WARNING. Dining Plan w/ SPLIT resort stays

[YoMickey]

I used to promote split stays. We never had any troubles. However, on our last trip we planned a split stay. A lengthy one at that. It involved 5 nights at BWV, 3 at VWL, and 3 at AKL. The last night at AKL was also on cash.

Moving isn't bad but it may/will screw up your dining plan if you get it

Here's my story. We went down early, friends were coming in 5 nights after we arrived. We skipped two sit downs to save up for Cindarella's Royal table and Mickey's backyard BBQ (gross food) ....What happens at midnight the night you move is that your food entitlements from the DDP expire so you have to start with a clean slate....You can only imagine how the rest of this story goes.

I started at the Conceirge at BWV, they said call member services, while I called member services they said go to the front desk of the resort, so I kept DVC member services on the phone put them on speaker and was then told by both MS and front desk that I screwed up (dining is only for your length of stay......at that resort is the fine print they don't tell you) ....well they couldn't help:furious: . We ended up rushing around and found a Signature dining option at Artist Point the night we checked in to VWL since they were expiring at midnight. We ended up paying cash for CRT and used two entitlements for the BBQ.

I thought it was all taken care of until our last night....on cash...we ate at Japan as part of the Candlelight dining package for preferred seating. I gave him my room card that said DDP right on it an they said it was all out:sick: :headache: . I paid cash and called the front desk of the AKL while waiting in line for the Candlelight.

Some guy there was able to credit me the cash and then use my dining plan entitlements to pay for the dinner, however I was going to have to stop by the front desk to change room keys. He cancelled my reservation and then rebooked it and said my roomkey would not work when we returned.

I was astonished they were not able to budge/edit/add any food credits to let us just keep our schedule at the BWV.

Also, the dining plan isn't that great of a deal anymore since they changed it.

Long story short...........be wary of your ADR if you are splitting stays and using the DDP.

Anyways, we're staying home (BCV) from now on and probably cooking in.:upsidedow

[poohfriend]

I thought it was a well-known fact that each package is seperate...and that the meal plans expire. Still sorry you had a rough time -- especially since Disney got that much money out of you!

[LadyOmega]

Aww, too bad it wasn't a great experience for you. :sad1: That is definitely the way the DDP works with split stays - your DDP credits are separated by room stay. Thanks for posting, hopefully your post will clue someone in who doesn't realize. :)

[newbydisney]

I am confused and worried by this as we often do split stays. We also often go to WDW for just one or two days before going on a cruise or other areas in Florida. My experience is that if you stay one night, for example, you can use the DDP immediately upon receiving your Key. You can use it the next day as well up until midnight. Am I understanding that if you check-in at another resort that yesterdays card is voided? Or does it just run out at midnight like it would on a one day stay??
Thanks for your help.

[wdwluver]

double post, sorry.

[wdwluver]

I am confused and worried by this as we often do split stays. We also often go to WDW for just one or two days before going on a cruise or other areas in Florida. My experience is that if you stay one night, for example, you can use the DDP immediately upon receiving your Key. You can use it the next day as well up until midnight. Am I understanding that if you check-in at another resort that yesterdays card is voided? Or does it just run out at midnight like it would on a one day stay??
Thanks for your help.

You are correct, your dining plan remains valid until midnight the day you check out of your "dining plan" resort. After midnight on checkout day, all unused credits expire.

[Luv2Roam]

Agree, sorry it caused you issues.
However that is the way it always has been and as someone else posted, thought it was well known. :confused3

Split stays can be a hassle, IMO. But I can see why people like to do them.

For anyone, each resorts stay is a separate package. And those entitlements are good for that package (meaning at that resort during that package stay).

The only exceptions I can think of are probably the WDTC vouchers. (Sea Racyers, PH, etc.) I think those have expiration dates through the current calendar year. The ones I rec'd did anyway.

Hopefully what you learned (the hard way) will prevent future issues for you.

[YoMickey]

We've been DVC members for about 4 years. We've been to Disney 8+ times, I've trolled these boards for 3-4?? years.

.... and never had a clue. Always thought it was for length of stay.

Before I posted it I tried to search and could find the link. I wanted to warn people since it was a hassle. By no means did it consume us. Still a wonderful place to vacation, already booked for April 2009....and guess what, it's not a split stay

Define length of stay?

Explain why no one at DVC's member services didn't mention this.

Explain why no one in dining mentioned it?

They don't advertise it so I am advertising it here.

It's possible to do. Just plan around the rule.

It was a great trip. Just had to make a few calls.

[LadyOmega]

.... and never had a clue. Always thought it was for length of stay.

Define length of stay?



Well, you have it right, technically. The DDP IS good for length of stay. However, what Disney defines as "length of stay" is divided by your stay at a particular resort. When you check out, even if you are immediately going to check in at another WDW resort, that means your "length of stay" has ended, and you when you check into the next place, you begin a totally separate "stay". I've always been told at check-inthat my DDP credits expire at midnight on the night of checkout, so I'm guessing there were just some lines crossed somewhere so that you didn't "get the memo", so to speak.

Once again, sorry you didn't know about this beforehand, and I'm glad you didn't let it get to you. I have seen quite a few threads on this very subject before....unfortunately, the search function never seems to work. :rotfl:

Hope your next stay is snafu-free. :thumbsup2

[rentayenta]

This is one of the reason we are only doing the DDP for the first part of our trip. Once we switch resorts, no more DDP. :thumbsup2

[Tiger926]

As people have stated, this is the way it has always been. We always do split stays - 5 resorts in 16 days this past May, with no worries at all as we know how to properly use plan.

Day 1 - DxDP
Day 2 - No DP
Days 3-4 - Reg DP
Days 8-12 DxDP
Days 13-16 No DP

Sorry it worked out this way for you, but now you know for next time! Tiger

[jcemom]

We don't like split stays, in general, but sometimes do them anway when it's necessary. (If we add on a night or two, for example, and our original resort isn't available.)

I really do wish Disney had a way to link the reservations so that it would be considered one stay even if you change resorts. But they don't.

I'm sorry you had to find out the hard way, but I'm happy to hear you didn't let it ruin your trip. :goodvibes

[asmit4]

I am presuming they don't want to link them. Think about it...my mom and I could go for say 7 nights. We could go during free DDP. We could book 1 trip for 3 nights, 1 trip for 4 nights. We could upgrade the free ddp for the 3 night trip to deluxe giving us 9 credits/meals and just book a room for the other 4 nights. Then we could spread them out to cover 7 expensive dinners and 2 lunches. Then use cash for the balance of meals.

DW COUNTS on people using some credits for cheaper meals (sit down lunches, or CS meals for breakfast/lunch). Allowing ressies to be linked would allow people to upgrade to deluxe for a small # of nights and use the credits at sit down dinners which are normally more expensive.

[kaytieeldr]

"Stay" = the Guest's stay at one resort for one reservation with one reservation number.

When you move to a different resort, or even if you have a split stay at one resort for whatever reason, that is two different 'stays'.

As stated above, dining plan credits have always expired at midnight of the day one checks out of one's reservation. Always. It's never been fine print, it's always been as available and obvious as any other aspect of the restrictions of the dining plan.

[jcemom]

I am presuming they don't want to link them. Think about it...my mom and I could go for say 7 nights. We could go during free DDP. We could book 1 trip for 3 nights, 1 trip for 4 nights. We could upgrade the free ddp for the 3 night trip to deluxe giving us 9 credits/meals and just book a room for the other 4 nights. Then we could spread them out to cover 7 expensive dinners and 2 lunches. Then use cash for the balance of meals.

DW COUNTS on people using some credits for cheaper meals (sit down lunches, or CS meals for breakfast/lunch). Allowing ressies to be linked would allow people to upgrade to deluxe for a small # of nights and use the credits at sit down dinners which are normally more expensive.The way I meant it was that you would need to have the same thing for all nights like you do with a regular stay. So if you booked deluxe ddp, spent 4 nights at POR and 3 nights at the Poly, to link the stays you'd have to have deluxe ddp for all 7 nights but you wouldn't have expiring credits halfway through your stay and you'd only need to buy one set of park tickets. KWIM?

ETA: I don't expect that they'll ever allow that, I was just thinking that it would be nice.

[Happy99]

We've been DVC members for about 4 years. We've been to Disney 8+ times, I've trolled these boards for 3-4?? years.

.... and never had a clue. Always thought it was for length of stay.



Well, you have it right, technically. The DDP IS good for length of stay. However, what Disney defines as "length of stay" is divided by your stay at a particular resort.



That is correct the length of stay has to do with one reservation number that is considered the length of stay. When you get your documents in the mail it has an itinerary and that itinerary has dates listed, the package components listed there are only good for the dates of that ONE package. It has nothing to do with split stays. Some people do split stays where they are at WDW for a few days, do a cruise or go elsewhere in Florida, and return to WDW for a few more days. This is also a split stay but they can't expect that their credits from their first stay will still be good for their last few days because they physically checked out and ended their stay at that first resort

Also if you look at the brochure that you should have gotten at check in for the dining plan it clearly states on the first page - quoting from the brochure here
"All unused meals and snacks exprire at midnight on your package reservation check out date"
Here is a link to that brochure - this information is on page one under "Using your meals"
http://adisneyworld.disney.go.com/media/wdw/images2003/languagespecific/eng/nontheme/tickets/2009Dining.pdf


Sorry you had a hassle

[DisneyKidds]

We split stays all the time, and use the DDP plan. You do have to manage your credits, make sure you use all the credits from your first reservation by midnight of the day you check out, before you start using credits from the second reservation......but this is easily enough managed so long as you understand the rules, which are pretty straight forward.

Sorry your plans didn't quite work out the way you had hoped, I know it can be frustrating. Moreso when it is your own error and you have no one to blame but yourself. Someone else makes a mistake and messes up my plan and I may be angry, but I deal. When I mess up I end up kicking myself and it's harder to let it go!

Did you at least get to use up all your credits from the first reservation? How was dinner at Artists Point?

If you don't think the plan is worth it than don't use it in the future. It isn't as good a deal as it used to be. Despite that, it is still a significant savings for us. However, I wouldn't avoid using the plan just because of a split stay, as that really has no impact on use of the plan so long as you know the rules.

[kayla87]

I'm glad you posted this - I had no idea. I had considered adding DDP to the OKW portion of our trip so I could use the TS credits during the VWL portion. And I thought this would work because when I added 2 days of OKW, MS asked me if I wanted to link my two reservations. Before I even said no, she noted that doing so would cause me to add DDP to my OKW days too. So, I figured that meant that two linked DVC reservations equalled one DDP. Oh well.

Again, Thanks for posting. Most of what I know comes from posts which bring my attention to something - I don't seek out this kind of stuff because I don't know I should be questioning it.

[YoMickey]

They sure advertise it as length of stay and tell you things are linked.

.........anyways.

We're booked for April 2009 already. The flights were cheaper by a total of around 3-400 to flight out a day later than we had points for. Normally I would just call and book a room on cash and go about our business. But now due to their complete lack of software ingenuity we will pack up and head over to Universal for a night. I figure if we have to move and the DDP is separate why bother. I hope they read this stuff.

[kcashner]

We currently have 2 reservations for exactly that reason. I was able to book our DVC reservation for 4 of the 5 days I wanted and added the DDP. I had to wait list the 5th day. When the day came thru, DVC linked them and put them under one ressie number. I had to specifically ask that they separate the reservations (as I originally booked them) so that I could purchase the DDP for only 4 days!

[rangermom]

Sorry it did not work out the way you planned. We actually got lucky with our split stay and AKV gave us an extra day on DDP for free. I tried to explain to them that they had over credited us, but they insited it was correct. So we ate at SOA and still did character meals on all the other nights. MS has always explained to me that my DDP expired at midnight on the last day of each reservation, not the total length of stay. They did it on the phone and at the resort desk when checking in.