Change holiday to get dining plan?

[ruthie]

Hi
I'm back out of lurkdom since we booked for 2 weeks at Pop April 1-15th 2008! Booked a package through Virgin for £3226(2 ad + 2 Child) but since I did this keep considering the Dining Plan. We eat a lot of character meals and table service and think this is a good option for us. From the menus at allears, I worked out roughly how much we would spend on food, which came to about $1438, for our ADRs and a couple of counter service meals and a few snacks. At Virgin prices(adult £27 + child £20 per day) I can't justify using the dining plan as its about £1300, and I don't think we'd spend that much, but if I booked it all separately, booking ddp direct its only $38.99 per day. This works out about $1400 the same as the cost of our ADRs. We'd also be getting about another 3 table service, 20 counter service and 4 snacks each. Accomodation is about £1000 and car approx £400, which means that to get the trip for the same price, our flights would have to be approx £1826 or less for the 4 of us. We would prefer to travel with virgin but the flights aren't released yet, is this a realistic price?
Should I stay with the package or change to separate items to get the ddp?

I would love anyones input on this

Thanks

 

[Goofyish]

Hi Ruthie,

Have you looked at booking a fly drive with Virgin - you can usually book them as soon as the brochures come out, way before flights are released.

You can then book accommodation and DDP yourself.
Dreams Unlimited is a good place to book your accommodation:

http://www.dreamsunlimitedtravel.com/

They are associated with the DIS and provide a great service.

Another option if you don't want the full DDP is for you would be to go for one Annual Pass and then to get a DDE card (Disney Dining Experiance Card). This will give you a 20% discount off all your table service meals.
You could also get the AP resort discount on your accommodation - your Dreams Unlimited agent would apply this to your booking for you.

 

[ruthie]

Thanks for the reply. I got a quote from Virgin for a flydrive for £2561, I didn't think this was a great price, as the whole holiday was £3226, what do you think?

 

[Goofyish]

You need to look at the room costs. 2007 rack rate for Pop is $119 plus 12.5% tax per room per night.

The Annual Pass discount could be as much as $40 off per night, so it would be quite a saving.

You can get a no obligation quote from Dreams Unlimited to allow you to compare prices.

 

[ruthie]

Thanks for the info. Will get a quote!

 

[OWJAY]

Hi. We've got DDP for this June and it's only cost us 1250 for 14 days for 4 adults (as two of our children are over 9) and 1 child. We think it is a good deal. We were only charged 6 pound a day for the child. Booked through Thomas Cook Signature.

 

[ruthie]

Thanks for this, it sounds a much better deal than Virgin, I will check it out!