My analysis on dining plan and value

[GillianP1301]

I've just returned from a 10 day trip. The past 3 trips, I have had free dining that I upgraded to deluxe dining to take advantage of the fact that my under 10 year old could order off the adult menu for the kid dining plan price. This year he was 10, I still had free dining, but I did not upgrade to deluxe. I didn't let number of credits dictate where or how often we ate. My dining plan was the same this trip as it was for all previous trips which is 2 - 3 meals a day. Here are my numbers (rounded up to nearest dollar):

Cost to purchase DDP would have been: $1510
Cost to purchase DxDP would have been: $2325
Cost to upgrade from free DDP to DxDP would have been: $815

Summary of credits and meals I used:
20 out of 20 TS credits
12 out of 20 QS credits
40 out of 40 snacks
I paid for 20 credits worth of meals OOP

The value of the meals that I used the TS & QS credits: $959
I did not track every dollar of snack credits, but assume a $4 average: $160
Refillable mugs: $38
Value of meals that I paid OOP: $549

In total the value I got out of the free dining plan: $1157, so I spent $353 less then I would have had I purchased it outright.

If I add to that $1157 the $549 that I spent OOP, the total is $1706 and would have been covered under the deluxe plan, which means I spent $619 less then I would have purchasing the plan outright and $266 less had I purchased the upgrade from free DDP to DxDP.

What did I learn? Now that my son is a Disney adult, the value in the dining plan is no longer there for me unless I get the free dining promo, which I always book on bounce back. I compared that to the room discount and still come out a couple hundred dollars less with the free dining. I loved the deluxe dining plan the times we used it, but from now on I will most likely stick with the regular plan and pay OOP for the meals not covered. I know I will never use all the QS because we prefer TS, but as long as I still come out ahead, I'll continue to either leave them unused or trade them in for some candy to take home.

Moral of the story? Some times the dining plan makes sense and sometimes it doesn't, it's very situational. Best to always run your numbers to know which scenario will work best for you.

 

[Pumbaa_]

I hope you used up the qs credits and didn’t leave them in the table

 

[Mich123]

Thank you! I have the same problem—not enough TS credits on DDP and a few too many on DxDDP. Also, not much use for QS because we prefer TS. The adult beverages have me intrigued, though, I think that might tip the balance to DxDDP being worth it for me.

 

[GillianP1301]

I hope you used up the qs credits and didn’t leave them in the table

I did, with candy. I just didn't add that to my numbers because that is not candy I would have gotten if I didn't have those spare credits. I had actually only planned to have 6 leftover, but I got a cold the last 3 days of my trip and my appetite wasn't great so we ended up sharing a few meals that we didn't plan to otherwise.

 

[DisBuckMan]

I did, with candy. I just didn't add that to my numbers because that is not candy I would have gotten if I didn't have those spare credits. I had actually only planned to have 6 leftover, but I got a cold the last 3 days of my trip and my appetite wasn't great so we ended up sharing a few meals that we didn't plan to otherwise.

Well, and let's be honest...the "value" of that candy is nowhere near the price tag Disney puts on it. You can get the same candy without Mickey on the wrapper from your local Walmart for 20% of what it costs you from Disney.

If you're down to swapping QS credits for 3 "snacks" to bring home, you're getting a true value of about $4-5 worth of candy for your $20 credit.

 

[Nancyg56]

We ran the numbers to upgrade to the DxDDP or not, and decided that we would fare better paying OOP for extras we wanted. WE always have a few OOP meals and always want appetizers, but our spending will not be the over 2 grand it woudl cost to upgrade the whole crew.

 

[GillianP1301]

Well, and let's be honest...the "value" of that candy is nowhere near the price tag Disney puts on it. You can get the same candy without Mickey on the wrapper from your local Walmart for 20% of what it costs you from Disney.

If you're down to swapping QS credits for 3 "snacks" to bring home, you're getting a true value of about $4-5 worth of candy for your $20 credit.

Totally agree, which is why I don't even include the take home candy in my numbers. In my mind, the unused QS that I turn into snacks to take home are basically unused or abandoned credits. I just happen to get a bunch of bags of candy to take home. But since I would not have bought that candy had I not had those credits, to me means it has $0 value in my calculations.

 

[rwdavis2]

The Dis Podcast did a show on dining plans and they concluded that the regular plan gave you the best chance of getting the most value. The regular plan is not how we eat and I could not imagine trying to eat all the food available on the deluxe plan. So we would never pay for any dining plan. Free or discounted is another story.

 

[frannn]

You have the same situation as us and we came to the same conclusion. We also purchased TIW to use over two trips because we had some signatures like BOG that were OOP. We took extra CS meals to the airport for dinner but unfortunately did not use all our snack credits. We still saved $ because we used the DP for the most expensive 1 credit meals, used snack credits for F&W, etc. Next year we'll probably do more CS, but staying at POP so we can use TIW there.

 

[nkereina]

Another thing that needs to be taken into consideration is that a TS meal includes a beverage, entree, and dessert. Unless you order a beverage other than water, an entree, and dessert at your TS meals in everyday life, then this is just an addition that you're paying for under the dining plan. When we don't have the dining plan, I rarely order dessert - not because I'm trying to conserve money, but more because I'm stuffed and don't want one. When I'm on the dining plan, I will pick at it because it's included anyway. But no one can lose sight of the fact that they ARE paying for this when purchasing/upgrading the dining plan, so if you don't eat this way normally, you lose some of the value from jump street. Its kind of like when a store says "Buy 3, get 1 free" - I spend more and buy something I don't need, just to get one free. It feels like I'm getting a deal, but I'm actually spending more.

Another thing I don't see mentioned is the price of convenience. Of course, this is is subjective and you can't assign a dollar figure to it, but some people are willing to spend more knowing their meals are paid for in advance. They don't have to budget it during the trip and can pay it off over several months before their vacation. That's worth something to a lot of people.

 

[Lisa F]

I'm doing a split stay so for first 4 nights I will be landing in orlando at 10am and then will have that whole day plus 4 full days to use it.

I swore I would never do the DDP again since my son turned 10 and I had sleeve surgery so we tend to split a bunch of things.

3 of my already planned TS meals are:

Ohana Dinner
Tusker House with RoL package
Now the new Storybook Dinner @ap - which is coming back as 1TS on the confirmations. The value of this if I can also order an alcoholic beverage is almost the cost of the ddp for that whole entire day (not for the kiddo of course).

I also have garden grill PPO breakfast and Trail's End brunch booked during that period but neither of those are good DDP values.

Also in my plans are a full day at Epcot after the PPO breakfast that will be full of snacks (Festival of Arts is going on so there will be food booths) and QS, and a QS meal on our arrival date, QS meal at the end of our switchover day and a TBD sit down meal at Disney Springs.

I'm thinking with my choices it could end up being worth it, especially with a full day of Epcot and no meals really planned to utilize snacks and QS.

I need to run the actual numbers with my AP discount but it looks not bad. I think I just need to find a 4th good value TS or see if it even works using garden grill breakfast.

 

[jenjersnap]

This is reassuring for me, a loyal dxddp fan. I booked a free dining bounceback with regular ddp for next August and the idea of having so few credits bums me out, but likely won’t upgrade to dxddp due to the outrageous price increases. Same resort category at differentEpcot resorts, same week, same number of days. “Just” regular free dining is $700 more in 2019 than deluxe upgraded free dining was in 2017! Upgrading to deluxe is $1400 more. I have always been able to save lots of money on upgrading dxddp, but it seems those days are over, free regular DDP, however, still works for five Disney adults (three of whom are tween and teen boys!). The second half of our trip is DVC so I need to pick out the less expensive places for that part!

Anyway, I think we will do as you did, add in appetizers and extra TS as desired. I know we won’t use all our QS as there aren’t many we enjoy.