JimboJones123
Well-Known Member
Which is a $55 chunk of cost. Better not get the $32 entree.
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People Angry Over Disney Dinning Plan
- Thread starter Disney MDACK
- Start date
Pumbas Nakasak
Heading for the great escape.
Wow, how wonderful are you, or is it cheap? Youre $25 would barely cover a buffet dinner. But well done for being so health concious.
PhilharMagician
Well-Known Member
TS dinner buffets are 26.99 - 29.99 per person and are not shareable, but do include beverage and desert. Ala cart restaurants dinner entrees are as low as 10.95 for a burger to + $40.00. These typically can be shared, but sometimes a plate charge is added and these entrees include no beverage or desert. Also in these prices are no tips.
I am impressed by you frugal abilities, but $25.00 per day certainly does not allow someone to eat at a TS restaurant at all. The fact that someone goes to a restaurant and has fish for dinner that costs $35.00 doesn't mean that they are obese. The cost of food is not the problem with most obesity it is the shear volume of food and lack of exercise.
If you only eat counter service you can probably get away with $25 a day meal budget and if you only drink water out of the drinking fountains. If you have even 1 meal at a sit down restaurant, that one meal, main course alone, will be about $25 depending on what you eat of course (without drinks, appetizer or dessert if you are so inclined). I really don't think it has anything to do with being obese, it just depends on weather you want to eat the catch of the day or not.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
actually, it is people trying to spend less on food that contributes to obesity in America. In Europe, the idea of "fast food" is viewed more as a treat than anything, and folks there are more likely to sit down to a leisurely meal at a sit down restaurant for a couple hours--net effect is that they eat less food and are less obese. We Americans, needing to cram 30 hours of work into a day, prefer to binge on $10 chicken nuggets with fries over 10 minutes so we can use our Fastpass. You eat more when you are in a rush and the food that disney serves at its counter service restaurants, in general, is not even remotely healthy--with its very low nutritional content coupled with tons of fat, you tend to eat more just to make your body happy. It is the people who sit down to nice meals at home along with some fine dining that are skinnier than the folks who have Wendy's for lunch every day. Enjoy your Baconator.
Dwarful
Well-Known Member
we USED to be able to dine at WDW with a family of 4 for about $100 a day...but those days are gone. Counter service meals can easily run $10+ per person and thats just a burger/fries/drink no dsrt. Prices have gone up. We tend to go to WDW for a minimum of 7 days but usually closer to 12. There is no way we could stomach CS meals every day for close to two weeks. Also, for us, dining is part of the fun.
WDW1974
Well-Known Member
The DDP is going to lead to the ruination of WDW dining.
It has dumbed things down tremendously because so many people with very pedestrian tastes (you know, the kind who eat a cheeseburger plain and think chicken on pizza is some scary concept and who wouldn't know what a risotto was if they sat on one) are winding up at places like the California Grill (in their theme park wear) looking for burgers and chicken fingers.
Disney loves it because they make a set amount of money in advance and can dumb their menus down saving on food acquisition.
Disney would love a world in which every restaurant had six entrees just like a cruise ship dining room (the model that DDP is based on).
The fact they are doing the hard-sell and pushing it on DVCers, APers and CMs now should prove beyond a shadow of a doubt this is what they want.
It also has lead to increasing prices because if you've bought a pre-paid dining plan what difference does it make if the steak is $31 or $38? Hell, you'll think it's more ofa value the more they raise prices and pity us poor fools who don't pony up for it because we'll be left paying the ridiculous prices (like last June when in two days Jiko's veggie entree went from $17 to $24 ... the same entree).
DDP will destroy quality Disney Dining.
It has dumbed things down tremendously because so many people with very pedestrian tastes (you know, the kind who eat a cheeseburger plain and think chicken on pizza is some scary concept and who wouldn't know what a risotto was if they sat on one) are winding up at places like the California Grill (in their theme park wear) looking for burgers and chicken fingers.
Disney loves it because they make a set amount of money in advance and can dumb their menus down saving on food acquisition.
Disney would love a world in which every restaurant had six entrees just like a cruise ship dining room (the model that DDP is based on).
The fact they are doing the hard-sell and pushing it on DVCers, APers and CMs now should prove beyond a shadow of a doubt this is what they want.
It also has lead to increasing prices because if you've bought a pre-paid dining plan what difference does it make if the steak is $31 or $38? Hell, you'll think it's more ofa value the more they raise prices and pity us poor fools who don't pony up for it because we'll be left paying the ridiculous prices (like last June when in two days Jiko's veggie entree went from $17 to $24 ... the same entree).
DDP will destroy quality Disney Dining.
thank you! many of the restaurants are attractions themselves. i can't wait to see my mother in laws face when we sit down at coral reef for the first time.
ToTBellHop
Well-Known Member
I remember the days when sit-down restaurants (and even counter service) had full menus...it makes it much harder for me to find restaurants to try out any more when none of their 5 dishes wow me. It's similar to the attitude they have taken with merchandise, and my merchandise spending has plummetted over the last several years. It used to be that they had too much cool stuff for me to afford. Now I have to exercise great patience looking for a single original item that I can't find at the World of Disney in NYC--upshot: I am excited when I go to the NYC shop and find a Kilimanjaro Safaris die-cast car, and saddened when I go to WDW and see shops overrun with Disney Parks merchandise and maybe 2 t-shirt designs specific to the Tower of Terror (but even so, those 2 shirts are the same ones I wore excitedly in about 1996...).
I find that the dining plan, had it been used more as a way to spread guests out and encourage them to try new things, would have been fantastic. Instead, as a money-saving method of the mouse, all it means is that on my honeymoon, I will try restaurants I have never been able to afford, but be underwhelmed. Pity...
yoyoflamingo
Well-Known Member
welcome to the boards here, WDW1974. I don't post much here, but I read it every day, and it's good to see you trying out new venues to spread your magic. Your insight has been missed lately.
As, as one who doesn't get the DDP, I agree it will destroy us all, and any spontaneity in dining in the World in general. How do I know where I want to eat 6 months out?
WDW1974
Well-Known Member
Thanks, yoyo, I have no idea how much or how often I'll post here. Micechat just feels dead. And LP.com has too many Disney can do no wrong types ... I think I'm just down on the 'fan community' as a whole.
But maybe I'll have more to say after my April visit to 'da world.
But maybe I'll have more to say after my April visit to 'da world.
mousermerf
Account Suspended
Animaniac93-98
Well-Known Member
I remember a time when you didn't have to finish a table service meal in 20 minutes or less. Not only has the DDP ruined selection and pricing food it's also shortening peoples eating time so that everyone with the stupid plan can use it. Table service meals can now be classified as "fast food with a seat".
I agree with all the posts above and IMO the DDP is the worst addition to the parks this decade (yes even more so than Stitch) because you can't aviod it.
I agree with all the posts above and IMO the DDP is the worst addition to the parks this decade (yes even more so than Stitch) because you can't aviod it.
JimboJones123
Well-Known Member
I'm sure they did. I'm sure they also saw the bottom line skyrocket.
As long as the ad says "Save up to 30% on your dining" you will not see the sales crash. Even though that means that every meal would have to be filet at Canada. As long as the illusion stands that you are saving money, it will continue to be a deal for many families.
It actually turns out to still be an awesome $$ saver if you have 2+ kids. The money saved on kids food for the VERY CHEAP kids version eats into the cost of what adults pay.
A family with 4+ kids under 10 actually almost pays for the adults by the savings on the kids. So in that case it still rocks. But for adults only, it is almost a challenge to break even and steadily fill CS with Lunches only and TS with Dinners only.
WDW1974
Well-Known Member
There's one way to avoid it ... dine off-property.
PhilharMagician
Well-Known Member
I am not sure I understand the 20 minute meal thing. I know we figure about 1 1/2 hours for a TS meal and it is typically that. Since the addition of the DDP I would say the dining times have increased, not decreased. I wish that it would get back to where you could when in a rush get in and out of a TS restaurant quickly when needed.
It is true that the menus have changed. The selections seem to have become very generalized among most restaurants. Now doesn't WDW have a central food prep facility that prepares and distributes to all restaurants? I thought I had seen that somewhere, maybe the Food Network. Over the past 10 years or so I have noticed all restaurants (not just WDW) have reduced the amount of items on their menus in a way to reduce costs. This seems to be a general trend that really does not make me very happy. With the economy trending downward, maybe restaurants will go back to the old ways and offer more choices.
In the end I would like to see the plan change or at this point just go away, but it has been around in differant forms for a long long time (I remeber it in the early 90's) and it will probably not be going anywhere.
righttrack
Well-Known Member
I've long said this...
Dining plans are too complicated. Too many rules. Sure most people who post here can handle them, we are the manic, elite of Disney fans. We read messageboards, watch the rumors, etc. For average Joe Family, these plans are difficult to understand, and so they are best avoided. I've steered people into it, even when they offered free dining a couple of years ago. Even free, one family said, it was just too much to keep track of.
Dining plans are too complicated. Too many rules. Sure most people who post here can handle them, we are the manic, elite of Disney fans. We read messageboards, watch the rumors, etc. For average Joe Family, these plans are difficult to understand, and so they are best avoided. I've steered people into it, even when they offered free dining a couple of years ago. Even free, one family said, it was just too much to keep track of.
pax_65
Well-Known Member
That's what we do. Sad, because we used to eat the vast majority of meals on property. But the dining plan has changed everything. Yes, with my wife and two kids I could save money with the dining plan. But it would take scheduling every dinner to the minute and making a conscious effort to use all my other meals & snacks to the utmost. It's an added level of stress that I don't need on vacation.
I want much more flexibility than the dining plan allows. I want to wake up in the morning not knowing which park we're going to that evening or where we're eating. Let the kids decide what they feel like doing and then make dinner arrangements that work with that. I don't want to schedule all my activities around when I could get priority seating for the restaurant that will give me my money's worth on the plan.
I believe this is how the DP makes money for Disney, because everyone wants that flexibility to some extent, and people end up missing meals or not getting maximum value for the plan.
I'm leaving for WDW in 17 days. I have ZERO priority seating reservations, nor do I expect to make any before I arrive on property. If that means I don't eat on property, then so be it.
Count me among the ed.