2008 DDP discussion, questions, rants and vents

[marivaid]

Disney = crack dealers

That, or simply good business people.

 

[racefanof88]

being the second poster, I defend what i said exactly. I find the original post to be offensive because it seems that he or she has a sense of entitlement with regards to adr's over other guests. Saying people are all taking advantage of the plan. you are supposed to take advantage of what you are paying for.

these are the 2 statements I responded negatively to from the original poster.

"The way it was, people were making sure they got every dime. In the new plan, those willing to pay for it aren't worried about making or losing $5 on each meal."

"Maybe Disney listened to the people that complained that spent money there and didn't go with the intent of milking every dime they could."

Every guest spends money there and deserves to use the ddp anyway they want. All guests are all willing to pay for it. It just is Disney squeezing more out of it's guests and putting in a deluxe plan, which I agree is good, but they make sure it is very expensive if you want this option and they get their money and make sure you have to add your tip, too. Also, those willing to pay for it should try to get the best deal possible for their money. Disney is only doing this to make more money, which is o.k. because they are a business, but they are possibly losing many guests who find this plan to be too expensive now. It is not a good savings when all is said and done. I hope they get the feedback they deserve about gouging up the prices.

KUDOS

 

[mickey2000]

Watch them downgrade the menus for 2008 ! I hear there is a chicken and turkey surplus !!

 

[mello]

I'd love to see your numbers as my family will also include 2 adults, 2 "adults" children, and one acual child. We are also looking at a 12 night stay.

Ok, this is based on getting the DDP for 13 of the nights and paying OOP the first 2 days, so taking the OOP into account, it should be fairly close to your numbers. As you can see, we're not purposely choosing restaurants or dinner times to get the "most bang for the buck" though I did base the meal figures on ordering the more/most expensive items on the menus, which we probably wouldn't always do in reality.

Tax is figured at 6.5%

Tip and extras are not included since they would be OOP either way

DDP = 37.99 per adult, 10.99 per child per night x 13 nights

DDP for 13 nights = 2118.35

DAY 1: 115.95 + tax 7.53 = 123.49

Ohana dinner (OOP)
25.99 adult
11.99 child

DAY 2: 175.45 + tax = 186.85

Chef Mickeys Breakfast (OOP) 86.95
18.99 adult
10.99 child

Tea at Garden View (OOP) 88.50
Buckingham Palace Tea 19.50
Mrs. Potts Tea 10.50

DAY 3: 144.90 + tax = 154.31

LTT dinner 1 TS 124.95
adult 27.99
child 12.99

snack - dole floats 19.95

DAY 4: 149.40 + tax = 159.11

cs brunch - Boulangerie Patisserie 47.20

Biergarten 1 TS 90.95
lunch 19.99
kids 10.99

snack - Kaki Gori 11.25

DAY 5: 214.85 + tax = 228.81

cs lunch Sunshine Seasons davis 56.76 us 70.95

Garden Grill 1 TS 124.95
dinner adults 27.99
kids 12.99

snack - frozen drink/smoothies 18.95

DAY 6:151.66 + tax = 161.52

50s PT lunch 1 TS 97.01

cs supper flatbread grill - 38.91

snack at Fantasmic - 15.74

DAY 7: 128.96 on DP + 81.47 lunch OOP + tax = 224.10

Sci Fi lunch OOP 81.47

snack - ice cream or frozen drink 17.50

Beaches n Cream (kids) 36.74

LeCellier (us) 1 TS 74.72

DAY 8: 129.28 + tax = 137.69

cs lunch Beach Club marketplace 50.31

cs diner DTD- Cooke's of Dublin 28.86 dinner for 2
(kids at sandcastle club)

snack 21.25

DAY 9: 344.82 + tax = 367.23

cs Flame Tree- 59.87

snack - 20.00

Grand Gathering Safari 2 TS or OOP 59.99 adults, 24.99 kids
total 264.95

DAY 10: 186.57 plus 30 OOP = 216.57 total + tax = 230.64

Guys Turf Club (OOP) 30.00 each

Girls/kids cs lunch Epcot - tangierine cafe 44.12

snack -frozen drink things 17.50

Chef Mickeys 1 TS dinner 124.95
27.99 adults
12.99 kids

DAY 11: 126.54 + 134.77

cs - Goods to Go OKW 49.77

cs - Wolfgang Puck Express 61.10

snack- mickey bars 15.67

DAY 12: 184.63 + 20 OOP + tax = 217.93

Ladies Tea (OOP) 20.00 each

Guys/kids cs lunch at waterpark - 49.72

snack- frozen thing at waterpark 3.75; mickey bar 2.39

WCC dinner 1 TS 124.91

DAY 13: 197.72 + tax = 210.57

cs lunch MK Columbia Harbor House 53.98

snack - fruit smoothie 13.79

1900 Park Faire 129.95
dinner adult 28.99
child 13.99

DAY 14: 167.23 + 10.18 OOP for appys + tax = 188.94

cs lunch - waterpark? 40.81

snack - 11.95

Olivias dinner 114.47 + 10.18 OOP for appys

DAY 15: 250.34 + tax = 266.61

CRT lunch 2 TS 167.95
35.99 adult (17.99 per credit)
23.99 child (12 per credit)

cs dinner MK - cosmic ray's 62.44

snack - dole floats 19.95



Cost of Food Plan: $2118.35

Total Cost for dining if one were paying entirely OOP: $2992.57
Average per day (15 days): 199.50 per day

OOP paid in addition to food plan: $461.99

Total Value of Food Plan: $2530.58
(Total Cost of dining minus OOP = Value of Plan)
Average value per day 168.72 (15 days)


So bottom line is:

We come out 412.23 ahead on plan (avg savings per day = 27.48) per person per day = 5.50

Not bad, and might be worth it to some, but as I said earlier, we may not necessarily order the priciest thing on every menu, and we likely won't use all our snack credits, or all our cs credits either, so our saving wouldn't be quite this good. And, if we used the DDE instead, an additional 20% would come off the TS - about $200 total, taking into account the $65 cost of it, which puts the plan saving at around $200. That combined with the reduction in flexibility makes it much less appealing this time.

 

[BWVNUT]

NICE !!
I'm starting to wonder, maybe it was Disney's plan all along. Get people "hooked" on Disney dining with a cheap package (even if it meant losing money for a while), then make up a new plan with more options and a bigger price -

This was my thought as well - the 'ol bait and switch...

 

[DebbieT11]

BINGO! If this were my business, and I was in this situation, this is EXACTLY what I'd do... and monitor closely the change. Expect servers/hosts to begin asking you "Are you enjoying one of our Dining Plans today?"

I don't think Disney wants people to go off site, but I think it is an acceptable and predictable consequence of the changes. For the last couple years, table service restaurants have become increasingly overwhelmed with low-profit DDP guests, to the almost total exclusion of the higher profit OOP guest who didn't spend hours of research planning his trip. By serving mainly DDP guests, who are eating at a greatly reduced cost, while turning away walk ins, Disney is missing out on potential profits. Making the DDP less attractive means easing the demand for ADRs and opening up space for some of those OOP customers. Losing some of the most cost-conscious, lowest profit guests is an acceptable loss if they are replaced by higher profit, out of pocket customers, and I think that's what Disney is going for with these changes. It just makes good business sense to try to find a better balance than currently exists.

 

[marivaid]

Expect servers/hosts to begin asking you "Are you enjoying one of our Dining Plans today?"

They've been doing that for quite a while.

 

[Colleen27]

NICE !!
I'm starting to wonder, maybe it was Disney's plan all along. Get people "hooked" on Disney dining with a cheap package (even if it meant losing money for a while), then make up a new plan with more options and a bigger price - guests who enjoyed Disney dining and still want appetizers and more TS will buy this plan. Wouldn't be surprised if it became more popular than the basic, even at that price.
I know for sure we won't even consider paying for the basic plan.

If we go back in February we'll be bringing my sister & her friend who have never been to WDW. I need to work on a chart myself & see if it'd be worth it to book their ressie separately as package and add the Deluxe plan for them, or if it'd be more or less the same savings by using our DDE for everyone.

I'm sure that Disney did want to get more people to try, and hopefully enjoy, their restaurants to create repeat customers, but I don't think that it was with this in mind. I think there are two things going on right now, for Disney - first, I think they probably underestimated how many ways people would find to stretch and maximize the dining plan. And second, I think they're going to be moving away from their "affordable family vacation" marketing concept somewhat now that tourism is on a strong upswing. The deluxe dining plan offers the kind of modest savings one might expect from a customer loyalty program or other more commonplace promotion, rather than the clearance sale savings of the current dining plan. I think, with the changes and the creation of the deluxe plan, Disney is aware that they're going to price the most frugal DDP guests out of the market, but is hoping they'll be replaced by guests who aren't so concerned with getting maximum value and finding ways to stretch every credit.

 

[bicker]

That's way too much for this family of 5.

That depends on the family.

 

[bicker]

The restaurants listed in the 2008 DDP list. Are these the only restaurants that are going to honor the DP in '08???

No. As far as we know, all the restaurants from the 2007 list will be on the 2008 list once 2008 begins.

 

[Uncleromulus]

I think Colleen27 has it just about right.
The big question will probably be--is that deluxe plan (with the tip having to be added at each meal) really worth it??

 

[bless7ings]

If your saying tourism for Disney is up, I think it will be interesting to see if it stays up there without any sales incentives. Everybody likes to get a good deal and everybody wants to at least try Disney once in their life.(I believe that is the nationwide consensus and Disney wants to change that to "We can afford it as a family vacation more than once in a lifetime." I can say for our family we were the once in life time people. Until...we had so much fun when they had the free dining!!! We are hoping to come back in 2008, but we need their incentives that says anyone can afford a Disney vacation! Or else we will go back to its a once in a lifetime vacation because we can't afford it. So the question is how many of their sales in the last three years of this new change came from people like us? I do know that the majority of this board are loyal repeaters.

So Disney if your listening, I need your incentives, especially the hurricane special with free dining!!

 

[rufusrex]

What a bummer. For me, it's no longer worth it. The gratuity and appetizer were big. I'm glad I read about the new rules before our trip next January. We are DVC members, and usually rent a car, stock up at Publix and eat very few meals at the parks. We usually hit either Seaworld or Universal for a couple of days, but for our next trip, 11 days in January of '08 we were going to use Magical Express instead of renting a car and going to other parks. We were also going to get Premium APs instead of the basic ones, so Disney will be losing some $$$ from us. We were going to apply the rental car money, the Universal pass money, and the grocery money to justify the money for the Dining Plan. I don't think I can justify now. Too bad, we were really looking forward to it.

 

[CarolA]

No. As far as we know, all the restaurants from the 2007 list will be on the 2008 list once 2008 begins.

Unless you know something the rest of us don't, I don't think we "know" anything.

The assumption most of us are making is that this will proceed llike last year and those resturants will "join" up. It does not appear they are contractually obligated to "join up" as there are DTD resturants who don't.......

So keep watching....

 

[Lewisc]

It will be difficult for Disney to have a resort, CSR, without any participating restaurants. How to handle the automatic service charge at Pepper Market may be an issue. It's really not a gratuity since it's automatically added to every check. Disney will have to either absorb the service charge or revise the brochure to indicate the service charge is a customer obligation. I wonder if Disney wants one resort to require an out of pocket expense at the quick service restaurant.

The terms of the 2008 dining plan seem more favorable to the restaurants. The absence of an included appetizer should increase turnover and reduce sharing. Reduced sharing means guests will use more credits per table which will increase revenue.

 

[the Fidge]

On August 5th I spoke with a VM and questioned about any chagnes in participation of restuarants in the Deluxe Plan. The CM stated the while at the trainning seminar he made the smae inquiry as well and that he was informed that Fultons Crab house and Portobello's would be included in the Deluxe plan.

I declined booking at that time to review the plan and will decide after the updates are issued.

I also inquired about the Yak and Yetti restaurant and he stated that they would be included since that is a "Disney" restaurant. The T Rex restaurant is behind schedule but it is also a Landry's restaurant so I would not look for them to be on the plan.

So....who knows it is all speculation to me until ......updates given by Disney.

 

[momtoBrandon&Jacob]

i tried to scan thru this thread (WAY too many topics being discussed here!), and couldn't find any answers on this:

What about the 2008 Snack Option?

On the link from the dis is says:
Snack choice of a frozen novelty ice cream, popsicle or fruit bar, single serving grab bag of Frito Lay's chips, one 20 oz. bottle of Coke, Diet Coke, Sprite or Dansani Water, single piece of whole fruit, medium fountain soft drink or apple juice

So, does this mean that I cannot get a Dole Whip, Candied Nuts, School Bread, Funnel Cake, Pretzel, etc... That we got the last couple of visits on the DDP?

This (for us, anyway) will GREATLY restrict how we used that snack credit before...

TIA.

And what about the baguettes at POFQ??

 

[eventsdj]

I am a server, and I would rather take my chance on tips. Sure an %18 percent guarauntee is nice, but I get lots of folks that tip way more.
If your %18 percent tip is say $18.50, and its added in your bill, thats what you pay, the exact total.

If you have to add gratuity, you may just round up to $20.
If you have 30 + tables per shift, thats a lot of money.

 

[englishrose47]

I am a server, and I would rather take my chance on tips. Sure an %18 percent guarauntee is nice, but I get lots of folks that tip way more.
If your %18 percent tip is say $18.50, and its added in your bill, thats what you pay, the exact total.

If you have to add gratuity, you may just round up to $20.
If you have 30 + tables per shift, thats a lot of money.

This ia assuming that the 30 tables will tip 20%. Many other cultures don't tip at all and I doubt the rest will tip high enough to cover that. I usually tip between 15% and 20% if service is really bad I might tip much lower so I do see the incentive for good service I just really think you servers will be the big losers and that's not fair!!

 

[lenshanem]

I did get an email response back from Disney this morning that they will honor the 2007 DDP into 2008 since we arrive on 12/30. Said our entire stay will still include appetizers and gratuities. (We leave on the 4th.)

Funny though, on the bottom of the email it says the info could be subject to change.