Not having DDP

[Tinkerbell]

2 adults two weeks restaurants such as

Chef de France
Coral reef
Narcoses
California grill
Polite pig
Morimoto

I’m looking at various option. I’m wondering if for two adults whether or not DDP is actually that cost effective.

[jdouds]

Hi it tends to be better if it’s a a family of 4 etc, but we have done it as a couple 3/4 times. We tend to have 3/4 signature meals as we don’t want a full meal each night, on the other nights we use quick service , ie blaze pizza etc

[Guest]

We went without a dining plan in September, we booked too late to get the free dining.

I didn’t try to do a full evaluation as to whether we would have been better if purchasing a plan. Although I think if we had wanted to do a few character meals or brunch’s, then with an alcoholic drink included now plus the snack credits, I think it might have provided value.

However what I liked about not being on a dining plan was the complete flexibility. Not having to count out my QS versus my TS and being able topics what we want off the menu.

[disney332]

Originally Posted by Tinkerbell

2 adults two weeks restaurants such as

Chef de France
Coral reef
Narcoses
California grill
Polite pig
Morimoto

I’m looking at various option. I’m wondering if for two adults whether or not DDP is actually that cost effective.

See more...

Depends on what you eat. A DDP strategy is to go for the most expensive...

The heat can over-ride this strategy, as hunger generally reduces when its hot.

Possibly an impossible question to answer with any real accuracy.

If i were not on DDP, i would definitely eat mostly QS or at the odd lounge.

Disney332

[scoobydooby]

For two do the maths. A room discount may be better or at least a break even and give you more dining flexibility. If me and my daughter go alone we go for a room discount. We will eat in the table service restaurants but I’d rather have access to starters, sharing mains and the like. For thee or four of us free dining tends to be the best ‘cost’ value. All the menus are on line though so the maths is easy enough to do.

[Tinkerbell]

Originally Posted by scoobydooby

For two do the maths. A room discount may be better or at least a break even and give you more dining flexibility. If me and my daughter go alone we go for a room discount. We will eat in the table service restaurants but I’d rather have access to starters, sharing mains and the like. For thee or four of us free dining tends to be the best ‘cost’ value. All the menus are on line though so the maths is easy enough to do.

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I just used an online calculator. I save $80 if I eat TS every day and a CS every day which TBH a i found in May that very often I was hungry enough for A TS everyday. Seriously considering not having it now

[vampiress88]

Originally Posted by Tinkerbell

I just used an online calculator. I save $80 if I eat TS every day and a CS every day which TBH a i found in May that very often I was hungry enough for A TS everyday. Seriously considering not having it now

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No idea what the online calculator is but I suppose it also depends on what you choose to eat.
Like my dinner vs my husbands when we go out his meal is nearly always double.

See Disney dinning for our family would never work.
When we were there in June it was so hot we ate less than we usually do.
We had cereal, snacks for lunch then a sit down dinner.

[orlandoamber]

We are two adults and did 7 days onsite with free DDP (paid to upgrade the free QS plan to full DDP) in September. In the food report in my signature you will see that we would have saved money even if we had bought the plan, as we do tend to choose expensive snacks, but we mainly just enjoyed the flexibility of having it regardless of the monetary factor as we tried some things we wouldn’t have otherwise due to not worrying about if we’d like it because we weren’t ‘paying’ as such. We didn’t always choose the most expensive options during table service or QS meals (in fact some of our QS meals would have been cheap OOP), but we did make use of the inclusion of alcohol.

From the options on your list, we ate at Narcoosees, California Grill (for brunch) and the Polite Pig. All were great

[Tinkerbell]

Originally Posted by vampiress88

No idea what the online calculator is but I suppose it also depends on what you choose to eat.
Like my dinner vs my husbands when we go out his meal is nearly always double.

See Disney dinning for our family would never work.
When we were there in June it was so hot we ate less than we usually do.
We had cereal, snacks for lunch then a sit down dinner.

See more...

There are websites where you can enter the different restaurants you want to eat in each day, and the quick service places. It calculates, based on an average meal cost, how much that dining would cost off plan, then the savings re DDP. Like most people it’s stated that DDP is better for three or more people.

[tonymc]

When we visited back in November, we purchased the DDP as we had booked far too late for free DDP. The main reason for booking the DDP was that for our first week we were trying to maximise our time in the Disney parks, so we reckoned that the benefits of not having to take a few hours out for evening meals were far outweighed by the convenience of eating on-site.

We had 6 nights-worth of DDP, and kept a tally of our “expenditure”.

With our TS credits, we ate at Crystal Palace, Chefs de France (twice), Narcoossees and Mama Melrose, with an alcoholic drink on most evenings.

On CS, we ate at Gaspeirilla Grill twice (watching the fireworks in the evening), Yak & Yeti Local, ABC Commissary, Be our Guest (L), and breakfast at ASMusic food court. As the EPCOT F&W festival was on, we kept quite a few snack credits and spent one lunchtime wandering around the World sampling the food.

Overall, I reckoned that we “saved” about $150, but also offset the cost of tips by declining housekeeping which gave us a $50 gift card on the two rooms we had booked.