formernyer said:
I agree that people who don't use the plan are now forced to make ADRs in advance, whereas in the past they could be casual and walk-in. I think that's a big problem and the restaurants should be required to set aside 20% or so of it's seats for walk-in guests.
This would be impossible given that Disney's Dining Plan has greatly increased table service customers without increasing table service seats at all. What I am trying to point out is that it is not just non-plan guests that have to book six months out, it is plan guests as well. If one wants to make sure that one can use all one's credits, one needs to book very early or risk being limited to places that one would not have chosen.
What makes this so disappointing is that is completely locks everything in and allows no flexibility. What if one discovers that there is a Shuttle Lunch while one is in Orlando (rescheduled from two weeks earlier due to weather) and one's 16 year old desperately wants to see that? Thanks to Disney's Dining Plan, one made reservations for a table service dinners over 6 months ago (180 + 10 means most will be more than 6 months out
), and that night was one's two credit meal. Now one has a choice, skip the launch or skip one's two credit meal with very little likelihood of being able to schedule two new table service meals to replace it.
Pre-dining plan, this would not have been a problem. First, not only were Disney's on property restaurants less crowded, but one could easily have eaten at one of the many non-Disney restaurants near KSC or at any of Lake Buena Vista's other choices.
Other than that, I think all of your comments suggest a POTENTIAL for problems, but in my experience a few weeks ago none of them materialized. I found the service and the food to be top notch everyplace we dined, even though we were on the DDP.
Glad to hear that. As someone who has visited Walt Disney World 5-10 weeks a year for over 20 years, I have definitely seen service and quality decline at most Disney restaurants over the last few years. More and more restaurants have moved from ordering off a menu to mediocre all-one-can-eat limited selection meals. As is clearly demonstrated by what happened with the Coral Reef's menu, restaurant have also curtailed higher end offering thanks to these plans. Clearly not potential, actual problems.
One thing your analysis fails to consider are the huge benefits provided by the DDP. For every one non-DDP guest who can't get a walk-in seating there are probably 5-10 guests who would have otherwise been eating McDonald's hamburgers but now have the opportunity to experience Disney dining for the first time. Any change that a place as big as Disney makes is going to get some degree of negative feedback, but I think overall the DDP is a homerun. You can't please everyone with every change, but this change sure pleases a LOT of people.
Actually, I do not think that most of these people would have been eating at McDonalds. Since Disney's Dining Plan is only available to resort guests, they would have been eating at other Disney restaurants (counter service) or close non-Disney restaurants (
e.g. Rainforest Cafe at Animal Kingdom, all non-plan restaurants at Downtown Disney, all restaurants at Crossroads) for those without cars or other Lake Buena Vista Restaurants for those with them.
What this has done is just the opposite of what you said, it has closed Disney's table service dining to all but resort guest and those that can plan every detail of their trip six months out. Before, resort guests would have been able to choose from all available options, now those on these plans must choose from a much more limited selection. To be clear, most every table service restaurant at Disney World filled up every night, and since Disney has not increased how many table seating restaurants there are, these plans have not increased the number of people eating at them.
All they have done is limited flexibility.
Oh yeah, I partially disagree with you about the "already paid" comments. Yes, the credits are paid for in advance, but the individual meals are not. If the service or food was so bad that you would have otherwise chosen to leave without paying then you can do the same here...just don't give them your dining card. The only difference is that rather than still having your cash, you'd have extra credits.
First, you are talking about the extreme case. I am talking about the average case. I am not suggesting that every restaurant has started serving rat and road kill, just that their is not longer a reason from them to exceed basic acceptable quality. Second, even in your extreme case things are worse thanks to these plans. While you are technically correct, one can walk out without paying just as easily with a Dining Plan card, most people never do that with cash and are even less likely to do it when they feel as it is already paid covered. Disney has created these plans to make guests feel that dining is free or included. If one has to had a server cash or a credit card for a abysmal meal, one is more likely to balk than if one is giving that same server something that has already been allocated (like a plan credit).
I personally think the DDP is such a great value that I have no problem taking on the risk of getting a terrible meal or terrible service. Quite honestly, I've read hundreds (maybe thousands) of meal reviews on here from DDP people and I could count on one hand the number of people who had serious complaints about anything.
There is a phrase that social scientists use that seems appropriate here: "the soft bigotry of low expectations." First, most people on here are at a minimum Disney fans and more commonly Disney Fanatics. From my own experience, straying from the prevailing orthodoxy that Disney is amazing tends to receive serious negative responses, often including
ad hominem attacks on the poster. This means that one os much more likely to see positive reviews here than negative ones.
Second, as I stated earlier, I am not arguing that California Grill is not serving roadkill, just that its standards (and more generally those around Disney World) have deteriorated, thanks in a large part to a greatly reduced pain threshold that these plans create. Disney has a perverse incentive to raise prices while lowering quality as their restaurant's percentage of dining plan guests increases. It makes people happy to see how much they "saved" never mind that there is no way that most of them would ever have spent that much were they actually paying out of pocket.
This is quite similar to our health care market. Hospitals have an incentive to raise list prices given that they will be reimbursed only a percentage of those by insurance companies and that their end users rarely pay at all for their services. This causes a substantial hardship on those without insurance as well as for those with insurance thanks to raising costs overall.
In the same way, these plans hurt those not using them (the majority of Disney's guests as most people stay off-property), as well as those using them (in all the ways I have already listed).
/carmi
