A trip without DDP.

We've done both DDP and not. We found we had to take into account who is going (eg. Picky kids/teens are not good on the dining plan- esp. ages 10-12 when they eat kid portions but have to buy the adult DDP- but usually end up eating the kids pizza- huge waste of money!)... and whether the free dining promo is on.

If we vacation with free dining, it's not an option. We go with it. If there is no free dining, we pay out of pocket. As Canadians, we can't buy US Disney gift cards in our disney stores or online. So that's not an option. Instead, I've done the pay-it-ahead of time thing 2 different ways.

With both ways, I look at the menus and try to guess what we will order. Usually I overestimate a bit, just to be safe. Once I know what we will spend with food, tip, and tax for each meal and snack, I either make little envelopes with cash per day or prepay the amount on the credit card. With cash, we pay our bills in cash. With credit, we just charge it to our room on the magic band.

With fluctuating exchange rates, the cash envelopes work better for us. And most times we end up bringing extra money home (which is always great!). It's not hard- I buy a little plastic file folder from the dollar store that goes in my purse on the trip down, then the room safe when we arrive. Each night before bed, I pull the next days envelope and put it with our magic bands and paraphernalia for the morning. And we're ready to go. The only problem is if something gets lost, it's irreplaceable. Thankfully that's never happened to us.

I think you will most likely come out ahead not buying the DDP. Think of it as an experiment! And have a wonderful trip!:mickey:

I used gift cards to pay for everything during our 8 day Dec. trip. We did not have magic band charging ability since we were staying at Shades of Green. The only place I couldn't use them was to get coffee in the morning at SoG.

my daughter used her magic band to charge food when we weren't together using our August trip last year, I had a limit on what she could charge on her band. I put extra on her band later in the week. No problems with the money on the bands either.

I like the payment with bands better.

We don't use a dining plan either- would rather get a room discount.

Haunted Mansion Girl-You guys sound just like us! We have always had the dining plan but found with picky eaters and things it was not always cost effective. DH likes having everything paid ahead of time. I think it is a psychological thing for him if he were to see that money coming out of our checking account when we were there. We were leaning towards gift cards so that they money is set aside before hand. We figure if there is money left on the card we will be back in October and we will use it then.

We have done both and prefer the freedom of not being tied to DDP. All of us like to split meals so we can try more variety and will generally just get one dessert to share. Plus not being stuffed after a meal allows us to try more of those yummy snacks.
As others have posted we keep all our receipts and always spend way less then we would with the DDP.
Whatever you choose i'm sure you will have a magical trip.