Dining Plan Effective April 2006

[tjkraz]

DVC has announced that the Disney Dining Plan will be available to DVC members for trips beginning in April 2006. Members can begin reserving the plan in January 2006.

The cost will be $37.99/Adult and $10.99/Child (ages 3-9) per day of the trip.

Dining must be reserved for the entire length of stay and for all members of the the party. There is no ticket purchase or other financial requirement tied to this perk.

The Disney Dining Plan grants participants credits toward one sit-down meal, one counter service meal and one snack per day. Some premium dining locations at WDW require multiple credits be used for a single meal.

Additional details regarding the dining plan may be found here:

http://www.touringplans.com/MYWDining.html

Note that the plan prices in the above link are slightly lower than those given by DVC. I am uncertain as to whether DVC members are paying a slight premium for the dining, or if DVC's posted prices reflect a pending 2006 price increase. Either way, be sure to take that into account when reviewing the financial analysis posted.

[lllovell]

WOW!!!

First the AP discount and now a dining plan. At least we know that people are listening! :bluebloun

I am going to have to do some SERIOUS number crunching in the future to see if this is worth our while. On our next trip, we will be staying in a GV with other people, so I am not sure they will want to do this, but on our next trip alone after that, I will have to give it some SERIOUS thought! My biggest drawback is (after price of course) that we tend to spend a day at Seaworld, so I would have to make sure we used our tickets well and were able to get reservations for a premium meal to make up for our "missed" day if that were the case.

Again - I am shocked as I NEVER thought they would offer this!

(a million thoughts flying through my head about this - will we be able to get ressies, will this stop the "free dining" plan from happening again {which is what has filled the restaurants up recently I think}, would it be a good deal for us since the kids just don't eat that much? Does it matter how much they eat since we buy them meals anyway and for sure a snack each day - just maybe not a snack EACH. Ack!)

[lllovell]

OK - so I am reading the link provided above and


*start grumble* BAM about half way down...there it is....the ubiquitous way to cheat a Walt Disney World plan.

I just hate this. I want to be able to use plans like this at differeing times and people cheating is what makes these kinds of plans disappear! It never seems to fail that any Disney program released immediately comes with ways to get around the plan or to get more than it was intended. I understand stretching dollars as well as anyone else (maybe better as I am a frugal person), but good lord! I wish everyone would just do right! I suspect this is why the "jr" pricing disappeared! I do feel for people who have light eaters or picky eaters - but DONT BUY THE PLAN if it doesn't work for you!!! ARGH!!!! *grumble over*

Otherwise, that link really gives good examples of how the plan works. I didn't realize that so many of the EPCOT restaurants didn't participate at first. Its good to see more places are now available.

[mamaprincess]

Im gonna faint! I have been obssessing about this forever!:rockband: :bluebloun :bluebloun :loveisint The bad sad awfully mad news if that we can only go up to march because we borrowed a bunch of points out of april use year so we could go in december which would have been twice in 1 year (AP discount dontcha know).

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRG GGGHHHHHHH!

[jnrrt]

And back to the problem I've had with this all along - we just don't eat enough to make this a great deal. Even if we wanted to use our children's credits in nefarious ways, it's still a lot. And we'll have the DDE. Choices, choices. But I'm glad they're making it available. That really does show that someone's listening.

[tjkraz]

*start grumble* BAM about half way down...there it is....the ubiquitous way to cheat a Walt Disney World plan.

Given the notation on the site, I'm hoping that little loophole has since been closed. Honestly, Disney only has themselves to blame if they allow that sort of stuff to happen. It's kinda like the DVC member perks being granted to renters. My philosophy always was that it's Disney's responsibility to fix the issue if they see it as a problem.

The site I quoted is run by authors of the Unofficial Guide to WDW. Given that competitive marketplace, I'm sure their reasoning is that if they don't disclose the loophole, someone else will. :goodnevil

[tjkraz]

And back to the problem I've had with this all along - we just don't eat enough to make this a great deal.

Same here...although that may change once the kids are older. Right now we almost always do breakfast AND lunch in the room since the kids need an afternoon nap.

Once the kids are older and we are inclined to spend the entire day out-and-about, I could see us trying the plan. Honestly, I can't see it being a regular thing, though.

As you said, that's a LOT of food.

[lenshanem]

I already have all our PSs booked for spring break, including an already paid Hoop and CRT. I wonder if they can apply this dining plan to what I already have???

$784 for our family for 8 nights. Thoughts? We typically eat a PS dinner, counter service for lunch and breakfast in the room. I guess I'll have to sit and figure this out later... I was planning on getting another DDE for this trip and next New Year's.

[lllovell]

I am sure for the unpaid things, its no biggie Shan, but that is an excellent question. I think this is a big numbers issue for everyone, but especially for those of us with small children. I do wonder if mine would eat that much too - not to mention the time invested in ALL those sit down meals. We dont do one a day now.

TJ - I know what you mean. I guess I don't really fault the website for posting it. I simply don't think that way and it shocks me that it never seems to fail that someone not only does, but does it quickly! You are right about Disney being the one that needs to correct their issues. They have with the child AP thing. You now have to show an adult AP (or at least I did the last two times) to get an AP discount on a room. MAybe the computer program for the BRP fixed this as well.

Laura

[keishashadow]

Given the notation on the site, I'm hoping that little loophole has since been closed. Honestly, Disney only has themselves to blame if they allow that sort of stuff to happen. It's kinda like the DVC member perks being granted to renters. My philosophy always was that it's Disney's responsibility to fix the issue if they see it as a problem.

The site I quoted is run by authors of the Unofficial Guide to WDW. Given that competitive marketplace, I'm sure their reasoning is that if they don't disclose the loophole, someone else will. :goodnevilIt's been reported than the "loophole" is gradually closing (some sites enforce, some currently don't - but all will by year-end).

Told 'ya this was coming....yippee!!!!:goodvibes

Now if only WDW would post the June hours (I need to book for next trip on 12/17)...seems awfully early, absurd IMO.

The EMH hours are out, but PH aren't...go figure.

[JimC]

Nice to have the choice, but DDE with the AP discount works much better for us.

[DSNY FN]

We only ever eat about 3 to 4 meals out in 2 weeks so for us this would be a huge waste of money we prefer to make our meals in the room.

[senecabeach]

I'll need to do some serious homework for my upcoming May trip...
The DDE/AP has worked wonderful for me and saved lots of $$ this past year. Of course Im talking about planning for adults..

But..this May (for the 1st time), I'll be taking kids (3 princesses, 8, 6, 2)...and am quickly finding out that "planning" for anything is next to impossible!! I.E. PS's, nights out, nights in, naps, pool??:hypnotict Its like a NO schedule schedule..

Don't get me wrong..I'm excited and looking forward to it....I think:scary:
How DO you guys do it??:headbange

[JohnNJ]

We'd love to try the dining plan with kids but this trip the kids are treated as adults and they cannot consume that much food.

My wife and I used a meal plan many years ago as part of a package (before we knew better) and clearly saved money on food. We ate at sit down restaurants for every meal and took full advantage of the plan. We could never do that mnay sit downs with the kids and come out ahead.

We will use the DDE card this time but I'm still not sure I'll break even on that.

John

[Stimpy]

You'll be surprised how fast you can break even with the DDE card! We were able to get our money's worth ($50) in 3 days. We had 3 adults and 1 child (& free infant) at the Biergarten, 2 adults and 2 kids at Sci-fi and a few other places within that 3 days. Since then we've used it again during a 7 day trip and hopefully another 3 day trip before it expires in May.

[jnrrt]

Senecabeach, one of my methods with kids is to make a lot of PS's and then cancel them as I go. I wouldn't do this with something really coveted, like the castle, but in general, we make more ps's than we think we'll use, and if it works out, great! If not, we call and cancel it, and no harm done. It really does help our family to have a plan for meals, though, so we don't get stuck looking for food too often, but we're flexible with it. For example, my dd really wanted to try Sci-Fi on our last trip, so we made sure that we were in the studios for that. But later in the week, we cancelled a ps for Prime-Time since we really didn't need to go back to the studios again (for me, we would have switched that!).

I agree, though, it is kind of a pain. Just have to go with the flow a lot more.

[senecabeach]

jnrrt.....

I never thought of making PS's anyway. What a good idea. I'll re-look at my schedule and DO as you suggested.
Thanks for the tip!:clappingh

I did make CTR ressies, against my better judgement, since its very expensive this year. Couldn't resist this "once in a lifetime" event for the kids.

Also...there was NO DDE/AP discount for this meal in '06 contrary to the '05 DDE perks. Just my luck:faint:
Did also notice that Disney has already charged my cc for this PS.

Need to find, if they're posted somewhere, the DDE/AP perks on line for '06 and see if I can streamline this budget a bit more.
Hummmm:scratchch

Thanks again for the tip!!:woohoo:

[jnrrt]

No problem!

[pouncingpluto]

For this first trip, we've still got DDE, and I think that will work out for the best anyway for this particular trip.

For the future, we don't plan to be AP holders anymore, so I think we will use DDP for trips when we stay in studios. When we stay in one-bedrooms, we should eat out a little less.

[jaysue]

Nice to have the choice, but DDE with the AP discount works much better for us.

Good point Jim, I was thinking that was a better combo for us as well especially since many days we eat breakfast and dinner in the room

cheers
jaysue