Dining Plan across several rooms...

[jlw29]

Don't know if this should go here or Resort board but...

We are taking a family reunion vacation next summer. DH and I are taking his parents and his brother's family in addition to the 4 of us (so it will be one reservation of 3 or 4 regular rooms or 2 villas). Will all the dining credits be pooled to be used by any of us? Or will each room only have the credits attached to the occupants of that room? I ask because there will be times that the kids aren't with their parents but with the grandparents or aunt / uncle instead, or all of us will be eating together (and who wants to have 4 separate bills!). It would be much more trouble to keep track of who has what on what card vs how many total credits are left for the group, so I'm hoping this is how they organize it.

 

[TDC Nala]

Only credits belonging to the same reservation, with the same reservation number, will be pooled together. Any reservation made separately, with a separate reservation number, will have access only to its own credits.

Are you booking DVC or a regular package reservation? On DVC each different villa will be a separate reservation. On a regular package, it looks like each room with an adult in it will be a separate reservation.

 

[jlw29]

We're booking regular package, not DVC if we do the villas.

Does the fact that we're making and paying for all rooms make it one reservation or will each room still be separate? We'll have to link the rooms as a grand gathering, I guess. That's the only advantage I can see to Grand Gatherings anyway.

I can't believe I'm this obsessed over details for a trip that's over a year away!

 

[RahRah573]

We're booking regular package, not DVC if we do the villas.

Does the fact that we're making and paying for all rooms make it one reservation or will each room still be separate? We'll have to link the rooms as a grand gathering, I guess. That's the only advantage I can see to Grand Gatherings anyway.

I can't believe I'm this obsessed over details for a trip that's over a year away!

Booking online you'll make each room or villa reservation separately....my understanding is that if you call to make your reservation, you can have all reservations linked together as one, with one reservation number, dining plan and tickets for all....each room/villa will have its occupants listed separately, but it would be one reservation. Now that's what I've heard - I've never tried it since we've never had that many going at once to need a lot of rooms!

 

[TDC Nala]

There are reports that if there is an adult registered in each room you will have a separate room reservation for each one, no matter who is paying. Grand Gathering merely links the separate reservations together so that the rooms will be close to one another. You'd have more than one room under the same reservation numbers only if one room has no adult registered.

You can ask when you call, but from what I've seen all reservations with an adult registered in them are separated. Lots of persons on the board who wanted to reserve one room for the parents and one for the kids -but because one of the kids was 18 they had a separate reservation number for each room.

You may need to prepare to have each group manage their own dining credits.

 

[disneymath]

The last few trips we've been a minimum of three linked rooms ... each room with at least one adult in it.

Although our ressies were linked, each had its own unique ressie number and our dining credits were not pooled across rooms.

At meals, we simply told our server that we were all on the dining plan and that 2 credits were coming off this KTTW card, 2 credits were coming of that KTTW card etc.

The only trouble we had (in 3 trips and over 20 separate ADRs) was at Tuttto Italia where our server accidentally/unknowingly took 4 credits off one KTTW card and 0 off of another. We caught this when we checked our "credits remaining" on the receipts ... but had to go back to our hotel to get it fixed - the restaurant wasn't able to fix the mistake. (We had no trouble getting 2 credits put back on the one card and taken off the other once back at the AKL.)

BTW, we used one ressie number to make ADRs for the entire party without any problems (e.g. they didn't question why I was making a ressie for 6 when I was the only one listed on my specific package).

HTH

 

[Allison]

There are reports that if there is an adult registered in each room you will have a separate room reservation for each one, no matter who is paying. Grand Gathering merely links the separate reservations together so that the rooms will be close to one another. You'd have more than one room under the same reservation numbers only if one room has no adult registered.

You can ask when you call, but from what I've seen all reservations with an adult registered in them are separated. Lots of persons on the board who wanted to reserve one room for the parents and one for the kids -but because one of the kids was 18 they had a separate reservation number for each room.

You may need to prepare to have each group manage their own dining credits.

This was not our experience. We had 2 rooms because of our family size made under one reservation with an adult registered in each room. All the dining credits were on all the cards and all the cards accessed both rooms.

The key seems to be whether the rooms are under one reservation or not.