To get a dining plan or not..?

Part of the “free dining” story is the room rate. Some ppl need to really see if paying rack rate is actually worth the free dining plan. Choosing the room discount might be better.

Nothing is free kids - nothing - and especially at WDW.

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I love the fact that we were NOT on the plan this last time. We were at the Swan (do not recommend - but that is a different topic) and two nights we were back at the hotel and the kids wanted pizza. TWO nights where dinner cost me $17. You can’t beat that!!!

Hi, DH, DM DS5 DS6 and me, we’re going in April and after much back and forth decided on the DDP for the following reasons: 1. Convenience of the prepaid meals 2. We are going to do some Character meals: CM, Tusker as well as T-Rex and Morimoto (datenight), also planning on keeping it as healthy as possible, so probably doing CHH, JNL, Y&Y in AK. The numbers say we’re also saving some money, which would be a bonus, aside from the experience of hairpulling and getting water and sharing a plate of fries because of the prices. Like everyone says here, it is a personal choice. BTW I am also getting (healthy) snacks and making baggies for in the park, so the snack credits will be used mainlyfor ice cream and coffee.

They deliver to resorts?

Depends on who you mean by “they”.

You can get pizza delivery in just about every city. I’m assuming that all of the national chains have locations near Disney. i know Giordano’s and Uno deliver Chicago style pizza to Disney, and Flippers also does. I think there are a few NY style places as well, if that’s your preference.

I love the dining plan! First, regarding convenience, the peace of mind I get knowing my food has been budgeted and paid for makes the sticker shock at some restaurants non-existent. I recently went to WDW (September) with my wife and 4 year old daughter. We went to a character meal almost every day. Not only did we get the chance to meet loads of characters during non-park hours, most character meals are buffet/family style so you are really able to pack it in.

Secondly, my thoughts on the notion that having all these TS meals and their subsequent ADRs to “run” to was not a curse but a blessing. We had set up some of our ADRs for lunch (Via Napoli and BOG) and to get out of the hot sun and in to A/C for an hour was such a respite and really boosted our afternoon touring. Not having to either sit outside and eat or frantically search for a table inside Cosmic Rays was such a relief.

And any left over snack credits can be turned into “food souvenirs” that you can bring home and enjoy upon your return or given as gifts.

You are going to need to eat, regardless. Unless you plan on brown bagging it every day you will be eating out somewhere, why not have most of that guess work and planning done before you go so then you can spend more of the limited time you have enjoying the parks?

Outside of prepaying, and locking in an average cost per meal and snack, you can do all of this w/o the dp, but some might feel locked in, I guess. W/o the dp, I’d assume that most ppl make a few adr’s of course, but they aren’t locked in to adr’s if changes to the day occur.

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It was an on resort restaurant - went down and picked it up. I think they do deliver to some resorts though

ADR’s have a 24 hour cancellation deadline, so there won’t be any last minute cancellations for anybody with a reservation barring some sort of emergency.

That being said, the flexibility of NOT having a dining plan made it really easy for me to add a Rivers of Light dining package one evening.

I don’t see any real tie between Dining Plan and ADRs - you want to eat at sit down - you need an ADR regardless. We did cancel one reservation within a few hours one night though - we were done - just explained it and they cancelled without charging.

This first-timer is electing to forgo the DDP. I painstakingly laid out a plan where I picked all the restaurants I thought we’d eat at, then looked at all the menus, picked out rough ideas of what I thought we might order, and priced it all up. It wound up being about $350 cheaper for us to pay as you go.

If you remember from my earlier posts, though - we’re not into characters and aren’t doing any of those meals, nor do we typically go for buffets, we’re only doing 1 (Biergarten). We’re also ordering groceries to eat all breakfasts at the resort.

If we DID do the DDP, I feel we’d have to alter our typical feeding style to force fit into the DDP system, mainly due to the 2 A’s - appetizers and alcohol. We love appetizers and would probably wind up paying money to try a couple. And we only drink two things at any meal - water or alcohol. Not much value then in getting all those free sodas/juices/milks.

But I can definitely see it working for others, though!

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The good thing is you did the analysis and got what works for YOU!!! Now you have extra $$$ to buy the alcohol

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