Buying the dining plan?

[Daisy2015]

Hi,

We're staying on site via renting DVC points for the first time this December - 2 adults. I've always discarded the free DDP offer as for 2 adults it isn't as 'free' as if you have more people in the room but...

I read the other day that buying the DDP is only £39 a day / person? This seems a lot cheaper than the dollar price at the minute and would also 'fix' our costs against any further changes (up or down at least we'd know where we are). Is it really only £39?

We've definitely booked BOG dinner and the Fantasmic dining package at Mama Melrose. We also like the Mexican where you can watch the fireworks over the lake for TS. I've booked a BOG for lunch but not sure if we will keep or cancel that. That's my 'must do' down but we'd probably grab a CS a day at lunch and usually a snack of some sort. DH likes those Starbucks strawberry things and you do need an icecream... We're happy to eat at other Disney TS but I'm reluctant to book too many in advance (first two weeks of December staying in SSR).

With this in mind... do you think it's worth buying the dining plan? Will we find somewhere to eat if we book our meals the day before? I know it won't be BOG etc but as it's just two of us is there somewhere?

Thanks!

[Elise79]

If you have rented DVC points then you have to book the DDP through the member who you have rented from and pay in Dollars so you don't avoid the bad rate.

I have never made the DDP pay if we were to buy it.

[twilightxgalaxy]

The QSDP is £28.99pp per day, the DDP is £41.99pp per day.

I imagine December will be quite busy so not sure on TS availability, but I imagine with only 2 of you that you may be ok Have a look at some of the menus to see the cost paying OOP instead.

Edit: Forgot that you had to pay DDP in $ when renting points.

[bighal]

I have just looked at the cost for the DDP and it's $63.70 per person per night and as you are staying on points you have to pay in $$ . At a $1.3 exchange rate it works out at £49 per person per night!
We have often looked at the DDP as we own DVC and it never works out as a good buy!

[sha9]

I had thought about buying it for our 3 night DVC stay but decided against it. We revisited it the other day then decided not to bother given the exchange rate. Because you need to pay for it in dollars you'll be no better off.

[Dazed]

We rented points at Grand Floridian and paid for the DDP. I had my reasons (the main one being that I had told DH we had DDP for the entire trip and forgot about the DVC stay so quickly added it, the other main reason being that I like to have all our food/drinks paid for before we go so we can just relax and eat where we want onsite).

With hindsight, it wasn't 'worth' it. We probably nearly covered the costs just about, as I booked Character meals and BOG, but we didn't use all the snacks (17 left over) or the QS meals (9 left over) and we still felt like we ate more than we needed/wanted and refused nearly every dessert included with our meals.

Check the menus for where you would like to eat and work out a rough price to see if you can make it work but my experience is that it isn't good value to pay for DDP.

[Shooby doo]

To give you an idea the basic break down of the meals is QS $18 & TS $40 so that's basically what you have to spend to make it work, as far as TS unless you have steak at every meal or buffets you will be cheaper just paying OOP. Some forums recommend putting the equivalent in a separate pot & seeing how much you have left at the end of your stay.
We have considered it a few times but just can't get it to work.
SD

[Daisy2015]

Thanks all... I think I might out of pocket sounds like the way forward. DH especially prefers starters to dessert so I guess a lot would get wasted. The DDP for sale in pounds seems like a fairly good deal compared to dollars though!

[DIBBadmin]

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