That’s funny. Actually, I was going to say Calculus 3. I hated Calc 3. Was not fun at all. But then I took diffy-Q (aka, differential equations) and found it extremely easy and fun by comparison. It was effectively the very last math class I ever took…although certainly not the last class I took that utilized math!
I love math (and even have a MS in applied mathematics). We don’t do the DDP because of 10-12 yr olds in the family, and a desire spend time doing things other than character dining. We eat breakfast in our resort room (food delivery), pack snacks we really enjoy, and buy lunches or dinners wherever it looks good.
I feel like if you have anyone in your party between 10-20, they can’t really get the money’s worth from the DDP.
If/when my wife and I go alone, or only with adults, we will probably get a DP.
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We’ve never found value in DP. We’re average eaters. Ive been many times. Got it for free once, so I took it. But have done the math and we about break even but without restrictions. If u do character dining, its worth it though!.
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I love math and minored in it in college. Just leave probability and statistics out of the equation. I still don’t care what P is equal to…
However, I really missed the freedom of having DDP on our trip last month. Whether we saved money or not without it was immaterial. Knowing that the money was spent already with DDP made us not worry about going over.
I am not sure I want to go back until they bring it back.
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This is definitely the same for us.
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We the opposite! I like to buy what I want, when I want it. I like to nibble here and there, we split a meal. I HATE being stuffed but I also hate wasting food. DP is soooo much food, too much to enjoy all the snacks I like. If the offered a 1 meal, 2 snack plan, I might look into it.
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DP can be so much food, or can save you money if you are creative. In February my son and his girlfriend went for a 3/1 split stay at the world and I bought them the regular dining plan the first 3 nights. They had food for their whole trip and had dinner after they checked into 2nd resort (used snacks for breakfast on the last morning). They spilt dinners two nights and would have had too many credits if they didn’t do CG Brunch.
I made them send me their receipts over the trip. $500 dining plan saved about $130. At some point maybe Disney will charge the taxes separate (like tips) but that hidden cost is something I always forget about.
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As mentioned above, if you set aside what you would have paid for the plan it will likely be enough.
I got the DDP once without really thinking about it. It seems to be an unpopular opinion but I thought it was really restrictive. For example, a few times we wanted a snack that was not included in the plan and needed to pay cash for it, and we had to split QS to use as snacks because we had an extra 1-2 of those; not to mention the 8 snack credits we hastily spent on candy right before leaving, as not to “waste” money. I did add up the $ and we did lose some but more annoying was the process of constantly tracking and planning credits.
I can see how the “out of sight, out of mind” aspect could be appealing enough for some to outweigh the restrictions and potential overpay, but I’m happier to have the freedom to eat whatever, whenever and just pay for it all afterwards.
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Although we haven’t used DP before for all the reasons you mention and more, I’m thinking we will get it one time, if and when it comes back, for just a DH and me trip for one part of a split stay. We would do 2-3 character meals (Topolino, Artist Point, and Trattoria) and that might help the value portion. Then, I would really need to plan those snacks and QS meals to make DP worthwhile! Just dreaming for normal!
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We’ve typically used the DP and gone when it was “free”. I just like knowing what my entire trip will cost ahead of time and not stressing out over purchasing too many $4 bottles of water.
This year we’re going in December and with all the new check-in procedures, I plan to bring snacks, bottled water and coozies (because who likes a sweaty water bottle). We are also driving so I can bring down some breakfast items for the room - we typically do this regardless of a DP. I’ll be curious what our food bill will look like. Traveling with me and two DDs, 14 and 10 and budgeting about $100 per day for food.
Is that per person or for all 3 of you?
Yes, per person for each person. Four days in the park. I think I may need to up to $125, but we’ll see.
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Worth a try!
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That’s a very generous budget!
It does feel high - because #mathishard and I misspoke. It’s per day, not per person/ per day. Sorry about that. Reading forums and working at the same time. 
We have two ADRs. Yak and Yeti and 50s Prime Time Diner the rest is QS or snacks.
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I think the quick litmus test for whether the DP is worth it is how central eating is to your trip. If it’s just a distraction from all the stuff you want to do, it totally makes sense to pack in what you can and pay-as-you-go for the rest. If eating is a key part of your Disney experience, it’s likely worth it.
Oh, we totally got our money’s worth in January. DD19, DS16, and DS10 twins.
For my family, it is totally part of the experience and my kids are adventurous eaters and we watch a lot of cooking shows. I was able to preview menus and know pretty well what they would order. The kids loved having free rein with the non-alcoholic specialty drinks, which would have been very pricey otherwise.
However, DH is very, very against feeling restricted under a dining plan, so I assured him that he could order whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted, just to check with me on how to pay.
Here was my strategy:
We did the plan with one TS, one QS, and two snacks.
We flew Southwest so had plenty of free luggage available. We packed a huge case of bottled water. Everyone in the party took a fresh one each day (and afternoons if we we went back to room midday) and refilled if needed.
I put one of our cheaper TS meals near the end of the trip, so if we ran out of TS credits, we would switch to cash. (We didn’t do character meals, but did do two deluxe, I think?)
I used this as a rule of thumb. If someone ordered something less than this early in the trip, we paid cash. (We did a lot of ordering family style and splitting and didn’t over-order. But if everyone loved a dish and was still hungry, we ordered another one. This was especially fun at Spice Road table, where we basically ate tapas style and camped out to watch fireworks.)
CS meal $17
TS meal $39
For snacks, we paid cash if it was over $4. If we started outpacing our allotment, I would have raised that limit, or lowered it if we had extra, but it was about right for pacing.
We did a lot of rope-dropping and then going to a bakery for breakfast, which was usually about 1.5 snack credits per person since we split food items. Towards the end of our trip, we did convert some QS credits to snack credits. We ended up with one unused QS credit our last day because the QS at the Chinese pavilion in Epcot wouldn’t do that.
We definitely saved money but got to totally indulge without feeling hemmed in.
We had one snafu where the server at Tiffins couldn’t figure out how to let us pay for some cash and the rest with credits, so rather than burn time with him we ended up just paying credits and letting that be the decision maker on whether to do a QS or TS for one of our last meals.
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I will fight you. Differential equations are the best thing ever.
You are dead to me. Probability and statistics underpin the business models of most of the worlds most successful businesses. And play a significant role in Disney’s operations.
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You mean the ones which made Disney think letting go of the majority of equity actors was a good thing to try, along with no FPs and park hopping?
I’m a lawyer and there’s a joke among lawyers that we hate math and it’s one of the reasons we became lawyers. Because if we were people who did math then we’d do something smart to help others like become a doctor or an engineer 
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