Wow, did it ever! I think you’re right. Here’s hoping for a trip in the future!
Just wait until your son is 13 or 14. He will know everything!!! You, not so much.
1 Like
Enjoyed reading your trip - thanks for sharing!
Some informational notes I’m gathering:
I struggled with deciding on whether or not to do the dining plan. For the six of us, the cost would have been $2200. In the end, I didn’t get it and our total food expenditure, meals, drinks, and snacks, was $1638.63, and if I include HDDR, $2038.63… That’s a pretty decent savings, I think. If I had done the DP I still would have paid OOP for HDDR though. It’s not worth the two credits. If you could use one credit and pay for the other half, then it would make sense to me. So for the 6 night stay, we did 6 TS, BoG, Trail’s End take out, and ate breakfast in our cabin for 5 of those days. The rest of the food was snacks here and there. If we’d had the DP, we might not have been able to eat it all, and most of my family are pretty big eaters.
On the other hand, there were times when I had the kids drink water instead of $2-3 drinks, and I did have them forego dessert a couple times, AND I did look at a couple bills, having that moment of, “oh my god that’s a lot of money!” So in the end, I think the dining plan would have cost a bit more, but I wouldn’t have limited what the kids ate. I know I would have liked to no think about cost on vacation, so if there ever is a next trip, I’ll have to reevaluate the DP.
Then there is the time it takes to eat all that food. For a first trip with kids, we had too many sit down meals that ate up precious touring time. Still, the food was good and A/C was nice, as was taking a rest. But I think a balance is needed. But if it were just DH and me, it would have been fine.
Speaking of next trips…Well, I don’t know that we’ll have one for many years, but I’m having a very hard time reading and looking at Disney stuff because it now makes me sad! When I think of the memories of our trip, it was so wonderful that it makes me cry to think we won’t be able to do it again. I haven’t been looking on here or the chat much because of that, though I do feel better this week. Maybe that’s because school starts in two days!!
3 Likes
Thanks for sharing @McPluto! I agree with your findings - we had the Stay, Play and Dine package on our last trip and will have FD on this trip, but I’d likely still get the dining plan if we didn’t. It may not save much $ but, as you stated, I don’t like to think about the food budget while on vacation and just let everyone pick what they want.
If it makes you feel any better, when we left last year we never thought we’d be able to return any time soon but we have managed to book a bonus trip for this December that we are super excited about! Hope the same happens for you! 
1 Like
Aw, thanks! How awesome for you guys! Well, I will certainly try my hardest to save and come up with a way to get back there, My poor husband wears his magic band at night to keep the magic alive. I think DH and I had a better time than the kids in some ways. lol
4 Likes
great trip report! I love reading about other people’s trips. I have little kids (4 and 7 on this last trip), so the latest we were ever in a park was probably about 9:30 (just to finish up fantasmic and illuminations - we never made it for wishes)…so reading about you and your kids staying up til 1am is exciting! I’m a night owl and I can’t wait til my kids can stay up that late with us!
1 Like
Thanks! Yeah, it was really great to have the kids handling such little sleep. They couldn’t stay up every night that late, but the one night we hit MK til after one was really nice. Though we were all just running on pure excitement I think. I’m a night owl too, so mentally I was totally awake, but physically, I did start to slow down at midnight, but pushed on regardless.