Confused about specifics of new ticket/dining plan....

[disney4us2002]

Has anyone done it yet? If we go for a week and purchase the 7-day ticket and 7-day dining package, will this all be on our room card for each of the five of us? Everytime we eat somewhere each card would be scanned? Only one adult would have all the dining info on his card? I'm very confused as to how this works. Suppose we ate at an included table restaurant but ordered alcoholic beverages, would the meal be taken off but the alcohol & tax charged to room or expected in cash? Suppose we grabbed something quick like donuts/muffins in the resort (those are included as counter service) but didn't want that to be considered our counter service meal for the day, how is that indicated? Just to throw another monkey-wrench into the mix, we're eligible for Shades of Green but prefer to take overflow rates to stay onsite, if we stay at the Contemporary on overflow can we still add the ticket/dining option at check-in?

Will the other ticket brokers continue to sell hoppers or will they switch to MYW at some point? We used to purchase the stars & stripes thru Shades (similar to uph's) but the MYW base ticket saves us a lot. It would be terrific if Shades offered something similar to MYW but with a discount!

 

[LibertyBelle]

Well, I can answer some of the question:

Your meals will be pooled together so you would only have to show one ID card for the meal. If you have alcohol they will issue you a seperate check for that which you can charge to the room or pay cash whatever you prefer. If you are going somewhere and you don't want to use the package just tell them you want it charged to the room not the package, it is a matter of hitting one key on the computer vs another (just specify that it is not for the package... and even if it is charged to the wrong place the front desk can reverse it for you).

As for adding the package on. Tickets can be added by the front desk, but the dining package can not. The dining package has to be prebooked, the front desk can not add it on once you arrive.

 

[disney4us2002]

Thanks for the answers. One more for clarification please. If all the meal options are pooled, would each card access the same info? If my boys wanted to go to the snack bar alone (16 & 12) they would still be able to use their room cards?

 

[swilphil]

The restaurants included on the dining plan keep changing. I'd go to the Disney site for the most accurate list. Many of the World Showcase restaurants are no longer on the plan. A few nice sitdowns like Le Cellier and Brown Derby have been moved to signature meals, where you have to trade in two sitdown meals for one meal there.

I think to add the dining plan or upgrade your tickets, you have to buy a package to begin with. I also thought you had to pay rack rate with the MYW packages.

 

[sherylm]

I actually spoke with a reservations associate about this a few nights ago to get some clarification. I also wanted a list of which restaurants you could dine in on the plan since I couldn't find the list online. The associate told me she didn't think it was listed online, that you had to ask them for the participating restaurants. While there are a decent amount, it is by no means all of them. Many of the Epcot restaurants are NOT included. There are also a few which are considered "Signature" which requires 2 sit-down meal vouchers instead of 1. There were not very many of these restaurants, though.

I also understood from the associate that you had to buy a WDW package to be able to include the Dining Plan. That means you have to buy the room & tickets bundled together before you can get the Dining Plan added on. However, I did get the impression that you CAN purchase a discounted plan (if they have any) and still add the Dining Plan on to it. I had asked about AAA discounts. While they had them for "Room Only" they did not currently have a discount for packages, so it doesn't pay for us to book a package with the higher room rates just to get the dining plan. The associate did mention that they do sometimes have package specials and if they do, you should be able to add the dining plan to it.

If you want a list of all of the participating sit-down restaurants on the Dining Plan, you can either call a sales associate (the one I spoke to was very nice about letting me write down all the names) or you can send me a PM and I'll send you the list they gave me, no problem.