DDP Review - 3/4 - 3/12

[imlazar]

Greetings, we just returned from a week at Wilderness Lodge and I wanted to share our experiences with the Disney Dining Plan.

We had the plan for eight nights, there were two adults and two children.

We had no problems using up the table service meals via a combination of character breakfasts, hoop dee doo, and other dinner restaurants. We ended up with 4 counter service meals left (one day/4 people), we almost had five, but were able to cash one in at Roaring Forks for 3 bottles of water. We had no problems using up all our snacks.

(I should add that we spent two of our eight days away from Disney world but returned both nights for dinner, which is why we had the leftover counter service meals)

Our impression of the DDP is that it is a good value for what you get, but we ended up getting a lot more food than we needed. We believe we would have saved a small amount of money by not using the plan. We don't normally order appetizers, and we almost never order desert, so we "pigged out" at dinner since both come with the plan.

We also can usually split one kids meal among our two children, but we had to order two, plus desert for table service. We did split one counter-service kids meal among both kids a couple of times, but towards the end we realized we had more counter service meals than we could use, so we ended up getting both kids their own meal and then throwing most of it away.

We also got more snacks than we really needed, we ended up getting things like ice cream every day which we normally wouldn't have done.

Our best estimate is that the average dinner would have cost us $55, counter service would have cost us $25, and we would have spent $10 a day on snacks, for a total of $90. The meal plan cost us $100 a day. So it was close to a break-even proposition, and it allowed us the flexibility to take in a few higher priced meals such as Hoop Dee Doo (which would have been $150 for the four of us), and the character breakfasts.

Overall I think we were pretty pleased with the plan, I'm still not sure though if I would do it again just to avoid desert with every meal.

 

[Letsbgoofy]

Although the dining plan works well for us, I can definitely see how it wouldn't for many people - especially people with younger kids. We could probably eat for less (2 adults), but I like getting a chance to eat whatever I want and not have to worry about how much I am spending. We don't eat out often at home, so it's a nice change for us.

There are so many posts about how great the plan is, it's good to read one about the other side of the picture - at least one that isn't blaming Disney because the plan didn't save them money!

 

[Mermaid4me]

Greetings, we just returned from a week at Wilderness Lodge and I wanted to share our experiences with the Disney Dining Plan.

We had the plan for eight nights, there were two adults and two children.

We had no problems using up the table service meals via a combination of character breakfasts, hoop dee doo, and other dinner restaurants. We ended up with 4 counter service meals left (one day/4 people), we almost had five, but were able to cash one in at Roaring Forks for 3 bottles of water. We had no problems using up all our snacks.

(I should add that we spent two of our eight days away from Disney world but returned both nights for dinner, which is why we had the leftover counter service meals)

Our impression of the DDP is that it is a good value for what you get, but we ended up getting a lot more food than we needed. We believe we would have saved a small amount of money by not using the plan. We don't normally order appetizers, and we almost never order desert, so we "pigged out" at dinner since both come with the plan.

We also can usually split one kids meal among our two children, but we had to order two, plus desert for table service. We did split one counter-service kids meal among both kids a couple of times, but towards the end we realized we had more counter service meals than we could use, so we ended up getting both kids their own meal and then throwing most of it away.

We also got more snacks than we really needed, we ended up getting things like ice cream every day which we normally wouldn't have done.

Our best estimate is that the average dinner would have cost us $55, counter service would have cost us $25, and we would have spent $10 a day on snacks, for a total of $90. The meal plan cost us $100 a day. So it was close to a break-even proposition, and it allowed us the flexibility to take in a few higher priced meals such as Hoop Dee Doo (which would have been $150 for the four of us), and the character breakfasts.

Overall I think we were pretty pleased with the plan, I'm still not sure though if I would do it again just to avoid desert with every meal.

One quick question..... You said you HAD to order 2 children's meal? They wouldn't let your kids share a meal? Just wondering because I have a friend who works at Spoodles and she said you are allowed to share. I am curious to know if it is this way at all the TS restaurants.


Thanks for the great info!!

Mermaid4me


Poly Apr 2006
CR 2005
ASMO 1999
Offsite 1986
CR 1979

 

[imlazar]

One quick question..... You said you HAD to order 2 children's meal? They wouldn't let your kids share a meal? Just wondering because I have a friend who works at Spoodles and she said you are allowed to share. I am curious to know if it is this way at all the TS restaurants.

To be honest we never asked, we just assumed that the kids had to order their own meals at a table service restuarant. I probably should have, we could have easily gotten away with one kids meal at each restaurant and had enough meals left over for another TS dinner.