Chef Mickeys pricing is absurd!!!!!!!

[Magical Kingdoms]

We've never eaten at a Disney sitdown before, because our family practicallly LIVES off of counter service restaurants at Disney. We go to Columbia Harbour House every trip and sometimes Cosmic Ray's.

I've read so many reviews on how many of these table service restaurants and buffets have awful food, as well as that the prices are crazy. Sitting down to lunch at Columbia Harbour House in Magic Kingdom, we know that the food will be good, and that we won't be paying too much.

We never eat breakfast anywhere but our resort at Disney. We either eat at the food court (we're always at value resorts) or we bring food from home and eat in-room. We know how to save, but in the future we might try a sitdown like "50's Prime-Time Cafe" or "Sci-Fi Dine In"

The reason Disney is raising their price at Chef Mickey's and at other character meals is because:

1. Some people WILL pay that much to eat with the characters.
2. They want more people to do the DDP, hence all the "free dining" promotions going on.
3. They know about the people who go back to the same restaurant every trip, so they take advantage of that.

 

[rotlex]

All of these places have gone insane with pricing. If it wasn't for free dining, we would never do them.

We just came back from a 10 night trip, with free dining, and I kept out TS receipts to tally them up. They came to over $1200 dollars!

This trip, if we were paying for the dining plan, it would have cost us around $1500 for myself, wife and DD. (DS is still under 3, so free). If I add the counter service average of $50 per meal, and figure $125 or so worth of snacks, the dining plan paid for itself, and getting it free, was like saving nearly $2000. Granted, we wouldn't eat that much without it, but it's really nice, with kids, to eat a character meal or the like nearly every day.

 

[AmberHeartsDisney]

I did it once,i try to do everything at least once. but i didnt think it was worth it to me.

 

[budafam]

We went there last trip and we'll be going this trip. The prices are INSANE (I agree) but really, everything Disney is INSANE. I find the food to be good, nothing amazing but very filling & we love the characters/atmosphere. We won't do it every trip but every once in awhile, I think it's worth it.

 

[Splash Mountain Fan]

Checking out the current menu prices on all ears and Chef Mickeys breakfast is up to 35 bucks. This includes tax but geesh. I would never pay that. But I guess they have to justify the ddp prices.

Yep! We had breakfast ADR over our Labor Day weekend trip until I happened to see the price! YIKES!!!

How is breakfast only $5 less than dinner???

 

[Johnny_B]

If you are not a AP-holder, it costs $100 for a FL resident. I would think you need to order about $400-ish over the course of 13 months (that's how long the card is valid for). It's also good for up to 10 people.

If you go often enough, I think you can easily break $400 in 13 months to make the TiW card worth it. You also get access to special TiW events and free parking at resorts for dining purposes. I highly recommend it.

Yeah, probably not for me then. I don't the we'd use it quite that much.


Here is a question though...I see a lot of things on message boards that i want to try, but I don't necessarily want the whole meal. Can you order things to go? For example....the pineapple won tons from Yak n yeti or the cheese soup from the Canada place, le cellier?

 

[vfalkner]

We always book the last seating for character breakfast and call it lunch. Makes the prices a little easier to swallow and often the characters spend a little more time with you because it is the end of the seatings. Just a thought
But it would be great if eating at Disney didn't break the bank!

 

[justakrazymom]

We did it was the DDP and i will never go again. It was nothing like it was 10 years ago. The CM's had a very difficult time seating us, the chef didn't come see us ( allergy) and it was just a chaotic crazy time and not worth the dining credit!

 

[Laketravis]

I was joking with my wife that as much as it's starting to cost to have dinner with the characters, Minnie should come back to the room with us for the night.

She actually agreed with me.

 

[bcrook]

If you are not a AP-holder, it costs $100 for a FL resident. I would think you need to order about $400-ish over the course of 13 months (that's how long the card is valid for). It's also good for up to 10 people.

If you go often enough, I think you can easily break $400 in 13 months to make the TiW card worth it. You also get access to special TiW events and free parking at resorts for dining purposes. I highly recommend it.

Once again, not arguing, but at $100.00 for the TIW someone would have to spend $500.00 to break even. I am not sure breaking even is worth it. At some point a purchaser is probably spending more than they want just to break even on the card. I probably would.

 

[bcrook]

If you are not a AP-holder, it costs $100 for a FL resident. I would think you need to order about $400-ish over the course of 13 months (that's how long the card is valid for). It's also good for up to 10 people.

If you go often enough, I think you can easily break $400 in 13 months to make the TiW card worth it. You also get access to special TiW events and free parking at resorts for dining purposes. I highly recommend it.

I have been trying to make this work for a while now. I think I see what you are saying. If I spend $500.00, I get a 20% discount that is equal to $100.00. Therefore I would really only be spending $400.00 to break even. Got it.

BUT, I would have spent $500.00 total on card and meal (not counting the $135 needed for tax and tip). So really, I would spend $635.00 to break even.

If spend another $635.00 I can actually come out ahead $100.00.

Is that right?

 

[canopynut66]

Checking out the current menu prices on all ears and Chef Mickeys breakfast is up to 35 bucks. This includes tax but geesh. I would never pay that. But I guess they have to justify the ddp prices.

and Chef Mickeys has really declined in food quality and service was horrible three years ago so we have not been back we woul dnot go back if they lowered the price it was that bad. any character meal is going to be higher but are many character meals that are very good and less. one being Whispering Canyons over at WL and Tusker House with Donald and Cape May with Goofy all character breakfast and some places still have character for dinner as well.. we do like the dining plan however especially when free

 

[bumbershoot]

I have been trying to make this work for a while now. I think I see what you are saying. If I spend $500.00, I get a 20% discount that is equal to $100.00. Therefore I would really only be spending $400.00 to break even. Got it.

BUT, I would have spent $500.00 total on card and meal (not counting the $135 needed for tax and tip). So really, I would spend $635.00 to break even.

If spend another $635.00 I can actually come out ahead $100.00.

Is that right?

That's definitely not how we looked at it.

We had our plans. We bought the card for $75. That meant we needed to eat/drink $375 in eligible food/drink, which we were already going to do. Taxes were already going to be paid, as were tips.

Once we hit that mark, which took less than 10 table service meals for the three of us (I think we did one buffet, and most of the rest involved sharing between DH and I, with a kid's meal for DS...I think there were two boozey drinks and one beer as well), we'd made up for the cost of the card. We'd paid 375 - 20% for food/drink, we'd paid $75 for the card, we were even.

The last day or so was simply discounted by 20%. And our upcoming trip will also be simply discounted 20%.

DH tends to tip 20% elsewhere, so the 18 is actually less than it would have been...for the times that he didn't bring it up to 20%, that actually increased our discount.

If you change your dining habits because of the TIW (eat more TS), then I think you need to reap a bigger benefit than break even.

If you change your dining habits for ANY plan you're making a mistake, IMO.



Oh, and this is a good post by a Disney fan and current CM about TIW. In his example you can see that while the tip is based on pre-discount price, the tax is actually on the POST-discount price.

 

[buckeev]

DDP works for us...free or otherwise. We HAVE to do several characters meals for my son. If the dining plan isn't free, we will just shorten the trip by a few days.
One thing some folks forget to factor in when budgeting a WDW trip is TS Tips. Kinda "sneaks" up on you...$25 here, $45 there...I went through my "stash-cash" real fast 1st trip we did DDP.

 

[bcrook]

That's definitely not how we looked at it.

We had our plans. We bought the card for $75. That meant we needed to eat/drink $375 in eligible food/drink, which we were already going to do. Taxes were already going to be paid, as were tips.

Once we hit that mark, which took less than 10 table service meals for the three of us (I think we did one buffet, and most of the rest involved sharing between DH and I, with a kid's meal for DS...I think there were two boozey drinks and one beer as well), we'd made up for the cost of the card. We'd paid 375 - 20% for food/drink, we'd paid $75 for the card, we were even.

The last day or so was simply discounted by 20%. And our upcoming trip will also be simply discounted 20%.

DH tends to tip 20% elsewhere, so the 18 is actually less than it would have been...for the times that he didn't bring it up to 20%, that actually increased our discount.




If you change your dining habits for ANY plan you're making a mistake, IMO.



Oh, and this is a good post by a Disney fan and current CM about TIW. In his example you can see that while the tip is based on pre-discount price, the tax is actually on the POST-discount price.

I was responding to Bonniec who was considering trying a few TS meals. Someone suggested that TIW would help with the costs. If you want to switch from CS to TS using the TIW she would have to spend $635.00 to break even, and the goal shouldn't be to break even. Of course if she qualifies for the $75.00 TIW, that would drop the cost some.

I plan on purchasing the TIW next summer because I have a party of 10 and we will be on site for 12 or 13 days. I will recoup my money many times over.

 

[NorweJenNY]

I've read so many reviews on how many of these table service restaurants and buffets have awful food, as well as that the prices are crazy. Sitting down to lunch at Columbia Harbour House in Magic Kingdom, we know that the food will be good, and that we won't be paying too much.

We never eat breakfast anywhere but our resort at Disney. We either eat at the food court (we're always at value resorts) or we bring food from home and eat in-room. We know how to save, but in the future we might try a sitdown like "50's Prime-Time Cafe" or "Sci-Fi Dine In"

TiW could actually help families with habits like this - staying in mostly value resorts and eating in the food courts there, with merely an occasional TS meal. Don't forget that TiW is good in the food courts at the value resorts and POFQ! I know people don't usually think a lot about the value of TiW for the CS family, but there is a value for this group too (especially larger families or families who visit often/for long periods of time).

I know when my family stays in a value resort or at POFQ, going to the food court for breakfasts and dinners is very common because you pass through that general area to get to the Disney buses anyway.

Let's look at a week-long trip for a family...

Breakfasts = approx. $30 x 7 = $210

Dinners = approx. $40 x 7 =$280

These meals alone (no lunches or snacks included), total $490... a 20% discount off these all meals would be $98. So an AP holder is already saving with TiW, and just about anything beyond these CS meals would be savings for a FL Resident getting TiW. Any TS lunches (perhaps at Sci Fi, 50s Prime Time, Liberty Tree, Chefs de France, Le Cellier, etc.) or CS lunches at these resorts (plus a few in AK) would then be nothing but 20% discounts...

So you can see that TiW can be a great deal, especially for the AP holder who intends to return to WDW within the year, where any and all future trips in that year would be nothing but 20% dining discounts as well (at TiW restaurants), as the break-even point has passed. TiW can be an incredible deal for the value-minded family!