TheOneWithTheTriplets
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2018
I'm in the early stages of planning a trip for next February, so plenty of time, but I feel like the decision of whether or not to do the DDP would vastly change the experience for us. I'd like to hear your perspective.
We'll be two adults and three 5 year old girls. It will be our first family trip and likely the only one we'll take for several years. We're looking at 9 days, 8 nights, and the kids LOVE characters.
If we go OOP, we'd eat mostly QS, ordering 3 adul meals for the 5 of us, budgeting for a coffee a day for the adults and an ice cream a day for the kids. We'd bring dry goods for other snacks, adults would have water or bring in soda. There would be a couple of character meals, maybe one Fab 5 and one princess. This would land us significantly cheaper than the DDP.
If we go on the DDP, we would do it up on the character/themed meals: Tusker w/ ROL, Hollywood and Vine w/ Fantasmic, Crystal Palace, Akershus, CRT, Sci Fi, and 50s Prime Time as our TS. Because of the expense of those meals and how (comparatively) cheap the kid meal plan price is, we'd definitely save money compared to OOP, even if we ended up leaving QS or snacks on the table. We'd probably still only do 3-4 QS each time we did those meals, but we'd be less stingy with the snacks since we have the credits, everyone would be having drinks with meals instead of water, etc.
On the DDP, we'd do most of our TS for lunch as our mid-day rest in lieu of heading back to the resort. That would give the girls enough down time to reset for an afternoon of touring. With that kind of a schedule, we would hopefully be able to make it to the night entertainment at each park before the girls turn into pumpkins (strict 7:30 bed time around here normally).
OOP, we'd be more likely to tour straight through, with short meal breaks, until the girls get too tired. It also means more time in longer, mid-day lines since we're not taking that break for TS.
I'm willing to spend the money for the DDP if it's actually going to be a better experience. Do you think mid-day character meals are going to feel like a nice break, a respite from the crowds? Or, are 5 year olds going to want to scarf chicken nuggets and get back to rides? Is it going to feel like all of the TS time is just wasted touring time, especially since my kids can't hang later at night? Then again, it's not like the break is just a boring, adult restaurant meal. It's Cinderella! Daisy! Pooh! Milkshakes at lunch! I know a lot of it is personality, but I don't know how to factor in the "Disney Magic" of it all. Are they going suddenly double their stamina based on pure adrenaline? Or, with a 9 day trip, are we going to want the character time to regroup and rest?
We'll be two adults and three 5 year old girls. It will be our first family trip and likely the only one we'll take for several years. We're looking at 9 days, 8 nights, and the kids LOVE characters.
If we go OOP, we'd eat mostly QS, ordering 3 adul meals for the 5 of us, budgeting for a coffee a day for the adults and an ice cream a day for the kids. We'd bring dry goods for other snacks, adults would have water or bring in soda. There would be a couple of character meals, maybe one Fab 5 and one princess. This would land us significantly cheaper than the DDP.
If we go on the DDP, we would do it up on the character/themed meals: Tusker w/ ROL, Hollywood and Vine w/ Fantasmic, Crystal Palace, Akershus, CRT, Sci Fi, and 50s Prime Time as our TS. Because of the expense of those meals and how (comparatively) cheap the kid meal plan price is, we'd definitely save money compared to OOP, even if we ended up leaving QS or snacks on the table. We'd probably still only do 3-4 QS each time we did those meals, but we'd be less stingy with the snacks since we have the credits, everyone would be having drinks with meals instead of water, etc.
On the DDP, we'd do most of our TS for lunch as our mid-day rest in lieu of heading back to the resort. That would give the girls enough down time to reset for an afternoon of touring. With that kind of a schedule, we would hopefully be able to make it to the night entertainment at each park before the girls turn into pumpkins (strict 7:30 bed time around here normally).
OOP, we'd be more likely to tour straight through, with short meal breaks, until the girls get too tired. It also means more time in longer, mid-day lines since we're not taking that break for TS.
I'm willing to spend the money for the DDP if it's actually going to be a better experience. Do you think mid-day character meals are going to feel like a nice break, a respite from the crowds? Or, are 5 year olds going to want to scarf chicken nuggets and get back to rides? Is it going to feel like all of the TS time is just wasted touring time, especially since my kids can't hang later at night? Then again, it's not like the break is just a boring, adult restaurant meal. It's Cinderella! Daisy! Pooh! Milkshakes at lunch! I know a lot of it is personality, but I don't know how to factor in the "Disney Magic" of it all. Are they going suddenly double their stamina based on pure adrenaline? Or, with a 9 day trip, are we going to want the character time to regroup and rest?