Confused over character dining

[Hawkeye83]

hi, is it worth prepaying for premium or regular character dining vouchers? Or just paying when you get to the restaurant? Also how do you buy the vouchers in advance? We are looking at doing a few character meals while at Disneyland

 

[Barbydoll8]

You might have better responses if you post this on the DL forum. They don't do vouchers in WDW that I know of.

 

[Pumbaa_]

Never heard of vouchers. Is this a think in DL?

 

[DisneyWishes14]

You should post this on the DL thread. IMHO, I wouldn't buy the vouchers!

 

[Pumbaa_]

moved from restaurant board

 

[DL_Forever]

I think the prices on the character meals fluctuate, but you may be able to save $5-10 per person with the vouchers. I would call Disneyland dining and see if they can tell you the current price for the premium and regular character dining. I believe Getaway Today sells the vouchers, you can compare the prices. Premium would be Goof's Kitchen, Ariel's Grotto or Surfs Up at PPH. Regular is Minnie's Breakfast at the Plaza and Chip & Dales at Storytellers in GCH.

 

[Kirbie]

I would call Disneyland before buying vouchers. I checked one of the websites, I think it was Get Away Today but I'm not 100% sure, and they were selling vouchers for $38.

However I called Disneyland to ask for the prices of character meals and the cast member told me Plaza Inn is $32 for adults, Ariel's Grotto is $37 for adults, Goofy's Kitchen is $37 for adults, and Storyteller Café is $34 for adults. These prices are all for character breakfasts. Hope this helps!

 

[Jenis]

I think it depends on when you're going. From the research I have done the pre-paid vouchers include tax and gratuity. And the price that you get from Disney does not include the tax and gratuity. The price fluctuates from value season to peak season. So what I have found if you're going during a peak season then you do save a few dollars by buying the vouchers but if you're going during value season where they lower the price you're not really saving that much if anything.

 

[Hawkeye83]

Whoops - thanks I'm still getting used to the forums
I'll contact Disney to find out what their prices will be for our trip!

 

[Hawkeye83]

I would call Disneyland before buying vouchers. I checked one of the websites, I think it was Get Away Today but I'm not 100% sure, and they were selling vouchers for $38.

However I called Disneyland to ask for the prices of character meals and the cast member told me Plaza Inn is $32 for adults, Ariel's Grotto is $37 for adults, Goofy's Kitchen is $37 for adults, and Storyteller Café is $34 for adults. These prices are all for character breakfasts. Hope this helps!

ThAnks for calling - we are in Australia so I'm trying not to make too many phone calls to the US!

 

[BecAus]

I have heard that the character meals can vary in price at different times of the year but I haven't found any info on that.
From the info in post #8 it may depend when you're going as to whether it might be value or peak season pricing but you would probably have to ring to find out.
I understand should you need to cancel your character meal you can actually put the cost of the voucher (determined by Disney) towards other restaurants in the park.
I *think* it used to say that on the back of the voucher and the amount of the value but I can't quite remember and I haven't tried to use it anywhere else myself.

I found Disneyland Daily to be a good resource that gave great info on the various meals available and current pricing - they don't talk about value / peak pricing though.
I just googled 'Disneyland Character meal prices' and that's one of the top posts that comes up.
They list which of the character meals are Premium and which are Regular.
Basically, three character meals are Premium. Goofy’s Kitchen, Surf’s Up, and Ariel’s Grotto. Minnie’s in the Park and Storyteller’s Cafe are not Premium, they are Regular.
Goofy's is the only one that offers dinner - dinner is a few $$ more than B/F.

Basically the vouchers include tax (I believe this is 7.75%) and tip (D/L Daily works this on 18%)
The prices you see listed on D/L Daily for each character meal are before tax and tip are added as are the prices quoted above in post #7.

They post a link there to Getaway Today where you can purchase the dining vouchers from - they have the Regular Meal as $38USD for an adult and $23USD for a child.
Premium meals are priced at $47USD for an adult and $29 for a child.

You then have to convert that to AUD of course to work out the cost - I am working on a rough conversion of .75 at the moment.

From here is Aus you can buy the dining voucher from American Airlines Australia. They sell them in AUD. The current pricing on there (and it fluctuates daily with the $$$)
is Regular Meals $50.53AUD for an adult and $29.26AUD for a child. Premium Meals $63.83AUD for an adult and $37.23AUD

It is worth noting also, my credit card (NAB) charges the international transaction fee even though it say AUD. It does the same with Royal Caribbean, obviously because it is an American company. My AMEX is 2% and M/C - Visa is 3%. So you will need to check what your bank does, I know there are some cards available that don't charge transaction fees ? 28degrees or something.

You can also get the vouchers off travel agents here and also My Personal Travel Planner sells them but both are charging a lot more than American Airlines is - MPTP is priced about $10 more per person so definitely don't do that! I got my 10day ticket off them some months ago for a good price but they have raised the price on those substantially since as well.

I purchased our vouchers for Minnie's from American Airlines Australia. My son is 11yrs so 2 x adult vouchers. I paid $50.99AUD each and would have paid 2% transaction fee on top of that ($1.02). Total of $52.01AUD each.
They are issued as a voucher that you have to exchange at the main ticket booth window - same as the 10day entry ticket voucher.

So... if I was just going to pay on the day at Minnie's the likely cost in USD is going to be: $32 + tax(7.75%) $2.48 + tip(18%) $5.76 = $40.24 now if I convert that to AUD it is roughly (@ .75) $53.65 so I've saved ~ $3.28AUD for the both of us.

Is it worth it....probably not for the two of us. The hassle of exchanging the voucher to save $3.28 instead of just paying on the day at the restaurant. I mainly bought the voucher in case our $$ tanked down to .60 or something.

In your case, with 6 people and wanting to do multiple meals maybe it would be worth the savings to you?? It also depends if you want to have some of your expenses pre-paid and with AAA at least you can do that in AUD.

You just have to sit down and do the sums and see what you think. You still go ahead and make the reservation online when you have the voucher. You have to put a credit card guarantee, I think it is $10 p/p if you no-show but nothing will be charged if you turn up to your reservation or cancel it in the required time frame which I think is 24hrs before. Some have reported not being charged when they had to cancel / move the booking within the 24hr period - they are more worried about complete no-shows - but there's no guarantee they won't charge the $10fee I guess if you are within that 24hr period but I'm pretty sure they would work with you if you had to cancel urgently for some reason.

Sorry such a long post - Hope some of that info helps in some way : )
If I've got any of that info wrong someone please feel free to chime in and correct me : )