To the OP: You have my sympathy and, yes, WDW is going downhill in some respects in my opinion.
We did a Grand Gathering recently. I have to say the Dining Plan with a Grand Gathering is nothing short of an outright mess. We had 11 people in three rooms. I can't begin to express the frustration we felt in trying to eat together and in trying to eat separately. It was always a disaster.
For one thing, I was treating everyone, so I undertook to pay the gratuity. And, our gratuity was already set in most instances since we were a party of 11.
But, every room had to have its own credits deducted and its own gratuity. If two people chose not to join us, we'd have to sort out which rooms they were in and make sure we didn't deduct credits from their rooms. To make matters worse, we had moved people around in the rooms a bit because I had called and added a couple of additional family members to the room in the last few days before we arrived. Because the eager beavers in the group then purchased tickets using their one-day credits that came with the packages, the hotel people weren't able to re-do who was in what room. Holy cow! Impossible to keep track of credits in this situation.
If people had something extra like a glass of wine, I would use the Discount Card formerly known as the Disney Dining Experience. That would mean an extra couple of pieces of papers.
We would finish up a meal, and the waiter would deliver me something on the order of 14 pieces of paper to sign for deducting credits on a per room basis, charging the gratuity on a per room basis, charging for the non-
DDP items, adjusting those non-DDP items for the Discount Card formerly known as the Disney Dining Experience and then adding the mandatory 18% gratuity for the non-DDP items discounted with the Discount Card formerly known as the Disney Dining Experience.
I finally told the manager at one restaurant that I've closed billion dollar loans with less paper than 11 people dining together on the DDP took.
Then, five people in our group who were total newbies went to Wolfgang Puck's at my suggestion to spend counter service credits. They meant to go to Express but by mistake didn't know there were two different places and went to the restaurant. They didn't realize until they'd already been seated and ordered. They said they couldn't walk out at that point. So, there went five TS credits that we hadn't planned on spending that way. But, they were gone through a mistake.
Finally, on the last day we were down to the just enough credits for Narcoosees for those of us who wanted to go. But, when we got the bill, it turned out in a couple of cases, there was one credit left on one room and one credit left on another (due in part to the earlier Wolfgang Puck mixup). Although I didn't know this at the time, they couldn't combine the credits, so I ended up with a bill of $186 to pay for two entrees and two desserts I hadn't planned on paying for. The desserts they had even brought out even though part of our party had left and said, generously!, take them back to the room and they can enjoy them later. I ended up paying for them and they were thrown away.
I spoke with the manager and he told me not a problem, that he had spoken with GF front desk and they would take care of it. I spoke with GF RPC the next morning of our departure. She wasn't sure they could combine the credits but said she'd do her best. She later called me back and said they couldn't. But, by then we were on our way to the airport and -- out of the manager's hair, so at least he got rid of us with a minimum of hassle on his part by saying it wouldn't be a problem when it would be and was!
We decided no more Grand Gatherings for us. When we have 11 people in our group, again, we're going on a cruise where everything is pre-paid and I don't have to exhaust myself trying to keep track of credits, make sure people don't spend credits by mistake, make sure credits get used if people choose not to join us for a meal they had planned to join us for!!! It was too much effort and stress and removed any spontenaity.
To the OP -- you have my complete and total sympathy!