How much more can Disney cut the DDP?? I won't do it again....

[Mad4Mickey]

When we take our DD and her family we pay for everything 100 % so we buy the DDP because of the buffets everynight. Our Granddaughter is 3 and makes about 2 trips a year with us , on those trips it is all about her so there is a ton of eating with Pooh and Mickey . When we are alone and taking DMIL we just use our TIW card .

I will say this we always leave with snacks to take with us because we just cant eat that much . Last trip we had 12 CS left over I went into the CS at SSR and just asked who I could pay for LOL . We bought a family of 5 lunch right before we hoped on the bus . I know what some will say we are not allowed to do that but again WE PAID for it . Never free with DVC so I didnt feel like I was cheating Disney out of anything .

We have DVC so NO FREE DDP for us ever .....

 

[wen8jr]

I think everyone has different ideas about what vacation means to them. Ours changes depending on where we are vacationing, how much time we have, how much money we want to spend, etc.

The first time we used the DDP I didn't think I'd like it at all. We didn't think TS would be ideal when touring parks and I thought ADR's would be inconvenient and I figured I'd hate being tied down, etc.

But we gave it a try and for us the DDP ended up being one of the biggest highlights of our trip! We are paying for it this trip too. No worrying about carrying cash, no worring about what you pick to eat, we are able to try new items without feeling guilty and frankly I was ready to rest my feet at the end of the day for dinner. For us it makes it an all inclusive vacation. We buy the plan, the money is spent and we enjoy. The price is in line with what we feel is acceptable, if it gets out of hand well then we'll pay oop and make different choices.

We do NOT eat 3 meals per day in real life...usually no breakfast, just a lite lunch (if any) and dinner...no snacking in between. But we are not what you would call small people. I use to weigh about 110 lbs, but those days are long long gone..I think that weight change for most women comes with stress, age and child birth and not necessarily what you eat...not sure what my hubby's excuse is.

Anyway, vacation is what you make it. I remember in my younger days we went to a local amusement park and I was such a tight wad we would pack a cooler and go back out to the car to eat. We camp a few times a year now and that is a lot of work... we cook, clean, etc. but love it. However, we go on vacations that I don't want to spend my time cooking, cleaning, shopping and worrying...this time it is a place away from the real world...Disney World.

 

[Evi]

I guess I'm not a big eater. I find there is plenty of food but I agree that the quality has gone down. I'm not a big dessert person so I do wish you could choose an app or a dessert. I've never had a problem getting a juice or a water and find staff to be overly nice. Not sure if its a value or not I buy it as a convenience. When I went with DN I payed the difference for them to be on adult dinning and it was well worth it they got to eat real food. I just asked wait staff to give them smaller portions and they did each time telling us if the girls wanted anything more of anything they have they would bring it out no questions asked. Sometimes the girls just wanted nuggets and that was ok but most of the time they ate adult food just little kid sized portions.

 

[sukhakuli]

That's really what it boils down to.

We don't worry about getting our money's worth out of the plan, but I know myself well enough to know that no matter how much I budget for dining I couldn't just ignore the menu prices. It is one thing to figure the cost of a dining plan (DxDDP for us) into the total package cost, but quite another to sit down and order a $3 iced tea and a $16 crab cake followed by a $35 piece of fish... I know I'd be drinking tap water and skipping the appetizers and balking at my light-eater middle child wanting to try "exotic" items off the adult menu when I know she'll eat about 1/3 of what she's served. Having the plan is freeing for us; I do enough math before we book to be reasonably sure we're making the right choice for the way we like to eat on vacation, and then I don't give a single thought to prices or value while we're actually at WDW.

This is us, exactly. I don't know why we are like this; we are not super cheap or people who are always trying to save a buck. I actually don't care if the dining plan costs us more than paying OOP, it "feels" free (we have FD for part of the trip). I hate when we go on vacation that I feel like I'm bleeding money all over. We totally share meals, skip meals, eat food at the hotel, etc etc just to save money. When we used to go to DL all the time, we'd stop by Zocalo (best CS ever) and buy one entree for the 5 of us and drink water. The kids would eat their portion, and dh and I would finish off what was left, and we did go hungry. I just couldn't allow myself to spend 50+ for one meal. I have never had a churro at DL. I have never had a pretzel. We only got popcorn when my dad was with us, and he bought it for everyone. It's crazy. I don't know why we do this (although we do have a weakness for Dole Whips and waffle bowl sundaes). I just see the price, times it by 5 and go I even bring instant coffee so I don't have to pay for coffee. DL even has decent espresso bars, and I still bring Starbucks Via.

So, the DDP is totally worth the extra money so we can go in to a restaurant and everyone gets their own meal, their own drink, and their own dessert. And I'll pay extra for the freedom to say to everyone: get whatever you want!! And then let's go buy T-shirts!! LOL

I do wish they had more customizable plans, though. Like, you can by a certain # of TS meals per person, and a certain # of Cs, and a certain # of snacks. Maybe they could have a base plan that if you buy the DP you have to have 1 TS, 1 CS and 1 snack per day per person, and then if you wanted to add say 3 TS meals and 5 snacks on top of that, you could do that. I worry that we are going to be limited with meals too much. The kids need to eat like every 2 hours because they are growing and eating a ton lately, and we could use an extra CS and extra snack per day.

 

[disneyholic family]

That's really what it boils down to.

We don't worry about getting our money's worth out of the plan, but I know myself well enough to know that no matter how much I budget for dining I couldn't just ignore the menu prices. It is one thing to figure the cost of a dining plan (DxDDP for us) into the total package cost, but quite another to sit down and order a $3 iced tea and a $16 crab cake followed by a $35 piece of fish... I know I'd be drinking tap water and skipping the appetizers and balking at my light-eater middle child wanting to try "exotic" items off the adult menu when I know she'll eat about 1/3 of what she's served. Having the plan is freeing for us; I do enough math before we book to be reasonably sure we're making the right choice for the way we like to eat on vacation, and then I don't give a single thought to prices or value while we're actually at WDW.

I think everyone has different ideas about what vacation means to them. Ours changes depending on where we are vacationing, how much time we have, how much money we want to spend, etc.

The first time we used the DDP I didn't think I'd like it at all. We didn't think TS would be ideal when touring parks and I thought ADR's would be inconvenient and I figured I'd hate being tied down, etc.

But we gave it a try and for us the DDP ended up being one of the biggest highlights of our trip! We are paying for it this trip too. No worrying about carrying cash, no worring about what you pick to eat, we are able to try new items without feeling guilty and frankly I was ready to rest my feet at the end of the day for dinner. For us it makes it an all inclusive vacation. We buy the plan, the money is spent and we enjoy. The price is in line with what we feel is acceptable, if it gets out of hand well then we'll pay oop and make different choices.

We do NOT eat 3 meals per day in real life...usually no breakfast, just a lite lunch (if any) and dinner...no snacking in between. But we are not what you would call small people. I use to weigh about 110 lbs, but those days are long long gone..I think that weight change for most women comes with stress, age and child birth and not necessarily what you eat...not sure what my hubby's excuse is.

Anyway, vacation is what you make it. I remember in my younger days we went to a local amusement park and I was such a tight wad we would pack a cooler and go back out to the car to eat. We camp a few times a year now and that is a lot of work... we cook, clean, etc. but love it. However, we go on vacations that I don't want to spend my time cooking, cleaning, shopping and worrying...this time it is a place away from the real world...Disney World.

This is us, exactly. I don't know why we are like this; we are not super cheap or people who are always trying to save a buck. I actually don't care if the dining plan costs us more than paying OOP, it "feels" free (we have FD for part of the trip). I hate when we go on vacation that I feel like I'm bleeding money all over. We totally share meals, skip meals, eat food at the hotel, etc etc just to save money. When we used to go to DL all the time, we'd stop by Zocalo (best CS ever) and buy one entree for the 5 of us and drink water. The kids would eat their portion, and dh and I would finish off what was left, and we did go hungry. I just couldn't allow myself to spend 50+ for one meal. I have never had a churro at DL. I have never had a pretzel. We only got popcorn when my dad was with us, and he bought it for everyone. It's crazy. I don't know why we do this (although we do have a weakness for Dole Whips and waffle bowl sundaes). I just see the price, times it by 5 and go I even bring instant coffee so I don't have to pay for coffee. DL even has decent espresso bars, and I still bring Starbucks Via.

So, the DDP is totally worth the extra money so we can go in to a restaurant and everyone gets their own meal, their own drink, and their own dessert. And I'll pay extra for the freedom to say to everyone: get whatever you want!! And then let's go buy T-shirts!! LOL

you all are my soul mates!!

i agree with every word!!

 

[KrazyKollector]

thank you for clarifying.

we had lots of credits left over.
we were 6 adults (DH, me, DD - 26 and her husband, DS - 24 and his wife)
we were there for 14 days and had DDP (that i bought - not free).

at the end each of us had 1 TS left - DS arrived late on the first day so we couldn't make it to our TS reservation that day - we never were able to make it up

at the end each of us had 2 CS left - we ate all the time, somehow we must have missed two meals

at the end each of us had 2 snack credits left - again, we ate snacks whenever we wanted.

i do not feel badly that we had credits leftover. We ate whenever we wanted to eat. We were never hungry. we ate whatever, whenever and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

i could sit down and figure out if we broke even or not (considering all those leftover credits). But i really don't care. The not having to take money out of my pocket (other than for tips) was wonderful. The fact that i actually paid for all of that is forgotten as i paid for it months ago. it's funny as i never prepaid anything in the past, but it works really well for me now and i'll do it again the next time we visit.
again, that $3.69 frozen coke is just not enjoyable for me when i pay out of pocket. It's a little quirk i have.

i suspect we did break even as we were eating pretty expensive food.
i might sit down and calculate it just for fun. But if i didn't break even, i would just consider it the cost of peace of mind.

We are going in December on the DDP-1 CS, 1 TS and one snack a day. One snack a day is not going to cover all the goodies I want to try!

They need a new dining plan, catering to people like me. We can call it the Suzi Snack Plan or SSP for short. On this plan you get one TS a day and 10 snacks.

Are you listening Disney?

On a more serious note, I am saddened to hear that they are removing some of the things that were a snack credit, like the cookie sandwich. That was something I was looking so forward to trying. I fear, that by the time we get there, they will not allow much at all as a snack. I sure hope not though!

When you go for a TS meal on the DDP, are you allowed any entree on the menu? I am hoping not to get stuck eating chicken and pasta all week and I want to try the fish at The Flying Fish. I decided we were paying OOP for CRT, so we can do a Signature meal. yyuuummm...

Oh, one more question, can you still GET an appetizer at dinner and pay for it OOP? Does everyone on the plan have to order a dinner? For example, there will be 3 A and 1 C. At a table service dinner place (not a buffet), could 2 people order dinner and the third person order an appetizer OOP and then share from the other two dinners?

 

[mickeysbestfriend]

different for everyone.

We have ben on the all inclusive plans and gone the extreme budget way and been satisfied with both. The problem with the all inclusive dining plan for us was that the trips became all about eating...eating....eating...three huge meals a day and you felt you had to 'run your butt off' just to keep from coming home 20 lbs heavier

Now for us it's about trying new places each trip and different menu items rather than filing the bellies...

 

[Colleen27]

On a more serious note, I am saddened to hear that they are removing some of the things that were a snack credit, like the cookie sandwich. That was something I was looking so forward to trying. I fear, that by the time we get there, they will not allow much at all as a snack. I sure hope not though!

When you go for a TS meal on the DDP, are you allowed any entree on the menu? I am hoping not to get stuck eating chicken and pasta all week and I want to try the fish at The Flying Fish. I decided we were paying OOP for CRT, so we can do a Signature meal. yyuuummm...

Oh, one more question, can you still GET an appetizer at dinner and pay for it OOP? Does everyone on the plan have to order a dinner? For example, there will be 3 A and 1 C. At a table service dinner place (not a buffet), could 2 people order dinner and the third person order an appetizer OOP and then share from the other two dinners?

I wouldn't worry about them significantly restricting snack credits. The cookie sandwich has been gray area for a long time, and it kind of makes sense to make it NOT a snack credit since one cookie is a snack and a scoop of ice cream is a snack... That sandwich was three snack credits' worth of goodies all put together and eligible to get with a single snack credit; I think that was simply too good to last.

There are no menu restrictions for dining plan guests. You can get any entree & dessert from the menu.

Yes, you can order fewer meals than diners and share. The person not ordering doesn't even have to order an appetizer if she doesn't want to; as long as you're all on the dining plan you are free to share your credits as you see fit (except at buffet/family style meals and Beaches & Cream, where people have reported being told they must all use a credit on the DDP).

 

[Eastern]

And I guess this is where I part company with the crowd that buys a dining plan because of the pre-paid "convenience". Many people sit on the other side of this fence, but as for me, pre-paying $1,200 is not worth the convenience of having my budget accounted for before we leave home if we end up eating $900 worth of food. "Convenience" does not balance out flushing several hundred dollars down the drain . At least, not for me.

I completely agree.

We used TIW last time and it was very relaxing compared to using the DDP plan. We all got what we wanted and cancelled a couple of TS reservations because we weren't hungry enough.

I thought it was all pretty convenient!

 

[princessSunshine]

My issue is with the kids meals! My kids are adventurous eaters and I felt awful with the choices in every single sit down restaurant. At buffets, they ate their full of regular food, but at the sit downs, they just didn't want the pasta, chicken tenders, hot dog, hamburgers, etc. They want smaller sized steaks, shrimp, crab legs, etc. I was really disappointed in this. I ended up a few times giving my meal to them to share and eating their meals

I know exactly how you feel - why couldn't the restaurants make plates with small steaks or pork chops or a few crab legs?!?! That's why we choose buffets, family style or search for restaurants with more on the kids menu (like Maya Grill - our first try there will be next Thursday. CAN'T WAIT)

FIVE DAYS UNTIL THE MAGIC

 

[papamouse1]

...When you go for a TS meal on the DDP, are you allowed any entree on the menu? I am hoping not to get stuck eating chicken and pasta all week and I want to try the fish at The Flying Fish. I decided we were paying OOP for CRT, so we can do a Signature meal. yyuuummm...

Oh, one more question, can you still GET an appetizer at dinner and pay for it OOP? Does everyone on the plan have to order a dinner? For example, there will be 3 A and 1 C. At a table service dinner place (not a buffet), could 2 people order dinner and the third person order an appetizer OOP and then share from the other two dinners?

For the most part this is true. There are some restaurants that limit what you can order off the menu on the DDP. We had a couple restaurants do this, but I only remember that at Planet Hollywood, they limited us on desserts (and not just the "dessert for 2" type items). I haven't ever verified any place restricting entrees though...

Also, my understanding is that right now at Via Napoli, they are restricting people from ordering entrees and splitting them... we are going to try this in December and see for ourselves. We have personally shared a few times at different places with no problem at all, though.

 

[3pletprincesses]

We were just there in August and were able to get the ice cream cookie sandwich at MSB for a snack credit. In fact, we did it more than once. Maybe we were just lucky or the person you encountered made a mistake?

We were there between August 23-30 and were able to get them too as snacks.

 

[crostorfer]

We were there between August 23-30 and were able to get them too as snacks.

There seems to be some CM confusion which leads to patron confusion as well. Lots of people come on here and state that CM's tell them that anything under $3 for a snack credit, but a Dole Whip Float is a snack credit and it's $4.25. If you are in the park and it has the little symbol next to it in the menu, it qualifies!

 

[Colleen27]

For the most part this is true. There are some restaurants that limit what you can order off the menu on the DDP. We had a couple restaurants do this, but I only remember that at Planet Hollywood, they limited us on desserts (and not just the "dessert for 2" type items). I haven't ever verified any place restricting entrees though...

Also, my understanding is that right now at Via Napoli, they are restricting people from ordering entrees and splitting them... we are going to try this in December and see for ourselves. We have personally shared a few times at different places with no problem at all, though.

To expand on this... The plan does tend to be more restrictive at non-Disney owned restaurants (most of the DTD restaurants and a handful of World Showcase restaurants). Planet Hollywood is the only place I've heard of restricting desserts and it is worth noting that all but one of their desserts are now noted as "serves two" on the menu and as such count as dessert for two DDP guests. But it is normal for non-Disney-owned restaurants to exclude non-alcoholic specialty drinks, while Disney-owned venues usually include them.

And Via Napoli is an odd case with the no sharing rule, probably because pizza is more of a "sharing" meal than plated entrees so they need a rule to discourage people from stretching 1 or 2 credits to feed the whole family. They have restrictive beverage rules too, just fountain soda or iced tea are available, no cappuccino or aqua fresca or bottled waters.

There seems to be some CM confusion which leads to patron confusion as well. Lots of people come on here and state that CM's tell them that anything under $3 for a snack credit, but a Dole Whip Float is a snack credit and it's $4.25. If you are in the park and it has the little symbol next to it in the menu, it qualifies!

But even that isn't absolute, since there are several participating locations that don't have their snacks marked. The kaki gori stand at Epcot, for example.

The $4 rule used to be pretty accurate a few years ago before they limited the use of snack credits for multi-serving packages, but several years' worth of price increases have rendered it obsolete.

When it comes to snacks if something isn't marked but seems like it should be included (around that $3-4 point and single serving), just ask. The menu boards seem to be better marked each time we go but they're still far from all-encompassing.

 

[TDC Nala]

I'm always interested in the thought that Disney might even consider serving things like shrimp, steak, calamari and crab legs at 1 credit restaurants for the price of the child's dining plan.

Some of the buffets do serve items like this, and kids and adults eat the same food here. And some restaurants, like Le Cellier, will serve a kid's steak.

as long as you're all on the dining plan you are free to share your credits as you see fit (except at buffet/family style meals and Beaches & Cream, where people have reported being told they must all use a credit on the DDP).

And Via Napoli. They are restricting dining plan guests from splitting pizzas. In fact there are reports that dining plan guests cannot pool credits anymore to buy larger pizzas. It's one credit per individual pizza now, and no sharing (such are the reports). Don't know if they will allow splitting of the non-pizza entrees.

 

[lin7]

The dining works differently for everyone. For us we always come in ahead cause if we had to pay out of pocket it would cost a lot more. We all order apps and all order entrees, we dont ever split our food. If we did we wouldnt come out feeling full. Just those 2 items alone if we were to pay out of pocket would be more costly to us. At 78 dollars a day we're basically paying 26 dollars per meal, and 52 if we're eating at a signature. Sometimes we skip dessert cause we already stuffed. But we also have 2 snacks a day per person on the plan. We dont ever have to worry about paying out of pocket for icecream, a soda, or even water.

Having it already prepaid for gives us peace of mind. Instead of going to a restaurant and complaining about how much a certain item is

 

[Colleen27]

I'm always interested in the thought that Disney might even consider serving things like shrimp, steak, calamari and crab legs at 1 credit restaurants for the price of the child's dining plan.

Some of the buffets do serve items like this, and kids and adults eat the same food here. And some restaurants, like Le Cellier, will serve a kid's steak.

Honestly, I don't think the dining plan is the sole driving force behind the bad kids meals. I think it is in no small part due to the fact that Disney is loathe to enforce any policy that might upset a guest. They won't do as "real world" restaurants often do and offer child-sized portions of adult entrees because that goes hand-in-hand with telling adults they cannot order off the kids' menu. A $10 child-sized portion of crab legs/cakes, shrimp, etc. would have many light-eating adults ordering it over the $30 adult portion, and rather than have servers in the position of refusing that request Disney simply doesn't offer those things. The buffets can do it because everyone pays based on age; the menu service locations can't because of the savings incentive.

For the most part the same is true at the Disneyland restaurants where there is no dining plan involved; there are a couple of restaurants that have one better option (as a handful of WDW restaurants do), but the kids' menus as a whole are the same dismal kid-food choices of pasta-pizza-hot-dog with grilled chicken and/or fish thrown in as a healthy choice.

 

[hbehrman]

The first time that DH and I had free dining it was great. So good that we had decided that we would pay for it on our next trip. However, the next year they eliminated the tip and the appetizer so we agreed then that we would never pay for it.

We did this as well and came to the same conclusion. Also, we would rather have the appetizer than the desert. The real deal breaker was when they made you pay tip. No more deal, even free it was not a deal for us as you paid rack rate for the room. So we utilized the room only discount offers, paid OOP for where and what we really wanted to eat, saved quite a bit of money, and didn't feel like we needed to eat our way around the WDW.

 

[dansyr2514]

We did this as well and came to the same conclusion. Also, we would rather have the appetizer than the desert. The real deal breaker was when they made you pay tip and taxes. No more deal, even free it was not a deal for us as you paid rack rate for the room. So we utilized the room only discount offers, paid OOP for where and what we really wanted to eat, saved quite a bit of money, and didn't feel like we needed to eat our way around the WDW.

They don't make you pay taxes..just tip

 

[sukhakuli]

We did this as well and came to the same conclusion. Also, we would rather have the appetizer than the desert. The real deal breaker was when they made you pay tip. No more deal, even free it was not a deal for us as you paid rack rate for the room. So we utilized the room only discount offers, paid OOP for where and what we really wanted to eat, saved quite a bit of money, and didn't feel like we needed to eat our way around the WDW.

I see this a lot on the Dis boards, and it makes me wonder. DDP would cost us over 100 per day, if we put our oldest as a kid still (we upgraded her for our trip to an adult, but I don't remember off hand what that makes our per day dining plan cost). What % off of what category resort saves more than that per day?