deluxe dining plan questions

[Peggy Sue]

Hi,

Looking into the possiblity of adding the deluxe dining plan to our upcoming Dec reservation .. Just the two of us and we enjoy the signature dining, so having 3 table service every day would allow us to enjoy the signature dining and have credits remaining for lunch or breakfast.

I do have a couple of questions...

Appears the per person cost is 71.99 per person ... has tax already been included in this price, or will that be added when your purchase the plan? If so, what is the meal tax in FL these days?

Drinks .. The beverage that is included .. can it be any non-alcholic drink on the menu or only a soft drink? Example....If you'd like sparkling water is that considered an included beverage? Or is it only soda or ice tea?

If we end up with extra snack credits at the end of our trip, what are the allowable creative ways to use up these credits? We fly to Orlando, so what ever we do on the last day to use up the credits would need to easily pack and not add too much weight to our luggage ..

Anyone whose done the deluxe who beleives it wasn't a good value? any believe it is a good value?

I just did a quick spreadsheet for lunch/dinner using deluxe vs. paying out of pocket and it appears we could save 30 per person per day ..and that's before snacks....the only draw back that I see is we normally don't eat this much food every single day ....do you all get tired of "having" to use TS every night?

Thanks for your help!

Peggy Sue

[catne]

Hi,

Looking into the possiblity of adding the deluxe dining plan to our upcoming Dec reservation .. Just the two of us and we enjoy the signature dining, so having 3 table service every day would allow us to enjoy the signature dining and have credits remaining for lunch or breakfast.

I do have a couple of questions...

Appears the per person cost is 71.99 per person ... has tax already been included in this price, or will that be added when your purchase the plan? If so, what is the meal tax in FL these days? tax is included in the price of the plan

Drinks .. The beverage that is included .. can it be any non-alcholic drink on the menu or only a soft drink? Example....If you'd like sparkling water is that considered an included beverage? Or is it only soda or ice tea?our experience is that most places your beverage choices are water (tap), soda, tea or coffee. Some places allow smoothies, milkshakes or "virgin" drinks from the bar, like a pina colada with no booze. Some places did allow bottled water...don't know about sparkling water, though.

If we end up with extra snack credits at the end of our trip, what are the allowable creative ways to use up these credits? We fly to Orlando, so what ever we do on the last day to use up the credits would need to easily pack and not add too much weight to our luggage ..you can buy prepackaged snacks like brownies, cookies, rice krispie treats, single-serve bags of chips with your snack credits. Many people do this, and either eat them on the ride home, or take them as souvenir/treats.

Anyone whose done the deluxe who beleives it wasn't a good value? any believe it is a good value? If you really want that much to eat, then yes it's a good value. But it seriously is a lot of food...we actually had 2 nights of the Deluxe plan, and spread that out for 3 days ...not only did we not finish any meal but we did not use a single snack credit in those days because we were soooo full between meals.

I just did a quick spreadsheet for lunch/dinner using deluxe vs. paying out of pocket and it appears we could save 30 per person per day ..and that's before snacks....the only draw back that I see is we normally don't eat this much food every single day ....do you all get tired of "having" to use TS every night? YES! Actually, 1/2 way through day 2 we were already saying Thank heavens we're only signed up for 2 nights of this. We found it to be way too much food. Unless you are seriously huge eaters...we decided we'd rather do the regular dining plan and order an occasional appetizer to share. I know some people will say well heck we eat three meals a day at home, but seriously who would eat these kind of meals 3 times a day...click on my January dining reviews to get a good look at how much food you're getting.

Thanks for your help!

Peggy Sue


It was fun to try the Deluxe, but we are glad we had the chance to try it for a short trip, because had we paid for a week's worth of that we would have been losing a lot of money since we would have been skipping meals by about lunch time of day 3:rotfl:

[cnorth]

I have to say that we love the deluxe plan. Wouldn't think of going without it. Sooo...

Drinks .. The beverage that is included .. can it be any non-alcholic drink on the menu or only a soft drink? Example....If you'd like sparkling water is that considered an included beverage? Or is it only soda or ice tea?This varies from place to place. Each restaurant gets to make their own decision. You will have to ask when you get to the particular restaurant. If you want water, they will give you bottled water.

If we end up with extra snack credits at the end of our trip, what are the allowable creative ways to use up these credits? We fly to Orlando, so what ever we do on the last day to use up the credits would need to easily pack and not add too much weight to our luggage ..As pp said, you can get chips, rice krispy mickey ears, pretty much anything that is "single serving" to take with you.

Anyone whose done the deluxe who beleives it wasn't a good value? any believe it is a good value? I think it's a great value. I think that generally when people say it's just way too much food, they are trying to do 3 sit down meals a day, or attempting to eat every last bite on the plate. We generally do an early lunch around 11, and a late 2ts credit dinner around 8 or 9. If we get hungy inbetween, we use snack credits. Or use the snack credits for bottled water and such. That takes care of all credits, and we get to eat at some great places. It is a lot of food, but the dxddp is pretty much paid for once you use 2 credits per day. You don't necessarily have to completely maximize it.

I just did a quick spreadsheet for lunch/dinner using deluxe vs. paying out of pocket and it appears we could save 30 per person per day ..and that's before snacks....the only draw back that I see is we normally don't eat this much food every single day ....do you all get tired of "having" to use TS every night?The idea of having to go to a counter service, wait in line, find a seat, and then clean up is not at all appetizing to us. I would so much rather be waited on! Plus, remember that it is vacation, and you don't HAVE to finish everything. Atleast with this plan, you can try all different kinds of things without worrying about the increased cost!

[Colleen27]

Appears the per person cost is 71.99 per person ... has tax already been included in this price, or will that be added when your purchase the plan? If so, what is the meal tax in FL these days?

Tax is included in the 71.99

Drinks .. The beverage that is included .. can it be any non-alcholic drink on the menu or only a soft drink? Example....If you'd like sparkling water is that considered an included beverage? Or is it only soda or ice tea?

It varies from place to place, but we found many places did include non-alcoholic specialty drinks like smoothies, milkshakes, cappuccino, etc.

If we end up with extra snack credits at the end of our trip, what are the allowable creative ways to use up these credits? We fly to Orlando, so what ever we do on the last day to use up the credits would need to easily pack and not add too much weight to our luggage ..

There are a lot of options that pack well. We usually go to the Main Street Bakery and Confectionary on our last day to use up some snacks, though on our last trip we just loaded up with Mickey rice krispy treats for the kids to share with their friends when we got home. Character cookies, suckers, and fudge are some of our favorites.

Also, keep in mind that snacks can be used for bottled water and soda in the parks. We used quite a few that way. It isn't the best value-per-credit, but the deluxe plan is structured in such a way that you don't have to wring every drop of value out of every credit for the plan to save you money.

Anyone whose done the deluxe who beleives it wasn't a good value? any believe it is a good value?

It was absolutely a good value for us. It really fits the way we like to eat on vacation; lots of signature dinners, no counter service.

I just did a quick spreadsheet for lunch/dinner using deluxe vs. paying out of pocket and it appears we could save 30 per person per day ..and that's before snacks....the only draw back that I see is we normally don't eat this much food every single day ....do you all get tired of "having" to use TS every night?

There were a couple days on our last trip where I made plans for 3 meals in a day. That was too much. Two meals a day was perfect, so that's how I've planned our next deluxe trip. We never got sick of having a nice TS every day, nor did we get tired of having a sitdown lunch as a break. It was the days where I tried to add a character breakfast to the lunch/dinner routine, rather than making that ADR in place of lunch, that we felt it was too much. We also don't eat every course at every meal. We love appetizers, but we often skip or split desserts, and still come out ahead in terms of value.

We really, really love the deluxe plan and wouldn't do Disney without it at this point. It allows us to enjoy signature dining, never have to hassle with counter service, and most importantly, never even think about menu price when we sit down to a meal. On our next trip, we'll have 6 signature meals in 8 nights and room service at least once. That's my idea of vacation! :cloud9:

[ljcrochet]

I'm in Disney doing the deluxe dining plan right now and enjoying myself. We are doing breakfast and dinners every day except for one. It was supposed to be 2 but we cancelled a lunch. We are trying Hoop-dee-doo-review tonight as well as doing 2TS meals.
We got milkshakes at Sci Fi and Whispering Canyon. Last night at Le Cellier, my DD got a sour apple slush.

The price includes the tax.

[Faldred]

On the beverages question... as has been pointed out, several places allow milkshakes or smoothies. I have not heard a report of anyone using the beverage entitlement for sparkling water -- I'd be interested to hear the result if anyone tries. :)

One more comment on snacks... if you have the time to get over there, the "make your own" treats at Goofy's Candy Co. are great snack credit value, should travel reasonably well, and most of them are still fresh enough a day or so after you get them. I'd suggest packing a few empty Ziploc-type bags to put them in, just so loose topping don't wind up cluttering up whatever bag they're stored in.

[PrincessTrisha]

Drinks .. The beverage that is included .. can it be any non-alcholic drink on the menu or only a soft drink? Example....If you'd like sparkling water is that considered an included beverage? Or is it only soda or ice tea?

If we end up with extra snack credits at the end of our trip, what are the allowable creative ways to use up these credits? We fly to Orlando, so what ever we do on the last day to use up the credits would need to easily pack and not add too much weight to our luggage ..

Anyone whose done the deluxe who beleives it wasn't a good value? any believe it is a good value?

I just did a quick spreadsheet for lunch/dinner using deluxe vs. paying out of pocket and it appears we could save 30 per person per day ..and that's before snacks....the only draw back that I see is we normally don't eat this much food every single day ....do you all get tired of "having" to use TS every night?

To answer a few of your questions:

At signature restaurants we were offered Evian bottled water as our drink (and we were also able to order it from room service as our drink as well). Most places had perrier as well.

Snack credits = mickey mouse chocolate bars or coconut patties. Not too heavy or bulky and everyone LOVES these (I bring them back to add to whatever I've bought someone - for instance I bought packages of bobble head pens and gave each member of my team at work a "snack credit item" and a pen upon my return.)

Nope, didn't get tired of eating. I think the trick is to use many two credit meals, eat only what you like or like best on the meal (I often left things like rice or pasta or ate a half portion of the meat) and don't order steak at every meal (it really makes it a heavy meal - so my limit is generally only 1 of the 2 meals a day would be steak).

I loved the dxddp and really felt the value in it. With two credit meals, it wasn't unusual that the one meal "paid" for the entire days dining plan which made the other meal, the two snacks and mugs "free".

[dansyr2514]

I have done both dining plans and I prefer the deluxe. I wouldn't try to eat 3 meals a day. It is just too much food and my dbf is a big eater. Why I really like it is we get to go to all the signature restaurants. We would use 1 credit for a breakfast or early lunch and 2 for a signature dinner. Just a tip...I don't know when you are going but I enjoyed using snack credits for the food and wine festival.

[bleeps]

Our experience both last week on DxDDP and in the past with sparkling water has been that (1) it does vary restaurant-to-restaurant as to whether or not it is included in plan and (2) the higher-end the restaurant, the more likely that it will be included. That is, we found signature restaurants more likely to allow DH and I to share a large-size bottle of Pellegrino while 'regular' TS places that offered sparkling water generally didn't allow it.