Dining plan epiphany

Most character dining is 1 TS (we did dining plan on our first trip). We did Akershus, Chef Mickey’s, Crystal Palace, and Hollywood & Vine…all 1 TS credit.

The castle is special :slight_smile:

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Yes Signature are 2 credits. We get the Deluxe plan(upgraded from free dining) so we get 3 credits per day. Example- Garden Grill for breakfast, 2 snacks in Epcot and Flying Fish for dinner. OR snacks for breakfast, Yak n Yeti for lunch and Tiffins for dinner. OR big lunch at Brown Derby and dinner somewhere in DS. You get the idea.

I guess it depends on what you order, but when I’ve looked at lists to maximize the value of DDP, the two-credit restaurants are low on the list That if you assign a value to each TS credit, you’d be better off paying OOP for those.
Of course, for people doing all the character meals it might be worthwhile since you have to get the DDP for your entire stay.

That also includes an appetizer for each guest

That was my recollection as well, that the 2 credit meals were usually a low value. I mean, if everyone always picks the most expensive entree, you can probably justify the math, but on average the signature restaurants weren’t a great deal on DDP.

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With the deluxe plan signatures can be a great deal since an appetizer can be $16-18.

My son and his girlfriend did Cali Brunch last year with the regular plan, then spilt two 1 credit meals. It worked well for them and they saved about $100.

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Correct! I always do the math with assumptions of what we will eat beforehand. I also save my receipts and do the math at the end. Yes I know tips are extra and I add that into my math. We have never lost money. Once we only saved $25. Another time (longer trip) we saved $319!

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Loss of flexibility isn’t worth that little amount of savings to me.

Plus, I know the dining plan forced us to order/get way more stuff that we really wanted, so I wouldn’t count all the extra snacks (or appetizers/desserts in the case of the highest tier plan) in the calculation.

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The people that really do well on the dining plan have to be those that are a big enough group that they need two on-site rooms. They can get the dining plan for one room and spread the credits around to everyone.
For our cancelled Jan 2021 trip I’d been thinking of a split stay with staying onsite for our “Eating Day”

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That makes a lot of sense.

I think the change to the dining plan in January 2020 that child and adult credits are separate for QS was the thing that tipped it even farther to not being worth it for families. I of course was there in January 2nd that year with the plan to use my kids QS credits on meals for DW and myself which could have included alcohol. The only times our family will get the dining plan moving forward is if it is free or if we are doing a split stay.

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We did it in January 2020. I picked restaurants so we “saved” by using the plan, but we wouldn’t have eaten that way if we weren’t on it. We did a lot of character meals and used QS for more expensive options like BOG for lunch. It was too much food and drinks. Keeping track of credits turned out to be more inconvenient than they make it seem. Our oldest was plant-based at the time, but not all places had plant-based kids options so we’d use an adult QS on him. It was a mess by the end.

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Same for us. I would always get BOG for breakfast, so I could get our money’s worth. Loved being able to get PPO reservations, that made it worth it. But the food is just ok really and my family is kinda sick of it now. I would never, ever pay for that breakfast if we didn’t have the dining plan. So I realized that I wasn’t really saving money on the plan if I was forcing us to go somewhere we didn’t really want to go just because it made the plan make sense :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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