Disney Dining Plan Calculator

goherdibg

Member
Original Poster
What are the meals not covered by the plan? I keep seeing Sassagoula there but I know for a fact it is covered. I'm staying for 12 days, doing one 2 credits restaurant, no QS on our first day and by day 8 I've run out of QS and TS credits.

Can you explain the relation between Additional Cost and Meals Not Covered by plan?

Meals not covered under the plan are the meals you are supposed to pay for out of pocket as they are the cheapest of your meals. The general rule is to always use the plan for your most expensive meals.

In your example of staying 12 days (11 nights), I am assuming you are testing the Regular Dining Plan. You would have 11 QS credits and 11 TS credits. Once you go over the number of credits, we then order the restaurants by "cost per credit" and put the cheapest ones past number 11 on the "Meals Not Covered Under Plan". That simply means the 11 meals under "Meals Covered Under Plan" are the meals you should put on the dining plan and meals 12 through number X are the ones to pay for out of pocket. Please let me know if I did not explain it well enough.

The term "Additional Cost" means the meal plan is not cost beneficial for your particular trip and meal selections. If the numbers were in your favor, you would have seen something like "Savings: $125.40". The "Additional Cost" amount is the amount the specific meal plan costs above the total of the meals under "Meals Covered Under Plan". For example, if the 22 meals/credit (QS + TS for your 11 night trip assuming all 1 credit TS meals) cost a total of $1722.65 and you had an "Additional Cost" of $125.40, that means the dining plan cost $1722.65 + $125.40 and you would be over-spending by $125.40. Again, please let me know if that does not make sense.

If for some reason you think the credits are being mis-applied, please copy the dropdown for the details and send us feedback on the site to make sure we do not have a restaurant mis-labeled as 2 credits.

I hope that helped. Always feel free to send us direct feedback on the Feedback link at the bottom of the page.
 

LucyK

Well-Known Member
Thanks @goherdibg! You did explain it very well and I was able to finally make it work. I'll save $23.43 if I do the Dinning plan and pay Tusker House OOP. I enjoy the Dining Plan simply because all my food is already paid by the time I get there and your calculator helped me to plan my meals better and take advantage of the DDP.

I'll definitely spread the link to your website around, it's a great planning tool and I thank you for your efforts.
 

Mickey1968

Member
Does the "Additional Cost" amount include the appetizers, desserts, snacks "Not Covered" amount? or are these in addition to the additional cost? Thanks.
 

goherdibg

Member
Original Poster
Does the "Additional Cost" amount include the appetizers, desserts, snacks "Not Covered" amount? or are these in addition to the additional cost? Thanks.

The "Additional Cost" amount is the amount the specific meal plan costs above the total of the meals under "Meals Covered Under Plan". That number does not include items that would need to be paid for out of pocket and are not covered under that particular plan. For example, appetizers are not covered under the Regular Dining Plan so the additional cost would not include those costs since they would be paid for out of pocket even on the plan. Under the Deluxe they would be included since the Deluxe covers appetizers.

We are releasing an update within a week that will break down the costs and help show exactly which costs would be covered under a particular plan and which ones would be covered out of pocket.
 

goherdibg

Member
Original Poster
Based on the great feedback received, we have released an update to the Dining Plan Calculator that further details the costs associated with meals included on a specific dining plan and the costs to be paid for out of pocket. Under the dropdown for each plan, we continue to show you exactly what meals should be paid for using that specific dining plan; however, we now show you cost breakdown totals for the dining plan meals and the meals not on the dining plan.

We have also changed some of the terminology to help make the comparisons more clear and added a few of the more popular non-dining plan restaurants to help with the comparisons.

We hope you enjoy using the Dining Plan Calculator. Feel free to visit the site and provide any feedback on the changes recently made via our Feedback link on the bottom of the site.

Thank you again,
GoHerdIBG
http://www.distripplanner.com
 

goherdibg

Member
Original Poster
We just released another minor update to the Dining Plan Calculator where we added 2 features. We now show you when you can make your 180 day ADR's based on your arrival date. We also added an "Average QS" restaurant to the breakfast, lunch, and dinner QS groups named Average Breakfast QS, Average Lunch QS, and Average Dinner QS, respectively. This will allow you to be more flexible and not be required to choose a specific QS restaurant but still keep an average price range for your QS choices.
 

goherdibg

Member
Original Poster
Our most recent release now includes the options of adding refillable mugs to your planning and also includes Candlelight Processional packages.

Enjoy,
GoHerdIBG
 

LucyK

Well-Known Member
Thanks for all the hard work, this page has been bookmarked and shared with all my Disney travel buddies.

Just as a suggestion if you could make this into a iphone app it would be most welcomed.
 

goherdibg

Member
Original Poster
Thanks for all the hard work, this page has been bookmarked and shared with all my Disney travel buddies.

Just as a suggestion if you could make this into a iphone app it would be most welcomed.

Thanks for the kind words. An iPhone/iPad/Android app is in the plans. We wanted to use the web site to nail down our application so most people were happy with it then use the site as a design for the others.
 

disneygirl76

Carey Poppins - Nanny and Disney Enthusiest
I have been a member of the WDWMagic forums for nearly 2 years. Over the years, I have made multiple trips to Disney World and have always struggled with the question "Should I use the Disney Dining Plan?" From reading this forum (and others), it is obvious I am not the only one who asks this question before every trip.

In the past, to help me with the decision I built documents and spreadsheets of overly complex calculations based on the people who were traveling with me. I also posted on forums asking for advice and pretty much ended up with a similar answer each time - "It depends". While there are many factors that go into the decision to use the dining plan or not, it appears most members are concerned with one main factor - cost. Cost was always my main factor when deciding whether or not I should use the dining plan.

To help me with the decision for future trips and to help others with the same decision I have worked with a friend to put together a web site called the "Disney Dining Plan Calculator" that uses estimated meal costs along with some trip information to determine if a Disney Dining Plan is financially beneficial.

The site is easy to use, free to access, does not require you to create an account, and does not require any personal information.

The address for the web site is http://www.distripplanner.com

Feel free to visit the site and let us know what you think. This is the initial release of the Dining Plan Calculator. In the future, we plan on also providing a list of restaurants with full menus to allow you to choose what you think you would eat to provide a more exact price comparison in addition to the current estimation method.

If you have any questions about the site or have any exciting recommendations for future enhancements please provide us with feedback on the site.

Thank you,
GoHerdIBG

I discussed this post with wdwmagic, the owner of these forums and he has given me permission to post this information.

Excellent!! Very helpful! Thank you so much! I am a huge fan of the dining plan bc I like to have everything paid for in advance. And I do believe I am saving money on it. But I have always been curious if it is really a savings! Thanks again!
 

awoogala

Well-Known Member
Just used this- I was not planning on the dining plan at all- I just wanted to estimate about how much we'd be paying for meals this trip- great way to do that, too!
 

goherdibg

Member
Original Poster
Just used this- I was not planning on the dining plan at all- I just wanted to estimate about how much we'd be paying for meals this trip- great way to do that, too!

Thanks for the feedback. As a side note, we will be releasing an iPad app in the next week or 2. I will post an update once it has been placed on the Apple store.
 

awoogala

Well-Known Member
Thanks for the feedback. As a side note, we will be releasing an iPad app in the next week or 2. I will post an update once it has been placed on the Apple store.
we have android- but that is a great idea! If it's ever in Android, I would buy it!
 

Cesar R M

Well-Known Member
Id totally get the android one!

You will be surprised that we we ended with 17 deluxe dinning plans remaining D:
Even the clerks everywhere were saying "but you still have so many points!".

I swear I'm gonna get a lot of character lunchs/dinner to get those points used next time I go! XD
 

Register on WDWMAGIC. This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.

Back
Top Bottom