Sharing meals?

Hi! I’m a brand new Disney mom. This will be our first trip. We’ve bought the dining plan. Question - neither my husband nor myself are huge eaters, and obviously we don’t want to take home leftovers from the park. When we eat at a table service restaurant (not buffet) - can we share a meal for one credit instead of using two TS credits for too much food?

Thanks for helping this noob!

I have heard this is possible but how will you use your credits? You will have to plan two table service meals and at least one counter service meal a day. Wow, that’s a lot of time. Most people do this to save credits for signature dining. Do you have some two credit dinners planned?

You should be fine, though it won’t work for buffets (as you noted) or family style meals (like 'Ohana). I don’t know, however, that they’d let you share a soft drink, so you might end up paying something for those meals.

We’ll be there 4 nights / 5 days - and since the dining plan is only one snack, one QS, and one TS per night (so 4 of each), I figured we could stretch it a bit if we share some meals. We definitely figure we can share the QS meals, but wasn’t sure about TS. I booked the Fantasmic package for lunch - I can’t imagine we’d be able to share a meal and still get vouchers, but would love to have more frequent but smaller meals when possible.

I always shake my head when I say that people are able to share meals. My family is not able to share any meals at Disney. They have seriously cut down on the size of the portions of fries, the burgers are normal sized if you go out to eat at places other than McDonalds for a $1 hamburger, and the TS places we’ve been have been adequate.

We don’t snack much though so we are all hungry when we go to a restaurant.

So, please make sure you use the dining plan as intended, everyone eats a meal and don’t worry about sharing every meal.

Have a great time looking at the menus!

You might want to consider dropping the dining plan - from the sounds of things, you will not be getting your money’s worth out of it. In many cases you do not break even unless you use it to its full advantage.

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Thanks. Hubs wants the dining plan, I think we’d probably do better without (he thinks I’ll be less naggy about spending $ this way, LOL).

To clarify - we all eat plenty, but tend to graze more, eating lots of small meals instead of 1-2 huge meals.

I think we’ll be able to break even, but am trying to figure out the pitfalls beforehand - is there a formula? I’m thinking we need to aim for something like $40 each on TS, $15 QS, and $5 snacks to maximize?

There are some useful links to help out with this - I’m on my phone, so I will post them later.

http://www.distripplanner.com Try this one!

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OK, first thing to look at is @NotThatKevinSmith’s Disney Dining Plan Calculator http://seeyareelsoon.wix.com/seeyareelsoon#!dining-plan-calculator/cxc0. It will help you figure out if a DP will be cost effective for you based on your eating habits. I have not used this for some time, so I’m not sure how up to date it is, but is is a great tool to start with.

If you want to maximize the “value” you are getting out of a DP, check out http://wdwprepschool.com/maximizing-disney-dining-plan-credits-for-2014/ - it’s for 2014, but the concepts still hold.

Again, I think that a DP might not fit your eating style - by looking at the above links you may find that you will save money by dropping the plan and paying OOP. DPs work out for those people whose eating habit mirror the plan setup and who tend to do the “high value” dining options.

Okaay - logic in action. :wink: Well, when you show him the savings you worked out, maybe he will change his mind. :slight_smile:

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@dcblues - we think the individual component costs are something like this in the dining plan, depending on how many days your trip is (smaller dollar costs represent longer trips):

Quick Service Meal = $14.75 to $18.07
Table Service Meal = $33.50 to $36.72
Snack = $4.35
Refillable Mug = $8 to $12

The varying cost is due to the refillable mug, whose value changes the longer you stay, because you can drink more.

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YOU ALL ARE AMAZING! I love this. The idea of not breaking even kills me. I over-analyze costs, and get annoying about us ordering on cheap, sharing meals etc - so hubs thinks this will be better, LOL. I’ve explained it’s not - especially b/c of our ten y/o, who will inevitably eat only kids meals anyway, but cost adult price. I think he really like the novelty of paying with the magic band, etc. He’s a soda fiend, so I’m sure he’ll at least break the system for sodas :stuck_out_tongue:

I have never been able to make one of the DDPs fit my style of eating. The regular plan does not offer enough TS meals for me, but the DxDP has at least half again as much food as I would ever “normally” order. If money were of no consequence I might do the DxDP just for the convenience, but I’ve never been able to see how it would save me money.

But it definitely works for others - just depend on how you like to eat on vacation… :slight_smile:

I can understand the desire to use the Dining plan as a stress/conflict removal tool :slight_smile: that worked great for us even if we didn’t break even (though I think we did in the end). We did end up with several buffets or family style, so it did work out well. if you aren’t worried about the cost - go for low stress in my opinion.

Maybe do consider a signature meal with 2 TS credits if you will have extra.

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