What no DDP? Sept 2018 dining report. COMPLETE!

[Cazzius]

Yum! Everything that you are eating looks so good!

I find it funny that the Sharks Underwater Grill serves fish, like eating fish in front of fish seems wrong to me, but they eat each other so possibly not!

Shame about the To Go window being closed each time, but at least you were able to try Trattoria Al Forno, which looks delicious.

Excellent work on the Food & Wine Festival, even if some of it was a bit messy or difficult to share.

Thanks for sharing all of your food with us!

[sha9]

Originally Posted by Cazzius

Yum! Everything that you are eating looks so good!

I find it funny that the Sharks Underwater Grill serves fish, like eating fish in front of fish seems wrong to me, but they eat each other so possibly not!

Shame about the To Go window being closed each time, but at least you were able to try Trattoria Al Forno, which looks delicious.

Excellent work on the Food & Wine Festival, even if some of it was a bit messy or difficult to share.

Thanks for sharing all of your food with us!

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Yes I’m not sure I could have eaten fish at Sharks!

[sha9]

Our last full day originally planned for MK morning EMH but we were too tired. Because we knew we would totally miss EMH anyway we took our time and went to Bellevue Lounge again. I'm afraid to say we had the same as the other day - bagel with cream cheese for me and cinnamon bun for Marie. We also got cappuccino/latte.

This cost $16.26 or would have been 4 snacks/1 QS & 1 snack on DDP.

Mid-morning, just before our 7DMT FP we fancied a drink so stopped off at Gastons for a Le Fous Brew. I was also a bit hungry but not giant cinnamon roll hungry so got the apple slices with caramel sauce. I noticed they had mini babybels on the menu too so got those.

The babybels didn't taste like ours and were a funny texture. The apple slices were nice however.
This cost $20.30 and would have been 4 snacks on DDP.

Lunch was one of our few ADRs this trip at The Plaza. We tend not to do it on DDP as I feel it's a poor use of a TS credit but not bad OOP.

I had the BBQ Beef Brisket Macaroni Cheese.

This was nice although the BBQ sauce flavour was a little strong. I enjoyed the mac n cheese.

Marie had The Plaza Club with fries.

She said this was nice but the sandwich is so big it's hard to eat!

We had a sprite and a lemonade.

This cost $45.78 and would have been 2 TS credits had we been on DDP.


We discussed dinner plans. We had thought if we were good and didn't spend too much on food we could have a treat on our last night. Even though we hadn't been good we decided we were treating ourselves anyway! We considered the Star Wars Dessert Party but weren't really in the mood. We checked the MDE app and found an ADR at The Yachtsman at 7.10pm but felt that was a little late. We held off and popped to the outlets then while in the car on the drive home Marie checked MDE again. No Yachtsman slots but Le Cellier had a slot at 6.45pm. It was about 5.45pm when we checked so we just booked that.

Le Cellier has been a favourite of ours for many years and we always do it on DDP.

To start they brought us some bread which includes the fabulous pretzel bread. You used to get more than this and I've seen them cutting back the past couple of trips. It comes with salted maple butter.

We both chose the filet mignon as we always do. This comes with mushroom risotto and a white truffle sauce. It was amazing as always.

This cost $122.46 with 2 diet cokes and was a total splurge. Had we been on DDP it would have been 4 TS credits.

Total for today was $204.80 and would have been 6 TS and 8 snacks on DDP.

[sha9]

Our last day was morning EMH at AK. We'd bought chocolate chip muffins from Boardwalk Bakery the night before to have in the room. I had also bought mini brownie cupcakes to eat later. The muffins were $6.58 plus tax but because I bought the other things I'm not sure how much exactly.

This was just ok.

We did second breakfast after the safari again at Kusafiri after enjoying the cinnamon roll so much the last time. This time it was a little burned at the edges but otherwise was lovely.

This time we got apple juice.

This cost $14.46 and would have been 3 snacks on DDP.


By lunchtime we were in DS and couldn't think where to eat. We checked the MDE app for any TS options but not much stood out. We had the Landry card so as we passed T-Rex decided just to go there.
We hadn't been for ages and were too hungry to make it all the way to Rainforest Café .

I got fish and chips.

This was nice but nothing special.

Marie got Country Fried Chicken.

She really enjoyed how the green beans were seasoned and said although one of the bits of chicken was tough the other was nice.

This cost us $54.83 and would have been 2 TS credits on DDP.

We popped back to Boardwalk to collect our luggage and decided to have some more ice cream before we left so popped to Ample Hills Creamery.

This time I had the Ooey Gooey Butter Cake and a scoop of Sally Sells Seashells which is orange marshmallow with chocolate seashells.

I really enjoyed the orange one so it's 3 out of 3 for flavours here so far.

Marie had enjoyed the Butter Pecan Brittle so much she had 2 scoops of that.

This cost $15.76 as I bought a bottle of Dasani too. I've checked and the small cup is a snack on DDP so this would have been 3 snacks on DDP.


Our last meal before leaving was at the airport. We'd heard there was now a Bahama Breeze so decided to try there instead of Outback where we'd tended to go before. The only seats were at one of the high tables which are kind of shared. We were at the end though with no one between us and the next party.

I ordered a BBQ burger and a strawberry lemonade.

The burger was nice but the chips not so much.

Marie got the Jerk Chicken Sandwich.

She said this was ok.

I don't seem to have the receipt for this. I remember I had a $50 note and we both had to put in $10 each so I think we left $70 including a tip. As airport food goes it was decent enough and we would go here or Outback next time.

Our next food was on the flight. Because the flight was so late we didn't get dinner until after 10pm and we were shattered. Marie didn't have anything at all. I had the chicken. This was announced as "something" chicken, chicken, rice and vegetables. I then asked the cabin crew who said "something" chicken, chicken, rice and vegetable. So I got the chicken. No idea what it was but it came with rice and vegetables . Pudding was butterscotch chocolate mousse which I couldn't eat as it was so bitter.
Breakfast was a disgusting breakfast burrito that Marie manage to eat but I couldn't. We had so long in Dublin before our Glasgow flight that I wasn't bothered. We went to The Loop and got an Irish breakfast while we waited. It was fine but cold.

Total spends (not counting the airport as that’s separate spends) was $91.63 or would have been 5 snacks and 2 TS on DDP.

[sha9]

So I added it up and it cost $989.94 for food for two of us for a week doing basically what we wanted. We had a budget obviously but it was pretty decent so we didn't second guess what we were eating. I just wanted to see if paying for food would be better for us than having DDP, free or paid for. DDP would have cost us £699 and with an exchange rate of $1.31 to the £ (which is what my credit card gave us) we spent £755. So there's the answer. There was food bought that we couldn't have got on DDP such as the Coke stuff ($17.04) and the non-Disney stuff however we probably wouldn't have eaten at those restaurants had we had DDP.
Credit wise we would have needed:

16 TS credits (would have had 14)
8 QS credits or 14 QS (would have had 14)
47 snacks or 29 (would have had 28!)

So had we had DDP we'd have had to pay for 2 meals which doesn't include the day we ate at Fresh and Sharks so we'd have had to pay for those meals too. We'd also have had to do a bit of planning to use QS credits for snacks. We'd have had several desserts we didn't really want.

So overall I think we'd have spent the same money. We'd have used up all our TS credits for sure and by the looks of things our snacks too!

So the verdict? There's a freedom not being tied to credits and it allowed us to eat at a couple of places we wouldn't have normally. However, DDP is great and it's nice to totally relax about food and not worry about going somewhere that a steak costs you $54. Overall, I'd rather have DDP and given that the room discount amounted to £472 over the week we would always choose DDP over a room discount. I look forward to having it free again next year and using lots of snack credits on Ample Hills ice cream!

[Goldia]

It's interesting to read your final thoughts. I kind of expected you would find it cheaper to pay OOP perhaps because you would try to save money or restrict your purchases to the cheaper items on the menu. So, it's interesting you think you came out pretty even really. I get what you mean about the room discount and having to take that into account. Plus of course you are right you would end up having to plan a bit more how to use up QS credits as snacks.

I'm glad you managed to fit in an old favourite of yours and visit Le Celier. That steak does look delicious, we've never been but we will have to add it to the list sometime.

It's been great reading along. Thanks for sharing it all with us. I hope you have a fun time planning for next year and I look forward to reading the next DDP food report.

[Floridaagogo]

Enjoyed your report.Thank you for sharing xx

[Rescuer]

Great report. I hope you had a lovely holiday.
Ooh so much lovely food that stood out.
Ample Hills is definitely on my list to visit now.
I love the lobster bisque, that seemed really good value with your baguette.
The banana nut muffins have been added to my list.
We loved those green beans at yak and yeti too.
When we go at Christmas we have ddp for 5 nights and will be paying oop for 6 nights so very intersting to read your final thoughts.
Thanks for posting.

[sha9]

Originally Posted by Goldia

It's interesting to read your final thoughts. I kind of expected you would find it cheaper to pay OOP perhaps because you would try to save money or restrict your purchases to the cheaper items on the menu. So, it's interesting you think you came out pretty even really. I get what you mean about the room discount and having to take that into account. Plus of course you are right you would end up having to plan a bit more how to use up QS credits as snacks.

I'm glad you managed to fit in an old favourite of yours and visit Le Celier. That steak does look delicious, we've never been but we will have to add it to the list sometime.

It's been great reading along. Thanks for sharing it all with us. I hope you have a fun time planning for next year and I look forward to reading the next DDP food report.

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I’m with you, I assumed we’d spend less because at the very least I knew we wouldn’t eat dessert with many meals. We deliberately didn’t restrict ourselves as I don’t think it’s a fair comparison then and I don’t think it was volume of food, just where we chose to eat.

It’s definitely given us some thoughts for DDP next year though.

Originally Posted by Floridaagogo

Enjoyed your report.Thank you for sharing xx

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Thanks!

Originally Posted by Rescuer

Great report. I hope you had a lovely holiday.
Ooh so much lovely food that stood out.
Ample Hills is definitely on my list to visit now.
I love the lobster bisque, that seemed really good value with your baguette.
The banana nut muffins have been added to my list.
We loved those green beans at yak and yeti too.
When we go at Christmas we have ddp for 5 nights and will be paying oop for 6 nights so very intersting to read your final thoughts.
Thanks for posting.

See more...

Thanks, we did. Ample Hills was great!

[mick]

Thanks for taking the time to do your food trippie I really enjoyed reading along. You seemed to have enjoyed some good food.

Joan