Dining Plan???

[mapny90]

It's been a while since we've been to WDW and are planning a trip to WDW in July 2004. We are DVC members and so have access to full kitchens. We usually eat breakfast at home and bring along lunch if we're going to be out for the whole day - or stop at one of the resorts for lunch. We rarely eat at CS restaurants. We do like to go to several TS restaurants for dinner. Is the dining plan for us?

 

[Tegra89]

It's been a while since we've been to WDW and are planning a trip to WDW in July 2004. We are DVC members and so have access to full kitchens. We usually eat breakfast at home and bring along lunch if we're going to be out for the whole day - or stop at one of the resorts for lunch. We rarely eat at CS restaurants. We do like to go to several TS restaurants for dinner. Is the dining plan for us?

You would have to weigh the cost of the dining plan against how much you spend at the TS restaurants that you go to. Remember that you would be getting 1 snack on the plan too. I think I'd weigh the costs and see if I spend that much for the CS against how much the plan would cost me.

 

[Hopefully]

That is a good question!!! It might be. We stayed in the BCV in October and had the Dining Plan. It worked for us.
I would suggest you do a little more research in regards where you would want to eat your TS meals. The primary value of the plan is in the TS credits.
I researched the menus on allearsnet.com and printed menus out. We (3 Adults) decided which restaurants we wanted to eat at (TS) and I looked at the cost of what we would most likely order (not necessarlily the most expensive but what we would like). I decided that we would "cover the cost of the plan just in the TS meals. I believe that we used the full value of the Dining Plan in our TS meals alone. It seemed to us that the CS and snacks were basically "free".
I saved our receipts and we saved $450 over the cost of the Dining Plan.
We did eat CS in the parks most days, and we were able to use the snack credits at the Food and Wine Festival - an unexpected treat.
Basically we ate breakfast in the room, CS where ever we happened to be when we were hungry and a nice TS meal for dinner.
We ate TS at: Rose & Crown, Le Cellier, Teppanyaki, Morocco, 'OHana and the Yachtsman Steakhouse.
The Dining Plan is not for everyone, so I suggest you do a little research to see if it will work for you.
Good Luck

 

[JuneDisney]

How was the food at the Restaurant Marakesh? We have aTS booked there for our first night in June.

 

[Hopefully]

We love the Restaurant Marrakesh and it has become a must do each trip. It is a beautiful setting, warm friendly staff, the Belly Dancer is nice and the food is good. DH and adult DS usually get the Sultan Sampler and they rave about it. I love the Bastilla dessert, it is without question one of the best desserts I have ever had.
I think you will be pleased.

 

[byoung]

The dining plan is worth it.

 

[ratfam]

Haven't signed on for a few days so I just saw your thread and wanted to second the idea of checking out menus and doing rough calculations, but I also wanted to suggest that you look back at your spending from your last trip (if you have that number available). We are also DVC members who on our last weeklong trip ate all breakfasts, two lunches and two dinners in. Other meals were a mix of counter service and table service, and we didn't hit any really pricey table service other than a dinner for dh and I at Flying Fish. Even with this plan, we only spent about $200 or so less than the dining plan will cost on our upcoming trip, even though this trip is 8 nights and we are paying for dd10 as an adult. I think that by avoiding the Disney plan we might be able to save this $200 or so again, maybe even a little more, but we would be eating out so much less frequently and not at the kind of places we have chosen, and we would still need to buy the food we were cooking and eating in the condo. So I think that the plan can still make sense despite using DVC if you still intend to eat meals out. The tip being included in the plan also adds up quickly, even if you intend to supplement the tip.