• The TUGBBS forums are completely free and open to the public and exist as the absolute best place for owners to get help and advice about their timeshares for more than 30 years!

    Join Tens of Thousands of other Owners just like you here to get any and all Timeshare questions answered 24 hours a day!
  • TUG started 31 years ago in October 1993 as a group of regular Timeshare owners just like you!

    Read about our 31st anniversary: Happy 31st Birthday TUG!
  • TUG has a YouTube Channel to produce weekly short informative videos on popular Timeshare topics!

    Free memberships for every 50 subscribers!

    Visit TUG on Youtube!
  • TUG has now saved timeshare owners more than $24,000,000 dollars just by finding us in time to rescind a new Timeshare purchase! A truly incredible milestone!

    Read more here: TUG saves owners more than $24 Million dollars
  • Sign up to get the TUG Newsletter for free!

    Tens of thousands of subscribing owners! A weekly recap of the best Timeshare resort reviews and the most popular topics discussed by owners!
  • Our official "end my sales presentation early" T-shirts are available again! Also come with the option for a free membership extension with purchase to offset the cost!

    All T-shirt options here!
  • A few of the most common links here on the forums for newbies and guests!

Disney Meal Plan

BobGrant

newbie
Joined
Feb 9, 2007
Messages
24
Reaction score
0
Location
Delaware
I'm curious as to what others think of the Disney Meal Plan. We will be traveling with 4 adults and 3 kids (4, 4, 2 years old). My wife has been researching it, but she is not convinced it is a good deal.

Thank you for your input,
 
You might try www.disboards.com and search there for threads about the meal plan (Disney Dining Plan--DDP). From what I have read, it is a good deal if you were already planning on eating all of that food anyway. For us (2 adults, 2 kids ages 5 & 8), we usually eat breakfast in our timeshare, pack our own snacks, eat a light lunch and often head back to the timeshare for dinner. Maybe when the kids get older, we could see eating in the parks more often.

I know that you'd need to get it for every day of your stay for each member of your party. Depending on how much you like going out and how much your kids eat, it might not be worth it until they get older. Where are you staying at WDW and for how long?
 
there are strategies, also

with the 4,4,2 yr olds, you could buy two kids meals and split them for 3 and "save" the kids' dining credits--you can then use the credits for adult meals at fancier places which take more credits--I have several friends who did this and dined at the 4* places--I'm sure you can find discussions on the web about the "DDP strategy"--if you have a strategy like that, it can be a VERY good deal.

For character meals everyone has to use a dining ticket--but, again, you could also pay for child's meal out of pocket (about $12). Disney dining is also very good if you plan to do a lot of character meals--but you need to make your reservations early (some 180 days out)--you can always cancel 48 hrs before and you don't have to have disney dining set when you make reservations.
 
We loved the meal plan and we aren't even big eaters. We were able to eat at very nice restaurants without worrying what it costs. I think I calculated that the meal plan saved us $600. Now I know we wouldn't have eaten all that food if we didn't have the plan, but the point is, for about the same money, you get appy, entree, dessert and drink. You can even get a smoothie at some places. IMO, it is a very good deal.
 
with the 4,4,2 yr olds, you could buy two kids meals and split them for 3 and "save" the kids' dining credits--you can then use the credits for adult meals at fancier places which take more credits--I have several friends who did this and dined at the 4* places--I'm sure you can find discussions on the web about the "DDP strategy"--if you have a strategy like that, it can be a VERY good deal.
Rumor has it that Disney has cracked down on this, which they should have done long ago.
It was never their intention for adults to have fine dining using child meal credits.
 
We did the DDP in late September and thought the value was okay. We just could not eat all those desserts, and, unfortunately, they don't save very well. We also could not eat the snacks. We came home with boxes of Entenmann's donuts and energy bars from the Conch Flats.

Maybe during the month of December of 2008, we will stay on property and try it again. I can always eat more at Christmas. :p We can eat our snacks while walking in the "snow" at MGM. The smell of those roasting nuts and the cookies they are baking, plus the popcorn and hot chocolate.................... hmmm :) I think I will have an appetite for those desserts and snacks at Christmas.
 
We used the DDP in Oct. We ate so much food it was crazy! We are going again in Aug and won't be doing the plan. It was just too much food, and I need more food like I need a hole in the head! LOL
But it can be a great deal, especially if you like to eat at table service restaurants.
Good luck and have a great time!
 
I know that you'd need to get it for every day of your stay for each member of your party. Depending on how much you like going out and how much your kids eat, it might not be worth it until they get older. Where are you staying at WDW and for how long?

We are staying for 1 week at the Saratoga Springs resort.

Thank you everyone for the information. I'll let the boss make the call on this one, but my vote would be to pass on the meal plan since I don't know what the other couple will want to do about meal times.
 
If we were going with another couple, like our best friends, we would probably do the DDP because it would decide where we would eat, without a lot of discussion every day. I will explain:

Our best friends love nice restaurants and we just don't. They will choose some place that charges $25 a plate, while we are more the $9.95 per plate people. Rick just has no love affair with food and thinks Taco Bell for dinner is good. He's not cheap, but he just doesn't care. I do love food, but I can eat my fried flounder at Red Lobster and be happy as a clam. He would rather eat sloppy joes at home. The DDP is a food limit that we could live with, when traveling with our friends. If we are going to eat at nice restaurants anyway, we would rather not pay the $100 price at the end of the dinner. Some of our dinners would have cost that much without the plan, like the seafood restaurant in Downtown Disney. Captain Jack's? We had steak and lobster, which was very good, but I could never have paid that price! :eek:

When we went to DVC Old Key West in January, Rick was open to the DDP, but I was not. I have gained some weight in the past two years and it isn't pretty. :ignore: No need to overeat. But if our friends went, overeating is just normal for all of us. The walking in Disney burns off a lot of those calories, doesn't it? :p
 
We are staying for 1 week at the Saratoga Springs resort.

Thank you everyone for the information. I'll let the boss make the call on this one, but my vote would be to pass on the meal plan since I don't know what the other couple will want to do about meal times.

The meal plan is only a good deal if you plan on eating a lot of table service meals. If you are planning to eat at a table service resturant make sure you make you ADR's as soon as possible, even if your are not on the dining plan. We have seen way too many people in the last 2 years being turned away for dinner every night.

Staying at SSR you have a full kitchen at you disposal, unless you are in a studio.

When we have a trip planned, we try to plan out our meals ahead of time. We'll look at the places we want to eat, get an idea of average cost of the meals, total up the costs and compare it to the cost of the DDP.

http://personalpages.tds.net/~rb/DIS/MYW%20Dining/DisneyDiningRanking.htm
 
Top