Is it worth paying for the DDP?

[Princess Ariel]

I’m debating this at the moment too...honestly my head hurts trying to work it all out at the moment lol 😂

[PumpkinCupcake]

Originally Posted by Princess Ariel

I’m debating this at the moment too...honestly my head hurts trying to work it all out at the moment lol 😂

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We went last year for 7 days, which is the same length of time as our next trip. I have booked my ADRs already; some of which are the same as last years. I made an excel sheet this week and noted down the price of everything we ate last year (thank god im one of those people who takes photos of their food!) and then did the same for the rough costs of what we’ll choose to eat at this years ADRs. It looks like it’s going to be cheaper to add the dining plan for us! As we’re going to be celebrating our first wedding anniversary we’ll likely be having quite a few drinks, and we love to eat and snack 😁

[PumpkinCupcake]

Originally Posted by Emmymouse

I think you've probably had a lot of answers along the same lines, but I thought I'd give my personal experience because we get DDP every time. We've paid for it once (Deluxe), had it free once (upgraded to DDP, 1TS & 1QS) and have booked for September with free DDP (upgraded to DDP again).

To us, it's absolutely worth it. The top end was maybe a bit too much food (but this was back when it was like a three course meal 2x a day, I think it's reduced a bit now), but we really love to have a sit down meal every night. We do tend to have a cocktail with dinner, but we don't drink any other alcohol. We also do look for best value - we'll order the most expensive thing on the menu because we don't have dietary restrictions. I've always calculated what we would have spent out of pocket vs what we did spend on DDP and we always come out tops, even when we paid full price for it.

We also enjoy the peace of mind, I don't have to think about keeping money aside for meals, I know the cash I've got I can just use for merchandise etc.

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Thank you for your feedback! I definitely think you’re right. We talked about it and I don’t think we want the guilt of picking an expensive dish on the menu if we were paying it at the end of each meal. I think I prefer to live in denial haha

[Guest]

We are a party of two adults. I didn’t qualify for free dining in September last year and we chose to pay cash. We liked the freedom that paying cash meant, in terms of where we could eat and what we could choose off the menu. On the other hand, we didn’t feel like we could justify character meals and I do like to do a couple.

I am booked for December, I have a purchased dining plan on my booking at the moment. I was thinking of cancelling it, so being in lockdown with too much time on my hands I spent a bit of time costing it all out.

I had done a plan of where I would use the credits if on the dining plan and then I looked up all the menus and costed up what we might eat at those places. I also added on the cost of two refillable mugs and average cost of snacks. I didn’t include many desserts as we tend not to eat them. It came out pretty close to the cost of the dining plan, with the dining plan being a bit cheaper and if I had desserts and alcoholic drinks the dining plan would be a fair bit cheaper.

I then, in acknowledgement of the fact that we would make different choices if not on the dining plan, did a whole new dining itinerary and costed that out too. I did include some of the more expensive places as we wouldn’t completely deprive ourselves. This was the cheapest option still, but not by very much,

So to conclude I think that we will go ahead with the purchased dining plan, the other advantage of that is having it all paid for in advance as well.

[PumpkinCupcake]

Originally Posted by Claudette

We are a party of two adults. I didn’t qualify for free dining in September last year and we chose to pay cash. We liked the freedom that paying cash meant, in terms of where we could eat and what we could choose off the menu. On the other hand, we didn’t feel like we could justify character meals and I do like to do a couple.

I am booked for December, I have a purchased dining plan on my booking at the moment. I was thinking of cancelling it, so being in lockdown with too much time on my hands I spent a bit of time costing it all out.

I had done a plan of where I would use the credits if on the dining plan and then I looked up all the menus and costed up what we might eat at those places. I also added on the cost of two refillable mugs and average cost of snacks. I didn’t include many desserts as we tend not to eat them. It came out pretty close to the cost of the dining plan, with the dining plan being a bit cheaper and if I had desserts and alcoholic drinks the dining plan would be a fair bit cheaper.

I then, in acknowledgement of the fact that we would make different choices if not on the dining plan, did a whole new dining itinerary and costed that out too. I did include some of the more expensive places as we wouldn’t completely deprive ourselves. This was the cheapest option still, but not by very much,

So to conclude I think that we will go ahead with the purchased dining plan, the other advantage of that is having it all paid for in advance as well.

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Sounds very similar to what we did too. We like to have a drink with our dinner whilst on holiday, but as some of the ADRs we booked are breakfast and I don’t know how we’ll be feeling, I put the alcohol costs in a separate column so I could make sure it wasn’t the only reason the plan worked out for us. We’re also hit and miss with dessert, the portions are so big that sometimes we just can’t fit it in!

[Scaramouche]

We wouldn’t be without it we will pay for it if free dining ends.

[Guest]

We used to recommend it to everyone but found the more we go the less interested we are in “eating at Disney” given the value/quality being better elsewhere. However lots of reasons why it would be a good idea 1) easier to plan money, 2) you WILL be well fed, 3) the experience of eating at all the themed restaurants and 4) freedom with drinks/snacks etc.

Best QS location... Blaze Pizza! Incredible value for QS credit but also wins on taste! We pay to eat here several times every trip!

Biggest downside is the meal planning and loss of flexibility but restaurant availability away from the very popular ones is decent on the day (usually those outside the parks however).

[tonymc]

We paid for the DDP last November, as we were originally planning to stay off-site for our full 15 nights, but eventually decided to stay on-site for 6 nights to take full advantage of the perks.

Having had free DDP for quite a few years, it was a shock having to pay, but when we worked out how much we would potentially spend whilst in the parks (both lunch and dinner), and given that we do like to have quite a few sit-down meals (including Narcoossee’s for DW’s birthday), it would work out at worst “cost-neutral” for 4 of us.

We also considered the “unseen” cost benefits of not having to leave the parks for meals, or having to watch the pennies/cents when eating.

[Princess Ariel]

We’ve paid for DDP, it’s cost us £2895 for 17 nights for 3 adults which works out about £170 a day I think. I think that’s really good value for what we are getting and to be honest we tend to spend that every day on
food anyway when we are on holiday as we like sit down meals and snacks throughout the day etc anyway. I have to admit we are quite big eaters when we are on holiday...we just can’t resist all the lovely food lol 😂

[danisleigh]

We were planning to book for next year but as our August california trip is unlikely to go ahead we will probably move that to next year and push Florida out to 2022. We were discussing last week what we will do if free dining is no longer available as we had planned 10 nights at the beach club and we weighed up staying offsite with a car and eating mainly Offsite or paying for the dining plan. We decided that we would still stay onsite but at POFQ to save money that way and then pay for the ddp keeping the cost more or less the same. If we stayed offsite I would want a nice hotel then there is the cost of the car and parking every day plus all meals and snacks and I love that on the ddp I can order what I want without considering the cost.