Out Of Pocket?

[disneysince71]

We pay for all of ours OOP. Not a fan... of the dining plan..... Unless its free.. !

 

[The Incredible Schmulk]

I'm surprised by the amount of out-of-pocket diners on this thread, so far. We have never used the dining plan on our trips, but I always kind of feel like the odd man out on these sorts of discussions.

I mean, I know why the dining plan is worthwhile for many situations, especially for families of four or more. It just never fits for the two of us and our style of casual browsing, lounge hopping and other somewhat spontaneous gastronomic whims. Good to know I'm not alone out there.

 

[tissandtully]

I'm surprised by the amount of out-of-pocket diners on this thread, so far. We have never used the dining plan on our trips, but I always kind of feel like the odd man out on these sorts of discussions.

I mean, I know why the dining plan is worthwhile for many situations, especially for families of four or more. It just never fits for the two of us and our style of casual browsing, lounge hopping and other somewhat spontaneous gastronomic whims. Good to know I'm not alone out there.

After doing the math on it, I can really only see using the DDP on trips where it's just the wife and myself. Once our son gets 10-years-old, it's not going to be a good deal as he's definitely not going to be eating all that food. There's also the feeling that you have to get your money's worth and get the most expensive things on the menu, that just makes sense, so I feel it may be limiting in that respect. I got it for our upcoming trip in April and the way we have it planned out it should come in handy and actually save a decent amount of money, especially the snack credits for the F&G food booths

 

[The Incredible Schmulk]

After doing the math on it, I can really only see using the DDP on trips where it's just the wife and myself. Once our son gets 10-years-old, it's not going to be a good deal as he's definitely not going to be eating all that food. There's also the feeling that you have to get your money's worth and get the most expensive things on the menu, that just makes sense, so I feel it may be limiting in that respect. I got it for our upcoming trip in April and the way we have it planned out it should come in handy and actually save a decent amount of money, especially the snack credits for the F&G food booths

Because of the way we eat, usually sharing an appetizer and skipping a dessert (or the reverse), and how much we like to lounge hop for our dinners, we really can't use the dining plan for our purposes. We also like to eat at a fair amount of signatures, so we would need the deluxe plan to stick with that. It just doesn't fit our style. That being said, the only time we seriously considered using it was this past year when the quick service plan was free around the time of the Food & Wine Fest. The ability to use credits at the booths is indeed a huge incentive to sign on.

Ultimately, we ended up using the late-arriving resort-only discount on a moderate. It saved us more money overall than the dining plan would have, seeing as how we would have been still dumping a large chunk at lounges and signatures, anyway.

 

[bethymouse]

I hate that they don't offer apps as part of the DDP anymore. I am not a big dessert eater!
We would pay out of pocket for pizza delivery to the room if we're hungry late at night. If we want anything and we've exceeded our snack allowances, then we pay oop. But, other than that we use DDP. Sometimes hubby gets an appetizer and pays oop. I wouldn't pay oop for any character meal or signature meal. It's just too much.