen "on a whim" but $14 a day sounds pretty reasonable if not more) so we plan to stick with "the Plan"


Also I forgot to mention that the calculations I made did not even include drinks...any drinks, not even soda. I omitted them because I didn't know if the drinks we will choose will be allowed on the DDP (sometimes we will all drink sodas but sometimes my kids my want a smoothie or milkshake or one of those glowing drinks at Coral Reef).

 

[gigi1313]

natalya, this may not help you, but we took most of our TS dinner desserts to-go and ate them either for "breakfast" in the room in the morning or as a late night snack

oh, and we were able to get shakes, smoothies and glow cubes on the ddp both times we used it (at LeC, CMs, SciFi and more)

 

[english rose 47]

I feel the same way if we weren't on ddp we would skip appetizers most times but desserts I'm not so sure. So the plan is definately great as we'll order what we want as opposed to price and the twins are thrilled that thay will be counted as adults and can order steak whenever they want. Luckily DGS would pick Mac & cheeeseat a 10 star restaurant if there is such a thing. We too are going off site one day and will just double up on T.S. another. Plan on doing a break down of actual cost vs. ddp cost afterwards.