Is Disney Dining Plan all its cracked up to be?

[halloweenbaby2]

For us 2A 2C the DDP has made our memorable Disney holidays more memorable - we love watching our children interact with characters ( and lively cast members ) without having to wait ages in the scorching heat as we have to go in August.
Food cost's are taken care off before we go so helps with budgeting. As a family when on holiday we always like to sit down to a meal together - so DDP allows us to do that without having to watch the pennies.
We find going to various different restaurants as much part of our holiday as hitting the parks and have had some fantastic experiences by doing so.

My children will be 10 & 8 when we go and I've even upgraded our youngest to the adult DDP just so that there is greater menu variety. I originally booked POR with QS for this year but a family decision was made that we didn't want to miss out on the many TS adventures we have as its an important part of our holiday.

With teens it will save you a fortune on food costs even if you don't want to do character meals.

[blades]

Another one here who would prefer to have a starter rather than a desert

[Mazascouser]

If you have teenagers your best bet is QSDP, they can eat as and when they want. If you want to book a family meal then go to Disney springs. I went with a teen and we found we ate at different times. Me and my mum breakfast between 8 and 9, daughter breakfast any time after 10. The only meal time we did all agree on was 6/7pm dinner.

[YorkshireT]

Nothing is free. You will have paid more for the room and tickets.

Having said that, they've had some excellent deals on historically for British guests with discounted room and free dining plan- unheard of for US guests. OKW and SSR were often great deals. I had one myself in 2016.

Expectation is these deals may come to an end or be getting much more expensive.

So in summary, if you have got free dining plan and a decent deal, that is good as you won't have to spend much more on food. Tips stack up though if you have table service.

A separate question is whether DDP is worth it if you have to pay for it. If you'd asked that question 10 years ago, answer would have been yes. Initially you got starter, main, dessert and tip included all at a good price.

Unfortunately the dining plan has since badly damaged dining at Disney. First, it led to an artificial inflation in menu prices for cash guests, so people buying dining plan thought they were getting great value.

Next it's led to a reduction in quality. Many of the better value/ quality items on the menu have been removed or dumbed down as Disney didn't want to keep handing them out on dining plan. See for example Surf and Turf at Narcoosees. I could give many examples.

The price of dining plan has crept up so much it is generally now only worth it if you always get the most expensive items on the menu and go to a lot of buffets. Then you may just about break even or make a very modest saving. But in reality people wouldn't always get the most expensive item, they may not necessarily always have a dessert etc.

What this means is bizarrely for a pre pay loyalty scheme where you are agreeing to give all your money to one provider of food up front, is rather than getting a good discount, people are often paying more for the privilege.

This is virtually unique to Disney, and quite a feat by their marketing department.

For example, we save about £500 a week not getting DDP. Try this calculator, albeit the cost is slightly less for UK buyers with current exchange rate as they have a sterling price - distripplanner.com . Try and be realistic and not over the top in what you'd buy.

It gets decidedly worse value when your kids hit 10 as you have (no choice) to then buy them adult dining plan. My 11 and 14 year olds would still eat from the kids menu when paying OOP (they say aged 9 and under but most places allow it) so buying them adult dining plans would be a lot more money, and you have no choice. There's also an issue of (because you've paid for the adult plan) giving kids huge adult meals at 10 years old, the issue made worse by now paying for speciality shakes X2 per day because they can't have the alcohol it now includes. The calorific intake can be massive for a 10 year old. Yes you can use the credits for kids meals, allow no shakes etc, but you are throwing a lot of money away you have no choice but to spend if you buy the DDP.

Often you will hear people say 'its convenient not to have to worry' but if it's costing you money not to have to worry about probably spending less, it's really a fictitious worry and fictitious convenience.

Also what is more convenient than scanning your magic band to pay, and now you can even keep track of spending on MDE?

Seasoned Disney travellers, DVC owners, according to polls I've seen only pay for DDP in less than a quarter of cases because they know the value is not there.

So my conclusion- free dining plan as long as the overall deal is good, is great, I really enjoyed it in 2016 because I got a great overall deal. But my kids ate way too much and I was only there for 7 nights so we let it slide.

Thinking of paying for DDP though? I'd think very hard indeed and do the maths.

[Shooby doo]

I haven't read all 5 pages but my thoughts:
On your family dynamic Free dining is probably worth it, I would disagree that it saves a fortune though, the free nights offer, in some cases was better value. Do we spend extra, yes because we aren't really Dessert people & are usually tempted by the starters so the "dessert" portion of DDP is neither here nor there for us. We have a week's Free DDP this year, a "saving" of £700 but the 14 day Ultimates dropped £50/person once the offer finished plus the free nights offer started- we would have about broke even but, & this adds to YT's point, we are now eating on-site for 7 days, where in all likelihood it may have been 1 or 2 nights & it's a whole lot cheaper to eat off-site!
SD

[Scaramouche]

Every single time I have used the QSDP and this time with the DDP I have saved money, because the day free dining is released, the hotel prices have dropped a bit. So yes Worth it for us

[Plato]

We travel with 3 older teens and for us it is perfect, as now at this age it means they have more freedom.

We have done off site in a villa, but the freedom for the teens (and us) staying on site and knowing they have their magic bands to buy a meal etc..means they have have so much more freedom around the parks and the free transport is also a massive plus when on site.

We all pre-agree the TS restaurants we want to eat in and tend to book them either early or late, rather than lunchtime, so at least we have a deadline to meet up and compare plans.

We often have favourite signature meals and this uses the TS credits in a more efficient way for us, as we don't always want a QS and TS every day.

[Bartman]

Thank you all again for your replies, lots of great information and insight. I do love to plan a Disney holiday and this is giving me something else to plan.