Dinning Plan beware

[wilkeliza]

Before leaving your resort for the day ensure that your dinning plan is actually on your card. I just tried to use my dinning plan and when we went to swipe our card at the Restauantsaurus our dinning plan didn't show up on our room keys at all. Every card had DDP written on it but none if the credits were put on. They said I was the second person today that this happened to. So just make sure you DDP is actually linked to the keys to the world card.

 

[maxiesmom]

How are you supposed to do that, without stopping and buying a snack or something?

 

[wilkeliza]

How are you supposed to do that, without stopping and buying a snack or something?

The resort can check it is what I was told. They need to swipe the card though and not just look at what's in file.

Also you can go to any quick service and ask to check you DDP balance. Probably can ask at food carts that sells snacks as well.

 

[2Tiggies]

First thing we do once we've checked in is to take our cards to the food court to redeem the credits for our refillable mugs. If there is any issue it will show up before we go anywhere. I wouldn't have thought about it before until the mess with the new system a few years ago when dining plans and in some cases park tickets, were not loading onto some KTTW cards.

 

[Biscottina]

First thing we do once we've checked in is to take our cards to the food court to redeem the credits for our refillable mugs. If there is any issue it will show up before we go anywhere. I wouldn't have thought about it before until the mess with the new system a few years ago when dining plans and in some cases park tickets, were not loading onto some KTTW cards.

Great tip! We will do this when we are there in September.

 

[darnheather]

First thing we do once we've checked in is to take our cards to the food court to redeem the credits for our refillable mugs. If there is any issue it will show up before we go anywhere. I wouldn't have thought about it before until the mess with the new system a few years ago when dining plans and in some cases park tickets, were not loading onto some KTTW cards.

thanks for this heads up

 

[MINNIEANN MOUSE]

Before leaving your resort for the day ensure that your dinning plan is actually on your card. I just tried to use my dinning plan and when we went to swipe our card at the Restauantsaurus our dinning plan didn't show up on our room keys at all. Every card had DDP written on it but none if the credits were put on. They said I was the second person today that this happened to. So just make sure you DDP is actually linked to the keys to the world card.

This actually happened to us 3 years ago. We went to lunch and tried to use a counter service at Wolfgang Pucks, no dining plan on our card. We went back to our resort, and I asked for a manager. I explained what happened and told him I wasn't planning on paying out of pocket. They refunded our money that we spent on lunch, showed the receipt, and everything worked out. ;-) Maybe you can get a refund too?

 

[lauradis]

1. Get rid of bags
2. check in
3. happy dance
4. get mugs
5. mk must touch the castle

Didn't really think about this as plan to double check cards, its just how we always do it.

 

[wilkeliza]

This actually happened to us 3 years ago. We went to lunch and tried to use a counter service at Wolfgang Pucks, no dining plan on our card. We went back to our resort, and I asked for a manager. I explained what happened and told him I wasn't planning on paying out of pocket. They refunded our money that we spent on lunch, showed the receipt, and everything worked out. ;-) Maybe you can get a refund too?

We were offered a refund but only after complaining. Before I said it was unacceptable to pay out of pocket since we paid for a dinning plan they just said oh you used all your credits or don't actually have it too bad.

 

[maxiesmom]

First thing we do once we've checked in is to take our cards to the food court to redeem the credits for our refillable mugs. If there is any issue it will show up before we go anywhere. I wouldn't have thought about it before until the mess with the new system a few years ago when dining plans and in some cases park tickets, were not loading onto some KTTW cards.

I will definitely do this! Great tip!

 

[lauradis]

We were offered a refund but only after complaining. Before I said it was unacceptable to pay out of pocket since we paid for a dinning plan they just said oh you used all your credits or don't actually have it too bad.

im really shocked at the you used all your credits or too bad, that doesnt sound like Disney, normally when they screw up they go over board to correct it and then give you little more to make it better.

 

[wilkeliza]

im really shocked at the you used all your credits or too bad, that doesnt sound like Disney, normally when they screw up they go over board to correct it and then give you little more to make it better.

I promise I'm one of the biggest pixie dusted fans and I wouldn't make it into something bigger than it was. Originally the CM just said oops look like your credits are all up ill just charge it to the card. I said hold up I didn't ok that. There is no way it is used up because we just checked in three hours ago and got out credit print out. She said try again. We did still nothing so she said we have to charge it. I said no completely unacceptable to charge it I have the DDP it is written on the card and I just pulled my credits at guest relations. She finally got a manager who gave us our food and said here I'll call Poly and figure out the issue. Well we finish our meal and finally the manager comes back and says here we couldn't get it to work so we charged your card and you'll have to get a refund from the Poly front desk there is nothing we can do here. I was kind of pissed because I didn't give permission to charge it to the room and never have a pin to approve the charge. Also when we get to Poly they say well nothing is wrong on our end go try and get your mugs and come back if it doesn't work. We go back it doesn't work so they inform us they have to rebook the reservation and reissue cards but it should only take 15 or so minutes but they would bring it to our room. 3 hours have passed since the initial problem and until other problems happened (ceiling in our room had fallen in which we discovered when we went back to wait for our keys) no one did anything to go above until I called and asked for a manager because the room issue was the straw on the camels back. I'm not even kidding when I say no one said I'm sorry until I got ahold of the manager of the resort. The trip has been seamless since then but those 3 hours were the worst I've ever had at Disney.

 

[Dizneydaz]

I am sorry that happened. That's not a great way to start off your vacation. In our 9 times using DDP we haven't had that issue but if we did I would be pissed too, especially wasting 3 hours. We have always gotten our refillable mugs first thing (once they started being included).

Personally I would write to Disney and let them know of your frustration. Let them know that those 3 hours were the worst you had spent there. I agree that the manager at the restaurant should not have charged to your room without your approval.

 

[prettypatchesmsu]

I promise I'm one of the biggest pixie dusted fans and I wouldn't make it into something bigger than it was. Originally the CM just said oops look like your credits are all up ill just charge it to the card. I said hold up I didn't ok that. There is no way it is used up because we just checked in three hours ago and got out credit print out. She said try again. We did still nothing so she said we have to charge it. I said no completely unacceptable to charge it I have the DDP it is written on the card and I just pulled my credits at guest relations. She finally got a manager who gave us our food and said here I'll call Poly and figure out the issue. Well we finish our meal and finally the manager comes back and says here we couldn't get it to work so we charged your card and you'll have to get a refund from the Poly front desk there is nothing we can do here. I was kind of pissed because I didn't give permission to charge it to the room and never have a pin to approve the charge. Also when we get to Poly they say well nothing is wrong on our end go try and get your mugs and come back if it doesn't work. We go back it doesn't work so they inform us they have to rebook the reservation and reissue cards but it should only take 15 or so minutes but they would bring it to our room. 3 hours have passed since the initial problem and until other problems happened (ceiling in our room had fallen in which we discovered when we went back to wait for our keys) no one did anything to go above until I called and asked for a manager because the room issue was the straw on the camels back. I'm not even kidding when I say no one said I'm sorry until I got ahold of the manager of the resort. The trip has been seamless since then but those 3 hours were the worst I've ever had at Disney.

Wow, hope your trip gets better from here.

 

[Disneytwinsmom]

Thanks for the tip!

 

[lauradis]

I promise I'm one of the biggest pixie dusted fans and I wouldn't make it into something bigger than it was. Originally the CM just said oops look like your credits are all up ill just charge it to the card. I said hold up I didn't ok that. There is no way it is used up because we just checked in three hours ago and got out credit print out. She said try again. We did still nothing so she said we have to charge it. I said no completely unacceptable to charge it I have the DDP it is written on the card and I just pulled my credits at guest relations. She finally got a manager who gave us our food and said here I'll call Poly and figure out the issue. Well we finish our meal and finally the manager comes back and says here we couldn't get it to work so we charged your card and you'll have to get a refund from the Poly front desk there is nothing we can do here. I was kind of pissed because I didn't give permission to charge it to the room and never have a pin to approve the charge. Also when we get to Poly they say well nothing is wrong on our end go try and get your mugs and come back if it doesn't work. We go back it doesn't work so they inform us they have to rebook the reservation and reissue cards but it should only take 15 or so minutes but they would bring it to our room. 3 hours have passed since the initial problem and until other problems happened (ceiling in our room had fallen in which we discovered when we went back to wait for our keys) no one did anything to go above until I called and asked for a manager because the room issue was the straw on the camels back. I'm not even kidding when I say no one said I'm sorry until I got ahold of the manager of the resort. The trip has been seamless since then but those 3 hours were the worst I've ever had at Disney.

Wow I'm sorry that's really crappy way to start a vacation. Restaurant manager should have noticed the problem and called resort to solve it not to check it. He should have never have up and charged your card. The first words our of any ones mouth should have been im sorry.

 

[DisneyFansInLINY]

This happened to us on July 4 at Bay Lake Tower. We did a split stay POR to AoA to BWV to BLT to BWV. We were on the dining plan most of the time and did not have any problems until BLT.

First we had trouble getting our refillable drink mugs. (We don't use them as we only drink bottled water but I like to collect them.) The next problem we had was using our snack credits. They swiped my card and said we didn't have any when we were supposed to have 4 left. I had to pay oop and go to the front desk to fix the problem. The snooty front desk cast member didn't want to help us claiming we had the credits and there shouldn't be a problem. We had him print out a sheet with our remaining credits and the number to call if there was a problem. So we went to dinner at Tutto Italia for my dad's birthday thinking everything was fine.

But it was not fine. When the waitress tried to use our credits, the computer said there weren't any! And they wanted us to pay oop for our meal. My husband showed them the paper and gave them the number to call. When they called the number, a cast member at BLT informed them that they had closed our credits when we checked out. We were fuming as your credits do not expire until midnight on the day you check out. It was only 6:00 pm on our check out day so where were our credits? After waiting for a hour at the table, the manager came over and told us that they have our information and will work on fixing the problem and to just go on with our day and enjoy it. We left the waitress her tip and left.

I then called BLT and spoke to a cast member who then transferred me to the Disney dining reservation line! I was so mad but decided to wait until I got back to BWV (we were now checked in there) to speak with the front desk. The front desk cast member at BWV had her manager pull up our plan and stated that there were notes on our account and that they were able to fix the problem with Tutto Italia. We were so happy it was corrected but still had 2 snack credits we wanted to use before they expired. She told us to go and use them and if there was a problem, just have the cast member call her and she would override it.

So we went to the ice cream/candy store on the boardwalk and attempted to purchase 2 sundaes. Well wouldn't you know? It didn't work! The cast member was so frustrated and mad for us because the same thing happened to another guest from BLT earlier that day. She called the front desk and they helped her to use our credits. But of course it took 15 minutes and our sundaes were melting and a huge line was forming around me. The cast member informed me that guests at BLT were encountering problems using their dining plan.

It was so frustrating and a complete waste of my time. We love the dining plan for it's convenience. However, this time it was anything but convenient.

 

[maxiesmom]

It was so frustrating and a complete waste of my time. We love the dining plan for it's convenience. However, this time it was anything but convenient.

First of all, I want you to know I am not blaming you at all. However, there is no way I would change resorts that many times while using the Dining Plan. Disney does not recognize split stays. To them they are just back to back reservations. Switching resorts just provides them with extra chances of messing things up.