Ok, finally caught up in this thread and wanted to comment on the comparison of MyMagic+ to the dining plan brought up by @
RSoxNo1. We are planning an anniversary trip in June (let's just say we won't be collecting restaurant pagers to queue up for Dueling Dumbos) and out of curiosity I did a comparison of the dining plan to paying out of pocket for the restaurants we will be visiting (5 TSR total, one of which is signature). I looked at the menus and made a best guess on what me and my wife would order at each table service restaurant (one meal, one dessert, one non-alcoholic beverage per person per meal) and did the same with a logical selection of CSR's to get an exact comparison of the cost per day. I didn't choose our menu items based on what was cheapest or most expensive, just what we would probably choose, to see what value the DDP would be for us. I did not however, factor in any snacks seeing as how when we visit if I have a dessert at lunch and a dessert at dinner (truly the American way!) I have little desire or physical space for a middle of the day snack. The TSR's used in this study were Tokyo Dining dinner, Sanaa lunch, Liberty Tree Tavern lunch, LeCellier dinner, and Be Our Guest dinner.
The result? For the two of us it would be $100+ cheaper to pay out of pocket for all 10 meals than to use the dining plan. Now like I said, the DDP includes snacks which I did not. So it is fair to say, that we would have to consume $100 worth of snacks in 5 days between 2 (slim) people in addition to already having 2 desserts a day in order to break even, much less save the coveted 20% as advertised. Not to mention that without the dining plan, we have the flexibility to spend on exactly what we want (appetizer, share a dessert rather than ordering 2, etc.)
To me, this mirrors the bundling philosophy associated with MM+ that puts false value on extra offerings that you don't need. Snacks are cheap for Disney, so by automatically including them in your plan, they instantly make $$$. A Stitch's Great Escape fastpass is no different. While you may get 3 FP's per day, at least one of them is going to be crappy and (previously) unnecessary. So you are getting less experience for your $, but marketed as more. Instead of customizing exactly what you want, you are given specific parameters in which to choose from that benefit Disney rather than the consumer.
. What I'm having difficulty with is the seemingly irrational "OMG they will know everything about me" crowd. They'll actually know much the same things they already know with somewhat more granularity. *shrug*
