If you know me at all, then you know that I'm a planner. I'm very Type A, and kind of obsessive when it comes to many things. Planning for a Disney vacation is definitely one of those things. I think that's why the Disney Dining Plan holds such allure for me. With the DDP, all of your meals and snacks are paid for ahead of time, and you spend those credits on your vacation. Because you only get a finite number of credits, you really have to plan your dining ahead of time. When and where will you use your quick service credits? When and where will you use your precious table service credits? Oh, and you definitely have to plan those table service meals at least 180 days ahead of time in order to secure those coveted ADRs!
In Disney speak, quick service restaurants are those with walk up counters where you order your food and carry it to your table on a tray (see lunch at Be Our Guest in the New Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom as a notable exception to this rule). This is as opposed to table service restaurants which employ wait staff to serve you at your table. With the "regular" Disney Dining plan, you get one quick service meal (non-alcoholic drink, entree, and dessert), one table service meal (non-alcoholic drink, appetizer, entree, and dessert), and one snack (like a Mickey shaped pretzel or a Mickey ice cream bar or a cupcake) per day.
On both of our trips to WDW as DVC members, we have toyed with the idea of using the DDP, and both times we have decided to use Tables in Wonderland instead. Tables in Wonderland is an option for us because we are annual passholders. If you are not an annual passholder or a Florida resident, you may not be eligible to purchase a Tables in Wonderland card. For the $100 price of the card, you get a 20% discount on all food and beverages (including alcohol) at participating restaurants, which are predominantly table service locations.
For our upcoming trip, my husband created a rather elaborate spreadsheet detailing the price per day of the DDP as compared to the menu prices of our meals. Many of the complete menus (including prices) can be found online at the Disney dining website and at the Disney Food Blog. This was a fun, but daunting, task. We looked at each of the menus for each of the restaurants we had pre-selected for each of the days on our upcoming vacation. Based on the menu offerings, we decided what we would probably order in each of the categories included in the DDP (appetizers, desserts, etc.), and added the price for each of those items to the spreadsheet. We then compared the final total of all the items we would order to the cost of the Disney Dining Plan.
Here's our spreadsheet:
In Disney speak, quick service restaurants are those with walk up counters where you order your food and carry it to your table on a tray (see lunch at Be Our Guest in the New Fantasyland at Magic Kingdom as a notable exception to this rule). This is as opposed to table service restaurants which employ wait staff to serve you at your table. With the "regular" Disney Dining plan, you get one quick service meal (non-alcoholic drink, entree, and dessert), one table service meal (non-alcoholic drink, appetizer, entree, and dessert), and one snack (like a Mickey shaped pretzel or a Mickey ice cream bar or a cupcake) per day.
On both of our trips to WDW as DVC members, we have toyed with the idea of using the DDP, and both times we have decided to use Tables in Wonderland instead. Tables in Wonderland is an option for us because we are annual passholders. If you are not an annual passholder or a Florida resident, you may not be eligible to purchase a Tables in Wonderland card. For the $100 price of the card, you get a 20% discount on all food and beverages (including alcohol) at participating restaurants, which are predominantly table service locations.
For our upcoming trip, my husband created a rather elaborate spreadsheet detailing the price per day of the DDP as compared to the menu prices of our meals. Many of the complete menus (including prices) can be found online at the Disney dining website and at the Disney Food Blog. This was a fun, but daunting, task. We looked at each of the menus for each of the restaurants we had pre-selected for each of the days on our upcoming vacation. Based on the menu offerings, we decided what we would probably order in each of the categories included in the DDP (appetizers, desserts, etc.), and added the price for each of those items to the spreadsheet. We then compared the final total of all the items we would order to the cost of the Disney Dining Plan.
Here's our spreadsheet:
We were careful to include the prices of drinks and whether or not the restaurant we had planned for allowed a Tables in Wonderland discount or not. We also considered tips, which are not included in the price of the DDP for table service meal credits. Incidentally, we already had the Tables in Wonderland card (which is good for a year from the date of purchase) from our last vacation, so we did not need to figure that into our cost estimations for this trip.
What we found when we looked at the menus was that the DDP included a lot of food, some of which, especially in the case of a few of the dessert selections, we were not interested in, but felt as though we would have been "forced" to order since we had paid for them and they were included in the price of the DDP. Additionally, my husband and I often share an appetizer instead of ordering one for each of us. We also discovered that, on our upcoming vacation, we were not taking advantage of enough character dining or special dining experiences to balance out the cost of the DDP. In the end, even if we DID purchase everything included in the DDP (appetizers, entrees, desserts, drinks, snacks), we still save almost $170 by using Tables in Wonderland instead (and we probably won't purchase everything that's included in the DDP, anyway).
A blog entry at touringplans.com tries to answer the question of whether the DDP could save you money. In this article, author Stacey Lantz details three different family prototypes using the DDP, and comes to the conclusion that the larger your family is, the more likely it is that you will actually save money using the DDP. It will definitely be something that we consider again when we travel to WDW on a bigger family vacation with my mom and my sister's family, but for now it doesn't seem as though it will work to save us money.
Again, the DDP continues to be an attractive idea for me. I only wish that my family would have an opportunity to test it out during one of Disney's free dining plan events. Alas, they never seem to offer the free dining plan promotion during school vacations (such is the life of a teacher). Here's hoping, though.....
What we found when we looked at the menus was that the DDP included a lot of food, some of which, especially in the case of a few of the dessert selections, we were not interested in, but felt as though we would have been "forced" to order since we had paid for them and they were included in the price of the DDP. Additionally, my husband and I often share an appetizer instead of ordering one for each of us. We also discovered that, on our upcoming vacation, we were not taking advantage of enough character dining or special dining experiences to balance out the cost of the DDP. In the end, even if we DID purchase everything included in the DDP (appetizers, entrees, desserts, drinks, snacks), we still save almost $170 by using Tables in Wonderland instead (and we probably won't purchase everything that's included in the DDP, anyway).
A blog entry at touringplans.com tries to answer the question of whether the DDP could save you money. In this article, author Stacey Lantz details three different family prototypes using the DDP, and comes to the conclusion that the larger your family is, the more likely it is that you will actually save money using the DDP. It will definitely be something that we consider again when we travel to WDW on a bigger family vacation with my mom and my sister's family, but for now it doesn't seem as though it will work to save us money.
Again, the DDP continues to be an attractive idea for me. I only wish that my family would have an opportunity to test it out during one of Disney's free dining plan events. Alas, they never seem to offer the free dining plan promotion during school vacations (such is the life of a teacher). Here's hoping, though.....