Dining Plan: I have to vent.

[huskies90]

I am not sure how they can "force" you to use your credits and not pay OOP. It is only 1 ts meal/day, what if you wanted to eat 1 TS meal each day and then a 2nd TS meal on somedays and your group does not eat all together at every meal? Someone will get screwed out of a credt. Or how about this hypothetical...5 people on the plan, 4 adults and one child. Two adults take the child to a TS breakfast and then then the second two adults take the child to a TS dinner. If one of those meals are not allowed OOP, an "adult" credit (in quotes of cource because there is no such thing as adult/child credits) gets used for the child's meal.

Forget about right or wrong, If they don't separate the credits, I don't see how they can not allow to pay OOP. Am I missing something?

 

[keishashadow]

OK, for all of the folk that think Disney is going to change the plan because someone is pooling credits and paying out of pocket for adult meals. What are you basing this on? This appears to have been the standard procedure for quite some time now. Yes, Disney is probably selling more of this plan than others in the past but I doubt the percentage of users that are paying out of pocket for children is any greater. There are many benefits to Disney other than the narrow scope of the cost of the dinning plan vs. what people consume. The plan helps fill rooms that may have otherwise been vacant. When people pre pay for thier vacation they may tend to buy more when there because they are not having to pay for everything else then.

So far it appears that there is no basis in fact for speculation on a change.

FYI, WDW changes the plans (i.e. raises prices across the board - for everything each year - a least once).

The dining plan is popular. WDW knows they have a winner, they'll raise the rate as high as they possibly can/reduce locations/menu items in order to make a profit. You'll still get alot of bang for your buck, but the bottom line comes first - stockholders like to see a return on our investments!

More expensive items (particularly appetizers & desserts) have begun to slowly disappear from many menus this year. ADR's are certainly much more difficult to obtain @ popular venues @ the maximum time allowed. All fallout from the plan's popularity.

One of the smartest aspects of this plan is the number of people being exposed to the more expensive dining, that they ordinarily wouldn't consume. I'm sure WDW is expecting on them to patronize them in the future, dining plan or not.

The dust will settle on this offering and it will evolve as everything else does @ the Mouse's House.

Enjoy the magic

 

[Lewisc]

I DON'T THINK DISNEY WOULD EVER DO THIS but they could simply say your party is paying for the check on the meal plan or out of pocket but you can't mix and match. When you run out of credits they can allow you to pay for the cheaper meal out of pocket.

I am not sure how they can "force" you to use your credits and not pay OOP. It is only 1 ts meal/day, what if you wanted to eat 1 TS meal each day and then a 2nd TS meal on somedays and your group does not eat all together at every meal? Someone will get screwed out of a credt. Or how about this hypothetical...5 people on the plan, 4 adults and one child. Two adults take the child to a TS breakfast and then then the second two adults take the child to a TS dinner. If one of those meals are not allowed OOP, an "adult" credit (in quotes of cource because there is no such thing as adult/child credits) gets used for the child's meal.

Forget about right or wrong, If they don't separate the credits, I don't see how they can not allow to pay OOP. Am I missing something?

 

[unixadm]

I DON'T THINK DISNEY WOULD EVER DO THIS but they could simply say your party is paying for the check on the meal plan or out of pocket but you can't mix and match. When you run out of credits they can allow you to pay for the cheaper meal out of pocket.

It's NOT that simple. Not all parties eat all their meals together. Let's say I go and eat with my DS4 at a TS for breakfast, while my wife and DS3 stay at the resort? Now there are 2 TS less. When we all go to eat out together at the end of the week, there will only be 2 TS left......we would want to pay OOP for the other 2....but if they tell you that is not possible, then it would either force us to dine separately, or throw away 2 TS meals.

The whole point of the plan and pooling is EASE and FLEXIBILITY of use. I got to use it for free this time, but will DEFINITELY pay for it if possible on future trips (hopefully they allow DVC members to buy into it in the future). If they take away flexibility and make it difficult to use, then we won't use it, and won't eat on site as much.

 

[Pedler]

The dining plan is popular. WDW knows they have a winner, they'll raise the rate as high as they possibly can/reduce locations/menu items in order to make a profit. You'll still get alot of bang for your buck, but the bottom line comes first - stockholders like to see a return on our investments!

More expensive items (particularly appetizers & desserts) have begun to slowly disappear from many menus this year. ADR's are certainly much more difficult to obtain @ popular venues @ the maximum time allowed. All fallout from the plan's popularity.

I can easily see them raising the price. That would be standard marketing for a popular product regardless of "loopholes". Yes ADR's for the hot spots are harder to get and that is related to the dinning plan. Also remember that the shareholders also make money from the extra rooms that they sell. It is a mistake to look at the dinning plan in the vacum of just meal sales, at least for the Disney owned places.

As for menu items disappearing I think that may be a bit of a stretch to attribute it to the dinning plan. There are lots of reasons for menus to change. I still contend that limiting menu items or having a separate dinning plan menu will be logistically difficult and result in negative consequences, meltdowns in the middle of a restaurant, that Disney doesn't want to have happen.

They could limit the locations but they appeared to go in the opposite direction. Remember many of the places in Epcot opted out at first and then opted in. They are not owned by Disney but they probably felt they were losing business by being off the plan and decided that whatever Disney pays them per credit must be worth it for the increased volume. Time will tell but I would look to these places as the first sign of major change. They have a much more direct profit incentive off the dinner sales than Disney does. Disney gets related revenue from room and ticket sales where for these places its just the reimbursement from the dinning plan and any additional items such as alcohol sales. If the Epcot places start to drop off then you could make the case that the plan is not working out for the restauarants.

As they say time will tell.

 

[whjoyjr]

And that is a BAD assumption. If Disney wants to enforce the Adult / Child breakdown, then they need to start accounting for it in the system, and not by the number of Adult / Child dining plans printed on the room key. When we go in 2 weeks, should we get into this position, I would request the manager give me the policy in writting. Because they CANNOT DETERMINE how the credits had been used prior to that meal...