Castillo Mom
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- May 5, 2003
The "make a killing" part is not necessarily true - there would be real "value" in pre-selling meals and now knowing that you have a minimum number of meals sold across the property for a certain date in the future. Imagine what a smart company could do with that data, from just-in-time food ordering to staffing at just the right levels.
That being said, we have used the DDP since it's early days of paper meal tickets and have tracked our spending pretty closely each time. We have seen the savings slowly dwindle to where it's now close to a break even proposition for us. The reason we continue to consider it is because we put value on the stress it takes out of a vacation - no worrying about ordering the most expensive item on the menu or debating whether we should split a meal or not. And Disney deserts and snacks have become a great part of our vacation and I know, if not for the DP, we would never order that stuff paying out of pocket. Other's may put no value on that stress relief and that's fine, Disney gives plenty of options to fit everyone's travel preferences.
We’ve done the dining plan a few times. It really just depends on the individual trip as to whether it works out for us. Now that my kids are all adults and mom doesn’t foot the entire bill, they prefer to go with the dining plan next time around for all of the reasons you mentioned. If the rumors about DDP+ turn out to be true, it’ll be a good fit for our group.