Dining Plan Question

[cloudconnected1039]

I'm sorry if this is a generic question that gets asked a lot, but this is my first venture to the WDW side of the DisBoards!!

Now, I've gotten the go ahead from my mother to begin planning our FIRST WDW trip!!! Granted, this trip won't occur until summer 2012, but I'm a planner, and so here I am!!

But my real question is about the Dining Plan. We were going to plan to stay on site for a week, and one day during the week, we would get a rental car and visit the Kennedy Space Center. It's always been a dream of mine I'm studying to work for NASA, so this is a necessity for me!! But here's where our dilemma begins; we wanted to get the Basic Dining Plan, but we're worried about going offsite for a day and having the extra credits not used. It's going to be hard for us to already use all of our credits, but can you request a different number of days on the Dining Plan than the number of nights you are staying?? Or do you have any other suggestions??

TIA!!!

 

[MistressMerryweather]

That sounds totally doable. Just choose a table service dinner or two that are signature(worth 2 credits)...Citrico's, etc. Or you could do a dinner show...Hoop-dee-doo revue is really fun and worth two table service credits.

ETA: You can't request a certain number of days unless you split your reservation and purchase dining for the first 4 days and then not on the last night...which would be booked as a separate reservation, but can be linked with your first one. Clear as mud? LOL

 

[Faldred]

Dining plan is for the length of stay (based on nights), so the only way to get fewer nights is to actually book multiple reservations, some with dining plan and others without.

All of your dining credits are awarded in a lump sum when you check in, and you can use them any time you want until the midnight following your check out. If being offsite for a day results in "extra" credits, you can use them on another day to fit in an extra couple of meals, or as note above, go to a signature restaurant, dinner show, or Cinderella's Royal Table (CRT), all of which require 2 TS credits. (Extra CS credits should be easy enough to use as well, of course.)

 

[kamik86]

Depending on travel times you could easily eat a TS a day and not have the problem. If you get there early enough on your first day you can have dinner and if you leave late enough on the last day get breakfast before you leave. (Since you get one credit per NIGHT you stay this would use all the credits)

For the CS it wouldn't be too hard to use two in a day, or you could even get a CS breakfast before leaving for the space center.

Snacks I find harder to NOT use 2 a day! Espeically days I'm in Epcot.

 

[cloudconnected1039]

Thanks for all the replies!!

You all had some good insight, and I really love the banking one TS credit to combine with another and reserve at a Signature restaurant. I'm sure my parents would appreciate it And saving the CS for the morning/afternoon before we leave is also a good idea. So many options!!