Should we upgrade from DDP to Deluxe?

[Deb]

Look at my countdown Sorry in advance this post is so long....

Anyway, we are on the DDP for the very first time this year as it was free. Last year was the first time I have made ADRs, as I knew it would be tough to get into places now without them. We always preferred the spontaneity of days gone by when less people made dining reservations and we could pick and choose, but now we accept we have to plan a little more!

I have booked most of our ADRs for this year, and actually for the time of year we are going most aren't too tough to get. Well, we were looking at menus last night, and realised we are "appetiser" people, and would always order them with dinner, and as the DDP doesn't include them we would be paying for them out of pocket. It got us to thinking about the difference between the Standard and Deluxe plans and whether we'd be better to upgrade. I'd appreciate any thoughts on this to help us....

We have been quoted a total of £608 to upgrade to the Deluxe plan, with no admin fee if we decide in the next couple of days - that's £19 each per day. It sounds quite a bit till we start to work some stuff out.

Standard DDP person per day is: 1 Counter Service (CS) meal, 1 Table Service (TS) meal, and a snack. TS includes entree, dessert and beverage

Deluxe pppd is: 3 TS and 2 snacks. TS includes an appetiser too.

So, if we work on the basis that we will have an appetiser each day, ranging from about £5 to £12 depending on the type of restaurant, and include what we would spend for breakfast, it starts to make some sense to do.

There are 3 meals we want to do that aren't on the Plan - V&A, T Rex and RFC for brekkie at AK. But as we will be eating at 3 or 4 Signature restaurants and therefore using 2 credits for each this doesn't need to be taken into account anyway. I know we will need more planning if we take the Deluxe Plan, and I know we won't eat everything we could eat on it - but I also know that we did eat 3 meals a day last time, albeit quite a lot of CS meals, like Casey's.

We do love our food (not in the way of eating tons of it, but enjoying trying new things ) and this will allow is to experiment more and try new places. Maybe we could eat less CS as our lunches, and go to Sci-Fi Diner for example. Does anyone have any thoughts on this? Whether it would be advantageous to do this or just have the money in our pockets to spend?

If you have made it this way through this post then you deserve a medal

[Deafjeff]

Hi, we struggled with our DDP as likewise we did thought about upgrading to deluxe and we were glad that we didnt! It was just enough as the mains tends to be quite big especially with pudding afterward!!

Occasionally we just paid extra for starter but one or two places decided to ignore starter so we didnt pay for it!

[Keith]

oh gosh that's a heck of a good question.

I'm not the best person for it either since we don't normally do the Disney dining plan.

The thing that does kinda bug me though is that so much is two credits now. So, I really like the 3ts value on the deluxe. I wouldnt be able to do 3*TS meals a day no way, but I would eat every night at a deluxe, see all the shows and so on truly it would be a no-extra-cost holiday.. well other than v&a I guess

to be honest the more I think about it, the more I think I'd do it. As you say, not for the volume of food but for the experimentation

[Deb]

Jeff, we are the same in that it is all too much food for us, but the thing is we still always order appetisers at dinner! We were discussing this last night, and it's just something we like to do, to sample the food...we rarely finish everything on our main, but we still do it I think the thing is we are not huge dessert eaters - I will sometimes order to try it out or if I really like the look of one, but DH rarely bothers. We were trying to decide whether we could eat a dessert instead of an appetiser because it's free but the answer was a no!

[Deb]

oh gosh that's a heck of a good question.

I'm not the best person for it either since we don't normally do the Disney dining plan.

The thing that does kinda bug me though is that so much is two credits now. So, I really like the 3ts value on the deluxe. I wouldnt be able to do 3*TS meals a day no way, but I would eat every night at a deluxe, see all the shows and so on truly it would be a no-extra-cost holiday.. well other than v&a I guess

to be honest the more I think about it, the more I think I'd do it. As you say, not for the volume of food but for the experimentation

Thanks Keith. Yes, I think as we have never done the DDP either it's even harder to visualise!

I like your thinking about the days when we use a 2 TS credit, it still leaves a full TS credit for a good breakfast for example. Hadn't thought about it that way. We don't really do the shows (we're a bit like you in that we don't like to be picked on ) but we may consider them too, as it would be no extra expense. We could also try some different breakfasts. I think becasue we went last year we don't feel so "panicky" about fitting all of the parks in, and apart from one night at each to see the respective fireworks we tend to use the nights for eating, drinking and relaxing.

I don't think we'd be much out of pocket if we upgraded and it might "force" us to eat places we wouldn't normally - we would usually only want to pay for a simple CS if we were having a nice dinner, whereas this way it wouldn't matter.

Mmmm, still thinking! Not a bad problem to have though!

[Kate]

I dont know tbh, but im glad ive never had to do the ddp, all seems very confusing to me!

[Keith]

I know it's non-transferable and people may think badly of me, but one of the nicest things ever was when a family asked us if we were staying a few days. I said yes we were, and they said we have some meals left on our DDP cards and cant possibly finish them, so if you can use them we'd love to know they were used.

Well we had a great few meals using them [ embarrassed look ] and somehow it was all the sweeter knowing they were a gift.

Just saying I guess, if you DID have a few credits left over, you could make someone's day ....

[Deb]

You know Keith, they always say they are non-transerable, but I always wondered how they "police" that? I assumed that once you had ended your stay at the hotel that the credits would be wiped out, that the card would become defunct?

[Keith]

You know Keith, they always say they are non-transerable, but I always wondered how they "police" that? I assumed that once you had ended your stay at the hotel that the credits would be wiped out, that the card would become defunct?

yeah I thought so too. I mean obviously the cards had their names on but that was ok. I guess we used the credits over the next couple of days so perhaps there was a grace period or something

[Deb]

yeah I thought so too. I mean obviously the cards had their names on but that was ok. I guess we used the credits over the next couple of days so perhaps there was a grace period or something

Ah, maybe! I think that's a lovely idea!

I already have visions of going back with a suitcase full of snacks from the credits