No DDP worries

[Littlelufs32]

We have the same dilema. We are a family of 6 though and staying for 16 nights.
The thought of spending around £4500 on food is not very appealing! We are staying in a suite at Art of Animation and I believe they have a fridge so we could make sandwiches, snacks etc but I feel a bit nervy about paying out of pocket after always having the ddp.

[babbymint]

Originally Posted by Moorlandman

£10pp for Breakfast
£15pp for lunch
£20pp for evening meal
£5pp snacks

1 mickey ice cream is £5!

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We would not have that much, we would skip either lunch or breakfast, but if you go to a sitdown, the evening meal is likely to be more like £30-35

[vegboatride]

This will be our first time without free dining, we are a family of four.
I plan to do an instacart / garden grocer delivery for breakfast items, drinks, snacks and maybe even lunch options.
We will probably buy two resort mugs between the four of us, as we’re not massive soda drinkers but do spend time at the pool.
We are going to try out some of the “cheaper” restaurants like Ale and compass, the wave, spice road table and homecomin’ and we will share mains and probably not bother with desserts.
There are lots of quick service that we enjoy such as blaze, delux burger and tangerine cafe which are large enough to split three mains between four
I’m looking forward to trying it without dining the plan which is always too much food and I’m hoping I’ll be hungry enough for all the delicious looking snacks. 😋

[nolypops83]

Quick and easy ways to cut costs.

Eating breakfast in your room - buy some groceries from Amazon Prime Now or Instacart and get fruit, yoghurt, pastries, cereal and milk (or whatever you might eat) and some cutlery and bowls. You can even get snacks to take to the park, then you can buy the odd dole whip to share.

Take refillable water bottles and some robinsons squash'd mini bottles in your park bag. Lots of onsite places have specific dispensers for filtered water to go in bottles. Disney are trying to be more environmentally friendly.

Share snacks and meals or eat kids meals.

Skip table service meals. There are loads of really nice counter service places and mobile ordering is available everywhere.

[nolypops83]

Also, if you like to drink alcohol then order some for the room with your shopping. You can have pre dinner drinks or a nightcap at the resort rather than out and about. Always nice to have a cold beer or chilled glass of white waiting for you after a long park day. You can also bring your own drinks (alcohol or soft) to the resort pool, just no glass containers.

[sheluk]

Not sure how cost effective it would be for you but if you could move the reservation to Saratoga or OKW, they have more kitchen facilities due to their DVC nature. Moderates may have enough though.

We tended to have breakfast in the room other than Garden Grille. And generally brought fruit, snacks, water (in insulated bottles) so we only really bought / shared meals.

Then we just did the Table Service places we really wanted to.

Bought the Landrys card to use at Yak n Yeti.

And did a few trips to the supermarket (which was a treat in itself - love an American supermarket).

We also have off site restaurants that we love and have to visit and are very often cheaper.

[Mr Andy]

It really depends.

When I went with my partner, we just had cereal/coffee in the hotel room then lunch would split a QS meal (anything from $10-20) and get an afternoon snack as a treat ($5-8). That would be more than enough to keep us going until a nice evening meal which usually cost about $50-70 for both of us. So per day I would say we spent about $50 each when you include other random bits like cocktails etc - we usually just drink iced water when in the parks though.

We were only in Disney for 10 days, but I don't think I spent more than $500 on food and drinks and I never went hungry.

[gjdjud]

I’m going to budget $200 a day for Disney, 2 adults, 2 kids for our 5 nights onsite. I’m not too worried about table service meals this time around and will be concentrating on maximising our onsite time so it will be quick service mainly with snacks.

The cost for the QSDP was £41.99 per day when it was last available. It’s very easy to spend less than that per day with the odd shared lunch and snacks, breakfast in the room etc. That’s why I’m confident in my $50pp per day.

[myaquarium]

How times have changed from the 90s early noughties.
Disney dining really changed so many people’s eating habits including ours.
We use to buy cereal and milk leaving the milk in our polystyrene ice box full of vended ice.
Buy snacks for the day. We would have one main meal in the day. A treat if it was at a Disney restaurant. And then share a pizza or get a subway for the other meal.
I can remember leaving typhoon lagoon at dinner time jumping in my car to the Hess garage around the corner to buy a £5 family pizza and four dollar hotdogs to bring back in the water park.
We left many parks to go to pan era bread etc before heading back. Those were the days of real planning even coupon cutting.
Madness but loved it. And I can see it coming back for us if ddp does not return.

[YorkshireT]

We don’t spend $200 a day usually, we can do but it’s not daily.

We have cereal in room- we couldn’t eat fried or sweet stuff every morning.

We often go back to the room for lunch. Or take some sandwiches out, we can only eat one ‘unhealthy’ meal a day usually.

We sometimes go quick serve on an evening.

We buy in a fridge full of shopping often via Instacart as we arrive.

We buy refillable mugs and stock up with water and Gatorade etc from Instacart.

We spend often $100 - $150 a day for 4 including the shopping we got in. This includes a few coffees, snacks etc when out and about.

For us we are not doing it to save cash, we just dislike tearing around to meet ADRs every night and the kids would rather get quick serve most nights, and for health reasons.

I’ve done DDP before but it’s not good for the waistline for two whole weeks.