Chatting with a CM about sharing DDP

[LizinSTL]

You are right, people do split meals to save money when NOT on the dining plan. And therefore if the requirements set forth by Disney to use the Dining Plan does not fit, they can go back to NOT having the dining plan.

It truly is very simple. Disney gets to make the rules and they also get to change them at anytime they wish as they need to. It is not about being a bad person really it is about them making the guidelines and the customer deciding if they want to participate.

The Dining plan brochure is a guideline and it states subject to change at anytime.

If the plan does not fit someone's eating habits, I would recommend not getting it and simply go back to what they were doing prior to the plan.

You bet. But right now it is ALL speculation. I find it hard to believe that Disney will enforce this no sharing nonsense for more than a day or two. It's really ridiculous and completely out of the norm in terms of the industry standard. Charge a plate splitting fee but no sharing? What's next? Every guest needs his/her own bed??

 

[glass slipper girl]

I think what is upseting most people is the combination of one set of guidelines when they booked their trip then the changes with the inability to get a straight answer on what the new rules mean. From my understanding the brochure has been modified to say adults can't use children's credits. Fine. They gave a definite answer on that and I'm OK with it, won't try to argue. I don't think I've seen no sharing and no paying out of pocket for a member of your party who may not want a full meal in writing anywhere but in posts here. That isn't in the brochure, right? It doesn't say if 2A and 2C sit down at your table and your dining card says 2A/2C then they will take 4 credits (or 8 at a signature location) regarless of how you ask to pay. No one at Disney seems to be able to give a definite answer. That isn't the fault of the CMs on the phone or at the other end of a chat or email. IMHO, it's fault of upper level management not giving them CLEAR guidelines. I understand that asking to pay OOP for a child may make them suspicious because of recommendations on various planning sites and in guidebooks to "bank" the kids credits for adult use. I'd just like to hear some definites that make sense and are consistent. If no sharing was going to be a rule, it should be put in to the brochure. I understand the no sharing with those not on the plan but if 2 adults want to share a meal and pay OOP for an additional drink and appetizer, that shouldn't be an issue since you have always been able to do that no problem. If it becomes an issue, it should be put in writing. No one is arguing child/adult any longer since it is in writing.

 

[LSUDis]

I'm no math whiz.....really, I'm not, so all of you take it slowly with me...

Tell me where I'm going wrong....Billy Bob and I are married and go to WDW.

We stay, let's say, 5 nights, so we get 5 TS each= 10 total.

Monday--we go to Rose and Crown the first night...not too hungry-share--use 1 TS.

9 TS left

The next day, Billy Bob is starving, so we eat at Sci-Fi for bfst and share--use 1 (he likes odd bfsts.) We eat lunch at Sci-Fi & share--use 1. We eat at Beaches and Cream for dinner and share--use 1 TS

---6 TS left.

Wednesday--B.B. (we're friends by now) and I eat bfst at Grand Fl. Cafe and share again--use 1 TS; eat lunch at the '50s place and share--1 TS; eat dinner at Raglan Road and share (but drinks lots of Guiness, so who really knows whose dinners we paid for )--uses 1 TS

3 TS left

Thursday--B.B. has hangover, so we share bfst again at Grand Fl. Cafe--uses 1 TS; eat lunch at Tony's and share-use 1 TS; eat dinner at Sci-Fi (Billy Bob likes the sparkly lights) and share-use 1 TS

Now, no TS are left. We used 10. We did not eat any food that we did not pay for, right?

Disney got us to pay OOP for 10 drinks that we would have gotten "free" on the DP.

We tipped more b/c we ate at more places.

Disney washed fewer plates--had to cook less food.

We tried more restaurants than we normally would have, so will visit them in the future now that we are "hooked" on a few favorites.

We waste less food; everyone's happy; Disney makes the money from the DP and from the extra drinks/dessert that we ordered over the allowance of the meal plan.

Now, what's the commotion about? It's a win-win for everyone, right???

Plus, while Billy Bob and I are sharing TS, we are not eating ANY of the counters except the last day, so Disney has charged us for, yet we did not eat, 7 counter meals.

 

[disney2d2]

Great post LSUDis. But you see to some higher level moral beings here, sharing is either cheating Disney out of its profits or simply ridiculous... I guess some people always order full course meals for both parties when visiting restaurants... we rarely ever do. Sharing is caring.

 

[akalittleeva]

LisaDKG -

Glass Slipper Girl -

LSUDis -

 

[DizGeek]

What I don't get is why people seem to think that "sharing" a TS meal is screwing over Disney.

Lets say a party of 8 comes in and one person uses their credit while the rest have ice water.....is that fair to Disney or the wait staff or the other guests waiting?

 

[Rowlf]

LSUDis, I see your point, but if those tables had been taken up by people using two credits instead of one, Disney would be better off than in your scenario. Restaurants don't like people sharing because they want to maximize their per seat/per table revenue. Sharing goes against that.

 

[bertalander]

Lets say a party of 8 comes in and one person uses their credit while the rest have ice water.....is that fair to Disney or the wait staff or the other guests waiting?

So we've gone from a couple sharing a meal to a family of 8 descending on Le Celleir and splitting the biggest meal they can get out of the DDP to feed Ma, Pa and their 6 overgrown children. Pa gets the iced tea and everyone else has water?!

You are KILLING me here.


I'm not screwing Disney over by letting my child eat off of it and buying her a drink OOP. Her credit is still a child credit that will be used as a child credit at some later point in the trip.

Why is this SO hard to understand?!

How in the world do you feel that people are 'cheating' by sharing a huge amount of food?

You know I come to DIS looking for good up to date info. And recently find a 'mightier than thou' minority scolding perceived wrongs around every turn. Get to Disney and CHILL out already.

AURGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

I'm now motoring away from the insanity in this thread and hoping the moral police aren't in hot pursuit.

 

[glass slipper girl]

Lets say a party of 8 comes in and one person uses their credit while the rest have ice water.....is that fair to Disney or the wait staff or the other guests waiting?

And how often do you really think that is going to happen...8 people, one order? I think most of the time it's going to be something like 2A/2C ordering 1A/2C meals. My son's may be interested in eating the same thing but they will both finish a hotdog or 2 or 3 chicken strips. Even if they couldn't, they aren't big on sharing their food! :lol DH and I on the other hand aren't so teritorial. And, BTW, we may not be the norm but if we do share an entree or if we go to a restaurant at home just for desert, we do tip a higher percentage to make up for the fact that they did serve 2 of us even if we only ordered 1 entree. When we have shared at Disney (which is only once or twice a trip because most of the time DH subscribes to the "If we get different things, we get to try both!" philosophy) we typically have 2 appetizers so we'd be paying out of pocket for a 2nd drink and app.

Also, if you want to apply that it isn't fair to the restaurant or wait staff because the profits and gratuities won't be maximized then the next step (just as far fetched as the example of 8 people 1 order ) is to require guests to basically place their orders before being seated so the restaurant can seat those ordering the more expensive items sooner than those ordering chicken and water. That maximizes their proffits afterall.

I'm not looking to pull one over on Disney either. I'd just like to see a straight answer in writing FROM DISNEY and not from a poster on a message board. For all the complaining people did about "interpreting the rules to suit your 'agenda'" it seems to be happening on both sides of the argument here! I would bet that my family is fairly normal for most of the families out there using the plan...we may want to share something 2 times on our 9 day trip. Kid credits used for kids, adult credits used for adults but for the majority of our meals we'll be ordering 4 meals and paying for them all with the dining plan. I don't think DH and I sharing 2 meals while on our trip staying at the GF for a week without planning to leave the property for any meals is going to hurt Disney's bottom line in any way. Yes, there are guests who may plan to share at every meal thus theoretically doubling the # of ADRs they make but I don't think that is most guests and more than likely, that couple would do the same thing without the dining plan so they would still have that many ADRs and take up a table while ordering one 3 course meal + extra drink and occasionally extra ap or desert.

I guess I just don't understand where the moral high horse comes in here. If we were still arguing child credits for adult use, OK, but Disney has now put that in writing. That ends that argument. Sharing meals, IMHO, is not "stealing from Disney" in any way shape or form. If they put it in writing then even if I don't see it as stealing, I won't share. I'll decided if the dining plan is still worth it for our family or not. I'll reserve the right to think it's silly but I will follow the rules. Fortunately for me, my trip isn't untill late January so I can wait to see what happens between now and then. If something changes on 1/1/07, I can still see what happens and can change my plans around if need be. My guess is they are going to be fairly strict as we lead up to free dining and during free dining and then things will ease back off again somewhat. Time will tell.

 

[disney2d2]

Lets say a party of 8 comes in and one person uses their credit while the rest have ice water.....is that fair to Disney or the wait staff or the other guests waiting?

Excuse me if I fail to see your logic, does this message board primarily exist to make sure that Disney's profits are at an optimal level? Or is the purpose to make sure people enjoy their Disney vacation and discuss ways to improve their experience, like for say by visiting more restaurants than the number of nights of stay.

Oh, and please don't be so ridiculous, 8-1??? I mean we are talking 2-1 or 5-3... but eight to one? You really think those you share are cheapsters... don't you?

 

[punkin]

Oh, and please don't be so ridiculous, 8-1??? I mean we are talking 2-1 or 5-3... but eight to one? You really think those you share are cheapsters... don't you?

I completely agree. I have 7 people going and we are plannning on sharing. We are planning to share 5 for 7. With the extra credits over the course of a week, we will do Boma breakfast (which is not a great use of credits but I don't care). I will get the most I can for my money while enjoying dining the way we usually do at home, i.e. sharing and trying new things; and I'm pretty sure Disney will make out OK financially as well.

 

[OurDogCisco]

Well, we are two people. We don't each a lot at one time would like to eat at a table-service restaurant more than once a day. And as others have said, we cannot both order 2 full course meals (we usually order one entree and one appetizer at home) and we don't wanna carry food around with us (if we can't finish it).

That's why we would like to share one TS credit (at least a couple of times) during a four day stay... We are honest people, we don't lie about our kids ages (we don't have any, yet!) and we are not trying to cheat a system by circumventing any Disney policies.

So why is it not a good idea for us to share?

*** OR Should I make DW just sit at another table and sip some H2O while I eat my one credit? Because God forbin if I throw her French fry I'll be kicked off the resort...

Just trying to understand your issue I have a question. When will you eat your extra table credit? Let's say you are going to be there 5 nights so you have 10 ts, 10 cs & 10 snack credits. So if you only use one ts credit, when do you eat the second one? Are you saving it to eat a 2 ts credit restaurant? Or do you eat at another ts restaurant that day in addition to your cs place? I just don't get it. If it is the latter to eat at another ts restaurant that day then you are sure spending a lot of time eating instead of visiting the parks?

 

[Lisa_Belle]

Personally, I think it's a question of logistics. If DH and I share a meal at a TS meal, that frees us an extra TS credit for another meal. SO while DIsney planned for us to have one ADR, we now have two. If everyone does that, then it becomes a nightmare for anyone to be served in the World. Shortage of TS ADRs leads to crowded CS which leads to unhappy guests.

In practice, they may not take a hardline, but I'm sure they'll try and discourage it as much as possible when people ask.

I know a lot of people have a problem wasting food. Especially when it's free dining, why not just limit your ordering to reflect your eating habits?

But look at it another way (logistically) ...

The purpose of the plan (in Disney's bottom line) is to entice people to stay on property and spend time (and most important MONEY) in the parks and on accommodations. Making multiple ADRs means people will spend even MORE time in the parks. If enough people decide that the plan does not meet their needs, they won't get the plan. Consequently, enough of those people may decide that if they aren't eating on property what would be the point of staying on property or buying tickets. Now you have thousands of people - and their money - staying off site and visiting Sea World, Universal, Busch Gardens and possibly a day or two at the beach. Disney does NOT want that. Even if a family spent just two days off site, they could easily take anywhere from $500 to $1,000 away from Disney - about a third of their money for a week's vacation.

And while Disney portions may be large, I don't think they are large enough to feed a family of 8. It seems that most of the "sharing" concerns involve small children.

 

[OurDogCisco]

I'm no math whiz.....really, I'm not, so all of you take it slowly with me...

Tell me where I'm going wrong....Billy Bob and I are married and go to WDW.

We stay, let's say, 5 nights, so we get 5 TS each= 10 total.

Monday--we go to Rose and Crown the first night...not too hungry-share--use 1 TS.

9 TS left

The next day, Billy Bob is starving, so we eat at Sci-Fi for bfst and share--use 1 (he likes odd bfsts.) We eat lunch at Sci-Fi & share--use 1. We eat at Beaches and Cream for dinner and share--use 1 TS

---6 TS left.

Wednesday--B.B. (we're friends by now) and I eat bfst at Grand Fl. Cafe and share again--use 1 TS; eat lunch at the '50s place and share--1 TS; eat dinner at Raglan Road and share (but drinks lots of Guiness, so who really knows whose dinners we paid for )--uses 1 TS

3 TS left

Thursday--B.B. has hangover, so we share bfst again at Grand Fl. Cafe--uses 1 TS; eat lunch at Tony's and share-use 1 TS; eat dinner at Sci-Fi (Billy Bob likes the sparkly lights) and share-use 1 TS

Now, no TS are left. We used 10. We did not eat any food that we did not pay for, right?

Disney got us to pay OOP for 10 drinks that we would have gotten "free" on the DP.

We tipped more b/c we ate at more places.

Disney washed fewer plates--had to cook less food.

We tried more restaurants than we normally would have, so will visit them in the future now that we are "hooked" on a few favorites.

We waste less food; everyone's happy; Disney makes the money from the DP and from the extra drinks/dessert that we ordered over the allowance of the meal plan.

Now, what's the commotion about? It's a win-win for everyone, right???

Plus, while Billy Bob and I are sharing TS, we are not eating ANY of the counters except the last day, so Disney has charged us for, yet we did not eat, 7 counter meals.

I get now.... How you are sharing and why you aren't hungry when you get to the next meal. You see you are spending your time by walking from restaruant to restaurant waiting for your ADRs. Instead where I would be walking from ride to ride burning a lot of calories so that by time I got to my meal time I would be starving. Since you are sharing all your meals you are spending a lot of time eating. It makes perfect sense. Not sure why you want to spend time in a restaurant the whole vacation but different strokes for different people.

 

[Lisa_Belle]

Just trying to understand your issue I have a question. When will you eat your extra table credit? Let's say you are going to be there 5 nights so you have 10 ts, 10 cs & 10 snack credits. So if you only use one ts credit, when do you eat the second one? Are you saving it to eat a 2 ts credit restaurant? Or do you eat at another ts restaurant that day in addition to your cs place? I just don't get it. If it is the latter to eat at another ts restaurant that day then you are sure spending a lot of time eating instead of visiting the parks?

The credits are based on per night of your stay, not per day. So if you arrive early in the day, you could easily eat a couple of meals on that day. And if you leave later in a day, you could eat a couple of meals on that day as well. So, theoretically, for a six-night stay, two people could eat a TS meal each night and a character breakfast the morning they leave - making 14 meals, but they would only have 12 credits. Sharing a meals at Le Cellier and Prime Time would give them the 14 credits they need.

 

[LSUDis]

I get now.... How you are sharing and why you aren't hungry when you get to the next meal. You see you are spending your time by walking from restaruant to restaurant waiting for your ADRs. Instead where I would be walking from ride to ride burning a lot of calories so that by time I got to my meal time I would be starving. Since you are sharing all your meals you are spending a lot of time eating. It makes perfect sense. Not sure why you want to spend time in a restaurant the whole vacation but different strokes for different people.

How is sharing all of our meals spending a lot of time eating...we are eating half of the normal amt. of food! Less to eat=less time eating.

Who eats a lot of food in this heat, anyway?

This was a hypothetical, extreme case to show how sharing is not necessarily a bad thing for Disney. It is tongue-in-cheek..for the record, I don't even eat breakfast.


Plus, I don't even DO the Dining Plan

 

[OurDogCisco]

The credits are based on per night of your stay, not per day. So if you arrive early in the day, you could easily eat a couple of meals on that day. And if you leave later in a day, you could eat a couple of meals on that day as well. So, theoretically, for a six-night stay, two people could eat a TS meal each night and a character breakfast the morning they leave - making 14 meals, but they would only have 12 credits. Sharing a meals at Le Cellier and Prime Time would give them the 14 credits they need.

So what you are saying is that you are sharing because you don't want to pay out of pocket for one or two meals? Because it sounds like to me you wouldn't normally share your meals except on the first and last day because you'd be short some credits.

 

[OurDogCisco]

How is sharing all of our meals spending a lot of time eating...we are eating half of the normal amt. of food! Less to eat=less time eating.

Who eats a lot of food in this heat, anyway?

This was a hypothetical, extreme case to show how sharing is not necessarily a bad thing for Disney. It is tongue-in-cheek..for the record, I don't even eat breakfast.


Plus, I don't even DO the Dining Plan

I don't think it is the food that cost Disney money. That isn't the biggest expense of running a restaurant. So wasting food probably isn't at the top of Disney list on figuring out how to save it.

I guess, I'm not normal because when we go to Disney we are straving from meal to meal. I understand sharing with a child but another adult come on. The portions aren't that big. In fact on our last Disney trip I loss 4 lbs from all the walking. We ate 3 meals a day. We did breakfast in the room and counter service lunch and ts dinner everyday. We didn't snack much. We ordered entree for every adult. My kids didn't share because they don't like to eat the same things. My oldest ate everything on her plate but with my youngest it was a hit or miss.

 

[LSUDis]

If it is the latter to eat at another ts restaurant that day then you are sure spending a lot of time eating instead of visiting the parks?

You see you are spending your time by walking from restaruant to restaurant waiting for your ADRs. Instead where I would be walking from ride to ride burning a lot of calories

Since you are sharing all your meals you are spending a lot of time eating.

Not sure why you want to spend time in a restaurant the whole vacation

Yep, we're just big 'ole hogs wallowing in the feeding trough that is the Disney Dining Plan.


Seriously, though, some people DO come to Disney to enjoy the scenery, people-watch, and, yes, try new foods. Disney actually encourages this--they even have a Food and Wine Festival. Not everyone can or does enjoy riding the rides; that is the beauty of Disney, there is something for everyone.

I took your replies as a bit mean-spirited to those who like to eat or are a little Pooh-y (which is not me, so it is NOT personal---okay, I DO like to eat, but I am not "Pooh-y).

If I read you wrong, then I apologize. I just didn't want this thread to become mean.

 

[OurDogCisco]

Yep, we're just big 'ole hogs wallowing in the feeding trough that is the Disney Dining Plan.


Seriously, though, some people DO come to Disney to enjoy the scenery, people-watch, and, yes, try new foods. Disney actually encourages this--they even have a Food and Wine Festival. Not everyone can or does enjoy riding the rides; that is the beauty of Disney, there is something for everyone.

I took your replies as a bit mean-spirited to those who like to eat or are a little Pooh-y (which is not me, so it is NOT personal---okay, I DO like to eat, but I am not "Pooh-y).

If I read you wrong, then I apologize. I just didn't want this thread to become mean.

Trust me I'm not that thin and I love to eat and I could stand to lose 20 lbs. I think Disney is a great place to that. But I just find your sharing plan a little excessive and actually mean spirited too (everything is a 2 way street). And, I really don't believe you are saving Disney money by sharing your food at every restaurant. Actually, I think dining plans similar to the one you presented are causing the restaurants to lose money and then they will be out of business. I am not trying to side with Disney or you I'm just wondering why so many people are stressing over this dining plan?

GL with your dining plan.