newbie dining plan questions

[nj2mom]

Hi all, and thanks for your patience in advance. These boards are GREAT.

I've been to Disney numerous times, but never stayed "on property". We're thinking of doing one last family trip in 2010 (kids are teens/tweens) and staying at a Disney resort... several friends have mentioned that the dining plan is a huge savings. I have a couple of questions...

1)do you have to buy the dining plan for the same number of days that you are staying at the resort? for example, if we're staying a week, can we do the dining plan for just 3 or 4 days?

2)we have 2 over-10's and 12 under-10's at the time of travel. If a 9 year old wants an adult meal, and a 13 year old wants a kids meal, will they let us "trade" the meals?

thanks...!!
nj2mom

[brp]

From reading here there are a lot of opinions on the savings, but I don't think I've seen it classified as "huge" by anyone. In fact, if not used wisely, it can cost more than out-of-pocket paying. I definitely would not count on huge savings for this.

1) The DDP must be purchased for the number of nights of the stay. Then the meals are pooled across all nights.

2) Even if they won't, just switch the meals after they arrive :)

Cheers.

[nj2mom]

thanks for the response! I've got to do some number crunching. We have 4 kids who tend to get hungry at all times of day. On vacation we are often "grazers"... popcorn here, sandwich there, and then usually dinner together at the end of the night.

Is it hard to manage the "points" or credits? I don't want to have to think too much.. sounds like it might be easier to just whip out the old credit card when they want something.

[TDC Nala]

You must buy the dining plan for all nights of your stay, you can't buy a partial dining plan.

If you're going in 2010, note the seasonal price increases on the basic dinig plan if you're going in peak time to see if it's still a savings for you.

[Faldred]

You must buy the dining plan for all nights of your stay, you can't buy a partial dining plan.

Although nothing is stopping you from having a "split stay" where you book two successive reservations, one with a dining plan (and tickets) and one without (this works better when the dining stay is first, as that's where you'll be buying your park tickets...) rather than just having a single reservation.

The biggest thing to note when doing that is that your dining credits are only valid on the days surrounding the nights of the reservation that they are attached to.

As an example, for a 1-week stay, you could do a 4 night reservation with tickets and DDP (the tickets can be purchased for any length 1 to 10 days). Your credits are available at check-in ("day 1") and can be used any time until midnight of the day following the night that reservation ends ("day 5"). You can then have a second 3-night reservation that starts the night of "day 5", however you won't have any DDP credits on day 6 and beyond.

[nj2mom]

a split stay might make sense....

Faldred, you mention the park tickets... do I also need to purchase park tickets for the days of the plan? We're a Brady Bunch family and DH has several days of unused, no expiration park hoppers for himself and his 2 kids that we want to use, that's why the Magic Your Way doesn't make sense for us.

[Faldred]

a split stay might make sense....

Faldred, you mention the park tickets... do I also need to purchase park tickets for the days of the plan? We're a Brady Bunch family and DH has several days of unused, no expiration park hoppers for himself and his 2 kids that we want to use, that's why the Magic Your Way doesn't make sense for us.

All dining packages require the purchase of at least a one day MYW ticket.

[Imagineer5]

Totally off-topic but I noticed the # of people you're going with as a "last disney family vacation" - have you looked into renting DVC points? You could get a 1,2,3-bedroom (or studio) villa and probably save a ton of $$ if you can split it between families? And, having a full kitchen would be nice too.

Just a suggestion :goodvibes We're renting points (2 adults in a studio) next year - saving quite a bit while getting to stay at a deluxe resort. And, yes you can add the dining plan to the resort stay without getting a whole disney package - this saves you money on tickets too, as you can purchase them from someone other than disney! ;)

As for the dining plan, we're doing deluxe for the first time. But with no kids and neither of us like CS restaurants it seems to work for us (plus financially speaking it's saving us another couple hundred!).

Have a great trip! :thumbsup2