How Much Can You Really Spend With Free Dining?

[formernyer]

Wow, my first internet proposal

and from another female

 

[karla63]

Taking 5 Cadet Girl Scouts June 07,we wanted to do our own cooking, but with this plan, why should we!! Now we don't need a room with a kitchen. Do they ever offer this free dining plan during the early part of summer or should we just plan on paying for it?

 

[MemoryMakers2669]

No, Karla, they don't offer any good deals at all during summer, early or mid. They don't have to really. You can get an Annual Pass hotel discount, but that is usually it.

 

[formernyer]

Taking 5 Cadet Girl Scouts June 07,we wanted to do our own cooking, but with this plan, why should we!! Now we don't need a room with a kitchen. Do they ever offer this free dining plan during the early part of summer or should we just plan on paying for it?

The latter part of August and all of September are very unpopular months for Disney for two reasons:

(1) It's sometimes unbearably hot and humid.

(2) Depending on what part of the country you live in, school starts sometime between the second week of August and the first week of September. People tend to not want to pull their kids out of school for a week right after it starts, so vacations aren't very popular that time of year.

 

[gigi1313]

and, most important of all, it's HURRICANE SEASON!

 

[MemoryMakers2669]

and, most important of all, it's HURRICANE SEASON!

Don't let this scare you though. Hurricane Season is what, 120 long and the Disney area is hit maybe 1 or 2 times, so really a 1-2% chance. Worth the risk for Free Dining to me!

 

[disneyjunkie]

My son and I used the dining plan last April and we will be using it again this June.(he's 14)

I pulled out my receipts from last year to get an idea of how much our meals cost.

Teppanyaki lunch $75.04 - my son had a dessert, I was too full.
Crystal Palace breakfast $43.72
Whispering Canyon Café dinner $76.36 skillet, wings and nachos- no dessert- we were too full.
Ohana dinner $72.85
Cape May Café dinner $60.70- paid $12.77 OOP for crab legs

I can't find the receipts for the following:
Sci Fi lunch
Chef Mickey's dinner
Rose and Crown dinner

I love the dining plan. I don't worry about maxing out the plan. We order what we know we'll eat and still out ahead.

 

[karla63]

I know about the hurricane season. used to live in Kissimme for 12 years (had annual passes for 10), but have to go with the school schedules

thanks

Karla

 

[musicotb]

for DBF and I, this is our first REAL vacation (i.e.: not visiting our families). I cook most nights, we both go to school full time, he works full time, and I work part time. We very rarely go out to eat, and when we do, it's to fast food, so we already knew we wanted to have a lot of nice meals that we can't make for ourselves and won't go out for while we're home. And even if we do go out, we can never afford to get dessert or an appetizer. SO, when we found out about the DDP, we did some research on the costs of food (see sample menus on this site, or allears.net) and it was VERY quickly obvious to us the DDP was the way to go! $38/day was way under what we would spend.
That said, we don't have kids, so I'm not sure how that all works out. But for just adults, I say go for it, especially if you're normally on a REALLY tight budget (like us) and this is your one opportunity to splurge. And I am in LOVE with the idea of not being financially stressed out and picking what I'm going to order based on what it will cost! How great is that?!?!?!? Anyway, we're excited!

 

[NYMomof4]

Last year we spent $1776 w/free dining for 2 adults, 1jr, and 2 children. We had 12 snack credits left at the end of the 7 days and we ate all over the place! Some of the restaurants: LeCellier, Kona Cafe, 50's Prime Time, Sci-Fi, GF Cafe, CRT, Yachtsman and Concourse. All were the dinners except Sci-Fi. It was a LOT of food!

 

[DISUNC]

I never said it didn't "work." In fact, my exact quote was, "There is no way in heck I can justify spending $114 a day on meals for myself and two kids. Sure we'd eat more than $114/day on the plan, but we could eat a LOT cheaper than that if didn't splurge on fancy TS meals and snacks all the time."

In a strictly dollar and cents analysis, the DDP can work even at $38/day for the pre-teens. However, (and this is a big however) most people who travel to Disney would not dine at an on-site TS restaurant every day, and even if they did, they would most likely be ordering kid's meals for their 10 and 11 year-olds.

For many people who frequent this board the $37.99/day for pre-teens is well worth it, but for the general population I don't think it is. The demographics of the DISboard veterans seems to be somewhat outside of the norm. Many of the people who post here seem to be very affluent...much more so than you would find if you took a random sample of Disney guests. Many of the people who post on this board would be booking ADRs at fancy TS restaurants even if they had to pay OOP. Keep in mind that most of the guests at Disney probably never log into this site, but they are all welcome to purchase the DDP. For the general population (middle and lower middle class families who are lucky to make one trip to disney EVER), $38/day for a child is WAY too much money!

I agree 100% with formernyer! For adults, this plan is great! For children 10 and under, this program is great! For FREE this is even better. But for those preteens (who eat like birds) then no, $38.00 a day is way too much. This is the one kink in the program that Disney has yet to work out.
Last year the Child program was up to age 12. Then in May05 they rolled it back to 10 years of age.

 

[mtpalmer]

There are alot of good answers here..for me DDP is worth not worrying about a food budget, looking for the cheapest meals, figuring out tax and tip... and with my picky DS4 and DS9 if they only ate one or two bites it was nice to know my money wasnt completely wasted...the chance to go to a character meal every day was a nice plus something if I had to budget for I would not have done...hope you get your answer!

 

[cdntourguide]

I did a spreedsheet on the TS and CS meals I am planning on having over 20 days in Sept.

Average price for TS was $42.00 (includes 7 character breaksfasts/dinners)
Average price for CS was $17.00 (includes 5 meals at Cosmic Rays for Rib/Chicken combo which is $19.00 when you add drink and dessert and 2 lunches at Pepper Market $27.00each)
Snack was $3.50 (price of a Toll House Ice Cream Sandwich)

Average Price ber day for 1TS,1CS, 1 snack = $62.50 (includes tax&gratuities where applicable)
cost per day $38.50

Savings per day = $24.00

If I did less character breakfast/dinners, and had waffle cones instead of Ice Cream sandwiches, the daily average savings would be even higher.

I think with anything that one purchases, you have to weigh the pros and cons and decide for yourself whether it is a bargain or not.

I have decided that for me the DDP is definitely a bargain: especially since it is free during my September trip. Best of all I was able to double the length of my reservation at POP since the dining plan was free, and still stay within the budget I set for myself.

 

[calgarygary]

To us (family of 6 - all adults according to Disney) the real value of the plan wasn't in the dollars we saved but in the restaurants we experienced and in the attitude I had. We normally only do 1 TS a trip but using the DP got to a TS almost everyday. More valuable though, was the kids didn't have to share or feel guilty about getting a special drink. We were saving enough on the plan that whenever someone asked for something during a meal, including my eldest wanting martinis, I was smiling and saying sure go for it. The smile always seemed to broaden though when the bill arrived and I was feeding 6 for maybe $40.

 

[cherokeemamma]

Hi...Just want to add in my two cents...
Our family went last year during free dining 2 adults, 1 junior, 1 child and I saved all of our receipts...If we had paid OOP our total would have been over $1800. for 10 days. We definately can not afford that. Like Calgarygary stated...it wasn't so much the money but the attitude the DDP allows you to have. Our money is very tight and there is no way we would eat at TS everyday and we would not be able to allow our children to get the "extras". We always have to monitor what we eat when dining out because of budget.
The DDP eliminated that constant stress of adding money to see if we can do it. Not to mention being able to say..."eat whatever you want!!!" We had a blast eating at so many rest. and having the freedom and peace of mind not to worry about money was great and it just enhanced the WDW experience. I will always purchase the DDP.


And now with the added snack options. I LOVE IT!!!