I hear this all the time but I really don’t get it. Why buy the plan if you know you don’t want to eat the meals? You wouldn’t pay for hopper tickets and then say they are a bad value because you only wanted to visit one park each day.We did the dining plan one time on a 14-day WDW trip. All other trips we have not purchased the dining plan. We find there is just too much food for us to eat. We ended up bringing lots of gingerbread snacks home. We even got a couple meals and gave to others we met in line who were paying. We just ordered what they wanted and handed to them. For sure that was kind of fun but we are good with one meal a day and a snack. Others may disagree.
Did you read the same article because you nailed it. When i read the post where someone wasn't quite sure how it was a big money maker in more ways than one , I could not remember what exactly how the article described it but you pretty much said exactly what the author said. Thank you for refreshing my memory.(1) Because you have to pay the equivalent of 2-3 meals onsite every day of your trio when you might otherwise dine off property one day or buy groceries
(2) it discourages guests from going to universal/sea world/beach as a day trip because they are locked in to meals, so they pay for a longer disney park ticket
(3) keeps people at the parks or resort hotels where they may spend $ on other things like gift shops
(4) incentivizes Disney hotel stays for people who like an all inclusive feel (not available at Swolphin or good neighbor hotels)
(5) once you are at a disney restaurant you may buy extra stuff not included on the plan like a second alcoholic drink, appetizer (if not on deluxe plan) or souvenir tinkerbell/buzz lightyear cup for the kiddos (guilty of all these things)
We did not buy the dining plan the one time we had it. The plan was offered for "free" because of the time of year we were visiting WDW. None of our other trips have we purchased the dining plan as we know it is not best for us. BUT when free we are not going to turn it down.I hear this all the time but I really don’t get it. Why buy the plan if you know you don’t want to eat the meals? You wouldn’t pay for hopper tickets and then say they are a bad value because you only wanted to visit one park each day.
Haha, nope. Was just feeling bored and spent 10 minutes trying to think hard about it and that's what I came up with. I just had to think about how DDP affected our own behavior and I started to see how it could be a money maker for disney beyond just the obvious.Did you read the same article because you nailed it. When i read the post where someone wasn't quite sure how it was a big money maker in more ways than one , I could not remember what exactly how the article described it but you pretty much said exactly what the author said. Thank you for refreshing my memory.