Last year was our family's first ever trip. 5 of us with 2 rooms. (My parents, me, DH and 10 yo DD) We paid for dxdp for us 3 and split all of our credits with all 5. We still had snack credits left right before checking out and slent them on snacks for the plain. We got to try a lot of different food we normally wouldn't have the chance to try. But.....
I will never do a dxdp or any dining plan with table service again. Why?
1) I felt like I was pressured to put down that 20% tip everytime. Until my mom said, stop it! These prices are so inflated, even a 10% tip on every meal of ours was $15 to $20. I used to be a server and I remember those days. I know no one forced my hand to tip and we did tip well for good service but 5 meals on a dxdp ran us MINIMAL $120.00 + tip. Btw...our worst service was at Brown Derby.
2) So much food. 3 ts credits for 3 of us for 9 days was 81 credits split 5 ways and still felt like we needed to have a sit down twice a day to get the value for it.
3) We were using up so much valuable "play" time sitting and eating or waiting for our checks. Proabably spent 3 to 4 hours a days going to, eating, waiting for check, and leaving a restaurant.
Now we paid for our plan. It was not free. We wanted to "go all out" on our first trip and we regret getting the plan. I am sure it is great for those who are foodies. And we needed to get sit down ressies to get the value out of our plan. But if we ever do another dining plan, we would to quick service so there is no commitment to reservations.
Unfortunately we probably wont be able to get free dining this year since our trip is end of oct and beginning of november. And from what I have read our dates will probably be blacked out....and we are going to be at All-Star Movies. Maybe room-only discount will show up and that would be a plus! We are doing disney on a budget this time so even with no dining plan, I think we will be much happier and will have a lot more time to "do disney"!
