I’m not a practical person, meaning, I understand the concept of something being “priceless”, because of what it means to an individual person
(don’t ask me how much I’m paying to see Taylor live - the ultimate priceless experience 
).
So, yeah, It’s not all about numbers. I might just try getting the DP one time to see how it “feels” even though it won’t save me any money.
Oh, I understand that well! 
Probably all Disney fans do, to some extent.
Wait, I read it too quickly. I read as “for us it’s NOT about getting our money’s worth” .
Ok, bye…
And how much was that WDW AP I just bought plus the travel, lodging, and food cost that will go with it?
Am I understanding correctly that there’s no Deluxe dining plan in this latest incarnation?
Correct, Sir.
And only one snack credit. This point can’t be stressed enough.
I feel like they’ll do something like they do in Tokyo- bundle the package of ride reservations… Like a Small World/Parade Viewing/ Buzz… Stuff like that. Trying to force you to book a low-priority and spread out the more in demand reservations.
Then I think they go absolutely wild with a day-of express pass type of thing, maybe limiting to one LL per attraction vs like the real Express where you can ride all day if you want.
If they did that, it would be $$$ for the Express type, but for so many people they would pay it. And I think they could do $100 a person for that.
For a bundle of rides/attractions that you pre-book, I’m sure they could do $30.
That puts a cramp in my 1 day dining plan hoop de doo snacky snack mug plan.
In my sister’s case, the cost of the dining plan for the time she’s at Disney is easily doable, and a one time* charge.
Paid and out of mind.
Paying for each meal is generally cheaper than the dining plan. And while my sister is aware of and agrees with the savings in principle, at some point during the week that paying by the meal begins to feel like a lot of money going out. Even if she’s budgeted for it. And felt the amount is appropriate.
Her enjoyment of her time at Disney is greater if she’s not being reminded of having to pay for that enjoyment.
She also likes the idea that she’s getting away with something. She loves early entry for that reason.
Dining plan is like early entry. She’s getting away with something. *Even if she’s charging the tax/tip to the room with her Magic Band.
The value and worth is not monetary to my sister. The value and worth are in the fiction for her imagination that the dining plan makes her visit more simple.
And enjoyable.
Acknowledging that DDP can work for some people and everyone is different …
For me it doesn’t work.
My food mentality is that food has two costs: price, and calories. Whether you think this is a good mentality or not, my physical fitness is important for my self perception and therefore happiness. Lately money has become less of an issue to me as I have more of it.
So the last thing I want is for the monetary cost of food to be in opposition to my physical fitness goals. I don’t want to feel like I have to eat more food to get my money’s worth. I want to pick exactly what I want to eat and buy exactly that for the price it is worth, so I will think twice about ordering from both the monetary and caloric perspective.
In other words, paying as I go aligns my financial and physical fitness objectives.
There’s nothing worse for me than an all-you-can-eat buffet, especially an expensive one where I’ll feel like I have to eat more to get my money’s worth.
In our case we wanted to do certain meals. Because of the Christmas weekend, I wanted to make sure we had one TS booked for each day. And I thought that breakfast at Ohana made sense for our resort switch day.
So yes, we were doing those meals anyway. And because of the way our split stay dates worked, and the Holiday weekend, the dining plan made perfect sense.
The NY weekend however didn’t, even though we did HDDR and Cape May. Both were meals we wanted to do and booked over the Holiday weekend so we had somewhere sorted. Numbers didn’t work, but we stuck with the meals.
The dining plan and split stays can work well. We added the dining plan after we booked the ADRs. I wouldn’t ever add it at the time of booking.
This is one thing that I don’t like about DDP (and I’ve used it several times). I much preferred when it included taxes and tip because it really took all the cost aspect away while you were vacationing.
Side note about the DDP that I think gets overlooked is that since you are paying it as part of your package, it gives a family time to pay it over time. If a family uses the Disney Visa, it makes paying for a large chunk of their food interest free for a time and they’ll get their points right before the trip.
I hope not but we shall see. Maybe I’m glad we’re going now.
I am waiting to hear the details of cost and what restaurants are 1 and 2 credits… as someone that almost always does split stays I will miss the deluxe plan (spread over a short stay) it always saved me a lot of money but I love signature dining and we split meals.
Sometimes I would buy the dining plan, sometimes I would not- it always depended on my ADRs. Even it it increased to $100 I think combos such as Storybook Dining/Ohana and Geyser Point (with drinks at both) could save you a lot under the old rules.
You are also prepaying the meal tax.
This is the sort of hidden benefit I was wondering about.
If you don’t want to overspend it makes perfect sense to prepay.
I totally agree with you. This is the same reason I hate the rise of prix fixe menus all over the resort as well.
I really dislike prix fixe menus for many reasons, incuding the quantity of food.
With the skillets I HATE wasting food. I hate it. I am not a “clean your plate” person, but I really don’t want food brought to the table that never had a chance of being eaten in the furst place.
I will say, when we used the dining plan, we left many desserts unordered. It completely suprosed the staf, but we didn’t need them to make the math work - they were bonus.
This is what I don’t like also.
I was reading on a FB group last night that a woman who was traveling solo went to Woody’s Roundup and her server brought her the same amount of food as was brought to the table beside her where there were four people. She asked and was told it was the policy. I’m not sure it’s about policy so much as it is about not taking the time to parse out the proper amount of food. A shame for so much food to be wasted!