Dining Plan failure on check out

[gwmort]

We are DVC and just spent a week with a party of 12 in a grand villa in OKW. We intentionally booked very late flights leaving Orlando so we could get one more day in the parks.

I called the front desk in the morning and confirmed that we had 12 cs credits and 15 snack credits remaining, and since we were checking out they needed to be used by midnight or would expire.

I used one snack credit in AK around 10:00 no problem. Checkout time at OKW is 11:00. After 11:00 all of our credits disappeared. Our party was scattered in different locations and trying to coordinate what to do for their lunches.

My wife and I (and DD and DS) were at restaurantosaurus in AK, the manager said she knew the credits were removed in error when the room keys were deactivated at 11:00, but couldn't help us, I needed to go to guest relations by the front gate.

I left my wife and kids and went to try to get the problem fixed. Guest relations was able to confirm we had credits that hadn't expired yet but was unable to find a way for us to access them. After the loss of more than an hour the best solution they could come up with was for us all to pay cash and bring our receipts to guest relations locations wherever we were to try to get refunds. Most of our group gave up on what they were doing and went back to OKW where the manager got them hotdogs from Goods Food to go by the pool, no solution was found for the snack credits (other than the refund system which no one was keen on).

It was very upsetting to me because we paid for the dining plan for the whole group (of my in-laws) specifically so there wouldn't be any hassles with people getting what they want or needing to worry about food prices. It really ruined the last day of our trip and cost us most of the afternoon (we had planned on heading from AK to Epcot for a couple of hours and snacking around the world before returning to OKW for the magical express and we never made it over there).

Disney made it as right as they could, and ultimately gave us a partial refund, but it was emotionally upsetting and ended the trip (which was otherwise very magical) on a sour note. Not to mention I am never likely to hear the end of it from my in-laws.

The cost-benefit value of the Dining Plan being marginal anyway, I believe in the future I will just use the Tables in Wonderland thing.

 

[MOM POPPINS]

We have had this happened to us one time. Same as you our credits expired at 11 am. We were at Magic Kingdom, Disney sent a "runner" cast member to meet us at the front of Guest Relations with cash. We paid for our meal with that cash. This is the only time it happened to us after many years of using the DDP, but it always makes me nervous to save credits to the last day!

 

[LucyBC80]

I have a late lunch ADR for our departure day and my plan is to use our last DDP credit to pay for it. Now this is making me nervous. How do I ensure I can use my credits on our last day?

 

[LilyWDW]

I have a late lunch ADR for our departure day and my plan is to use our last DDP credit to pay for it. Now this is making me nervous. How do I ensure I can use my credits on our last day?

Honestly, it seems to be a random and rare situation. The vast VAST majority of the time there is no problem. Every so often (again, very rarely) we will see a report that the OPs.

I doubt there is anything you can do ahead of time to make sure there is no chance of it happening, but honestly I wouldn't worry to much about it.

 

[MOM POPPINS]

I would not worry either it has only happened to us once.... however you can check your credits before you leave the resort the morning of check out and make sure they are still available.. they can tell you at the front desk!

 

[gwmort]

I would not worry either it has only happened to us once.... however you can check your credits before you leave the resort the morning of check out and make sure they are still available.. they can tell you at the front desk!

We did call the front desk and confirm the credits before heading into the park for the day, but it did not prevent the issue.

We're DVC and have used their dining plan many times over the years and this is the first time it happened to us. I'd say the odds of it happening again are remote but I would never be able to "not worry" about it again.

What I don't get is the restaurant manager knew what was happening, the front desk people said its rare but they had seen it before, and the guest relations people were aware of the issue, but there was no good stop gap solution to deploy quickly. All we really needed were some coupons or something in hand to redeem for credits. They have those SNAFU vouchers they use for fast passes, why couldn't they just write us up some of those for the credits to turn in as we used them? What could have been a 10 minute solution became a 2 hour problem.

 

[ses1230]

We did call the front desk and confirm the credits before heading into the park for the day, but it did not prevent the issue.

We're DVC and have used their dining plan many times over the years and this is the first time it happened to us. I'd say the odds of it happening again are remote but I would never be able to "not worry" about it again.

What I don't get is the restaurant manager knew what was happening, the front desk people said its rare but they had seen it before, and the guest relations people were aware of the issue, but there was no good stop gap solution to deploy quickly. All we really needed were some coupons or something in hand to redeem for credits. They have those SNAFU vouchers they use for fast passes, why couldn't they just write us up some of those for the credits to turn in as we used them? What could have been a 10 minute solution became a 2 hour problem.

That stinks, especially that you had to eat up park time taking care if the error. Don't forget to write to DVC member satisfaction about it!

 

[lurkernj]

This just happened to us in September. We were not DVC, we stayed at POR with free dining. We had two rooms, one room was DH, me, two sons, other room was my in-laws.

We went to lunch at Liberty tree tavern and my in-laws had one TS credit left and were going to pay oop for their other meal. When it came time to pay for the meals, my card worked for our 4 meals, but the in-laws cards were completely de-activated (they had managed to get into the park with these cards, so I'm assuming it was the 11am automatic checkout thing).

This totally ruined my dessert as I was so looking forward to the oooey gooey toffee cake, but three bites in, the waiter came back with their cards and I had to deal with this issue (in-laws are 73 and clueless so I had to handle it). They had no charging priviledges either of course, so I paid for both of their meals and was told I had to go to my hotel concierge to fix it. We ended up leaving Magic kingdom early, went to concierge and they split the check in half and paid me for half of it (even though one meal was more than the other, but whatever). They also had 4 CS credits and 5 snacks left that we had to go to the food court to pay cash for then get reimbursed. Wasted our last 1.5 hrs and I got back less than the one credit was worth since the bill was split .

I did send them an email upon our return and received a response that it would be brought to managements attention. That was two months ago

 

[Cinderella1122]

I had a similar issue happen, but in reverse. I went to go use my DDP on the first day of our trip and none of our credits were loaded onto our card. I had to pay cash and then was told to go to guest relations, only for guest relations to tell me to go to my resort front desk for a refund. I ended up brushing it off since I didn't want to start my vacation off on a bad note. So I just ended up taking the hit on that meal and then use my extra credit on a speical breakfast we weren't planning on doing.


I'm nervous now about my upcoming trip. I have 2 reservations linked together and I added the DXDP to both reservations. We have tusker house lunch scheduled for our last day before hoping on magical express. Hopefully all goes well.

 

[kaytieeldr]

We did call the front desk and confirm the credits before heading into the park for the day, but it did not prevent the issue.

Okay, that wasn't the front desk. You got the Resorts Call Center. The only way to guarantee you're talking to someone at the front desk is to go there.

 

[disneyfantotheend]

Wow! We have never had this happen, but I certainly feel badly for those who have.

 

[smiths02]

Sorry OP, that stinks!

I know this is a rare occurrence, but this kind of thing turns me off of the dining plan. (I've paid for it once and got it free once.)

I think a lot of people talk about the convenience of it or the value of it...whereas it sounds like a gamble.

 

[gwmort]

Sorry OP, that stinks!

I know this is a rare occurrence, but this kind of thing turns me off of the dining plan. (I've paid for it once and got it free once.)

I think a lot of people talk about the convenience of it or the value of it...whereas it sounds like a gamble.

I agree. I was kind of on the fence already with whether it was a good value or not and the convenience of having it prepaid and not needing to worry about it kept it attractive to me.

I'm definitely just getting the TiW card for my next trip and we'll see how I like that. I don't think I'll pay for the dining plan again for a long time.

 

[Belle5]

I would be STEAMED, OP! Please write to someone! Since you are DVC and will go back, they should have the opportunity to make it up to you...

 

[MinnieLovesMickey]

We had the same thing happen in the middle of November. We got a print out of our remaining credits, went to have dinner that night and ended up having to pay OOP because the registers were telling the CM that there were no more credits.

 

[jecskc]

This happened to us just a week or so ago on our Thanksgiving trip. We stayed in a DVC studio the first night and then moved to a 1BR for the remainder of the trip. Our remaining snack credits got deactivated when they switched us over to the one bedroom. They said it had something to do with the new key system. I had to pay cash and get it reimbursed at the resort front desk. It was a pain ....

When we checked out the last day, I made sure to mention that we had 4 CS remaining and 4 snack credits. I asked them to PLEASE make sure that our credits didn't get deactivated. The lady at the front desk said that my credits were good until midnight. I said that I knew that, but we had a problem our first night and we were trying to avoid it happening again.

Everything was fine our last day.

 

[Cinderella1122]

This thread is making me a little nervous. I have the DXDP purchased for my stay next week. I have two reservations that are linked together, so that I won't have to move rooms. Hopefully my credits won't deactivate once one reservation ends and the next begins. I just went through my touring plans and made notes of how many credits I should have after meals. I also put and envelope in my passporter, so that I can save my recepits.