Does anyone think the Silver Plan is worth the money?

[Iheoma]

Hi everyone,

I'm wondering, has anyone done the silver plan and not felt as if they had lost money. If so, how did you do it? From what I've read on this board (and others) the Plan is not worth it if you don't spend at $35.00 on a meal or use it for expensive "wishes". For those who did it, was the convience worth it? Please help - We're going in May DH, DD (2.5 years old) and me.

Thanks,

Iheoma

 

[MzEeyore]

I have always used the silver plan. We use our wishes for meals for the adults. There are usually at least 4 adults but can be as many as 6 when we go. There is always just one child. We love character meals and we schedule a lot of them and we love the Hollywood Brown Derby so we always eat there at least once while we are there. We also love the Rainforest Cafe in Downtown Disney and we use our wishes there too. With dinner coming to anywhere between 300 and 400 dollars every night that we eat--I think we are doing well with the wishes. I don't use the wishes for my child's meal--we use the extras for some of the merchandise that you can get with the wishes. I got the Wilderness Lodge building blocks when we were there this past Dec with 2 wishes for my nephews Christmas present and used 2 wishes for a crystal Mickey figurine that normally cost 75 dollars and it's beautiful. I say the silver plan is worth it and if you have any more questions about the plan--I will try to answer them. We have used the plan on all 5 trips that we have taken and will be using it again when we go this May.

 

[Iheoma]

Hi,

Thanks for the info. I was wondering if I could find out what merchandise I can "buy" with wishes. Is there a list somewhere that I could see what I may have to choose from? Also is there a place to see which resturants accept "wishes" or do all of them accept them (either 1 or 2 based on the resturant, I think).

Thanks,

Iheoma

 

[MzEeyore]

This was given to me at check in when we were there just 2 weeks ago.
You can choose Breakfast, Lunch or Dinner.
Breakfast includes: (1) juice
(1) Breakfast Entree
(1) Coffee, Tea or Hot Chocolate (we got other drinks than what was listed and weren't charged for them. Or (1) Full Breakfast Buffet

Lunch/Dinner includes: (1) Appetizer
(1) Entree
(1) Dessert
(1) Soda, juice, milk, regular coffee or tea. Or (1) Full Buffet
The ones that I know that use 2 magical wishes for dinner are:
Jiko's
Flying Fish Cafe
California Grill
Citricos
Narcoossee's
Artist Point
Yachtsman Steakhouse
Bistro de Paris
Coral Reef
Fulton's crab house
The rest of the restaurants all take just 1 wish per meal. You can also use one wish per person for all the dinner shows.

For one wish you can get:
Mickey plays when Walt is away scupltured clock (have one--real cute)
Disney pin kit (1 lanyard plus 3 collectible pins
Disney Animated Scene Photo Package-includes 1-8x10, 1-5x7 and 4 wallets (Town Square Exposition Hall, Prop Shop Photos, and ImageWorks
T-Shirts from Downtown Disney Area (Planet Hollywood, Bongos, Cirque du Soleil store, Virgin,House of Blues, Wolfgang Puck Cafe and Wolfgang Puck Express)
Mickey Photo Fram memory box (very nice--I got 2)
And for 2 wishes you can get:
Disney's Wilderness Lodge Lincoln Log set
3-D Mickey Crystal Figure (very nice)

There are also alot of recreation things, spa treatments, theme park tours, children's activity centers and you can use 2 wishes per person for Cirque Du Soleil tickets.
I will try to find something that has pictures of some of the things you can get for the wishes for you.

Joanie

 

[firstWLvisit]

Hi! I will be using the Silver Plan in January - six nights, two people, 24 wishes. After scouring Disney's site, I noticed that some things seem to be different for 2004 - although I have not been able to verify this.

I can't post the links because with Disney's site redesign they have changed. When I tried to find them again, it looks like they have changed the 2003 plan options to match what I had seen for 2004.


There are two major differences for 2004:

1. The Silver Plan price for a child dropped from $55/day to $35/day. Now it is much easier to get the most out of your wishes. For example, using Mary Waring's advice on Mousesavers.com, I calculated that I am spending $25.75 for each wish. Remember that you pool your wishes. Since I plan to only eat at 2 buffets (where I have to pay for my DD4), I think I will come out on top. Mostly I plan to share my meal with her at non-buffet restaurants. Certainly I would spend at least $25.75 for one full meal (incl. tax and tip) at a sit-down restaurant????

2. The merchandise options seem to be limited for the 2004 list. I asked a CM about this and she stated that she thought the items were the same as 2003. Who knows? Guess I will have to wait to find out. The WL Linclon Logs were on the tops of my list but they are not listed on the plan for 2004. Also, the photo option is not listed.

Even with Cirque requiring 2 wishes, you still come out ahead. The Hoop Dee Doo/Luau is a great deal as well.

Any other ideas? Are the 2-wish-restaurants really worth it?

Michelle

 

[kandmwedding]

My anwer to your question is YES!!!! I'm disneymooning in January and we decided while there we would take two tours (Keys to the Kingdom and Hidden Treasures), go to two dinner shows (Hoop Dee Doo Revue and Spirit of Aloha Luau) and see the Cirque du Soleil. All this would take 12 wishes for the two of us, which amounts to 3 nights. We decided to split our stay in half (all at one resort, but two separate plans) so we could add the Silver Plan to the first half of our trip, but not to the second half. Spending the extra $68 per person per night was actually about $150 cheaper than paying for all those tours and shows individually. It migth not always be the best way to go, but adding the silver plan could save you bunches of money, you just have to do some pencil pushing to find out.

 

[JessetheCowgirl]

What about watermice rental? Does using a wish save money?

And I also can't figure out the fishing excursions that are included. It says that 2 wishes are required, but some excursions are for a boat of up to 5 people. Does each person have to use 2 wishes or is that per boat??

Last question--no flames, please

I have an AP; can I leave my name off the room ressie and do silver plan for DH and 2 DS's??

 

[TLinden16]

I think the silver plan is definitely worth it if you plan on doing extra things like tours and recreation. For just meals, I do not think it would be worth it.

I did the Silver plan in August, and I figured it saved me about $100 for my three night trip, plus the value of a photo box that I used my last wish on as I was getting ready to leave.

My best advice is to research it before you go. Try to figure out what you would use your wishes on, and add up the costs. I did that right down to guessing what I would eat at the different restaurants I was going to go to.

Karen

 

[Iheoma]

Hi Everyone,

Thanks so much for the advice. I do have a little more "math" to do but I think I will be staying with the Silver Plan, primarily because I do want to use the spa treatment ( a splurge I probably wouldn't do if I had to just pay the money) and DH wants to go to Cirque de Soliel. Any more advice would be appreciated as well.

Iheoma

 

[jenjersnap]

Originally posted by Iheoma
Hi Everyone,

Thanks so much for the advice. I do have a little more "math" to do but I think I will be staying with the Silver Plan, primarily because I do want to use the spa treatment ( a splurge I probably wouldn't do if I had to just pay the money) and DH wants to go to Cirque de Soliel. Any more advice would be appreciated as well.

Iheoma

Be aware that the spa treatments that you can use wishes on are not great. I was really disappointed in the offerings because the spa was gonna be my place to treat myself! The info I was sent when we booked says these are the treatments offered (each is only 25 minutes):

Face and Scalp Massage
Sinus Relief
Lavender Meadows Bath
Sea Salt Body Polish

The final bummer about it is that you can only get one of these options for the entire length of your package. Guess they want to lure you in and then convince you to spend more $$ (but, hey, guess there are worse ways to be lured!).

I am thrilled that MzEeyore was told she could still get the WL Lincoln Lodge set - I will be jumping up and down if we can get that for DSs.

***EDITED TO SAY - oh, shoot! These posts are from 2003. That's what I get for doing a search and answering without looking at the date. Guess no Lincoln Log sets for us!

 

[Tabetha]

My sister and I used a Wish each last year on the Sea Salt body scrub, and love, love loved the experience.
Even if you can only get one treatment, you'll still get the "treat yourself" vibe. Its very quiet, and relaxed, and the treatment rooms are wonderful.

Add to that the fact that you're welcome to stay as long as you want to make use of the sauna, steam room and whirlpool, and health club, and you can have yourself quite the nice little oasis.

I'll be visiting again this year, to indulge while my boyfriend plays 18 holes of golf.

 

[jenjersnap]

Tabetha, you can stay and use the facilities?!? Which spa was this? That would be awesome. Relying once again on my handy-dandy Silver plan book, it says you need to use another wish for a length of stay health club pass so I assumed those things were not included. Glad to hear it. I wasn't willing to trot all the way over to GF from FW for a 25-minute treatment but with the other things ... maybe ... hmm

 

[Tabetha]

jenjersnap, we went to the Grand Floridian Spa (we were staying at the POP Century, so it was fun to see the extreme differences!).

When we checked in for our treatment, we were encouraged to use the facilities for as long as we wanted, that day. Could even leave, and come back later. So, not quite the same thing as length of stay access to the health club.

What I liked about the sea salt scrub:
Smelled amazing, and left me smelling amazing,
Felt good to have someone give me a light rubdown while applying the sea salt (not quite a massage, but still felt nice)
Got to sit in a nice big tub for a while, to wash off the salt
My skin virtually glowed afterwards.

We didn't think to bring our swimsuits, because we didn't know about the rest of the amenities at the spa, but we ducked into the sauna for a few minutes before we had to rush off to meet people. Had we know that they didn't rub you down and rush you out the door, we would have worked more time in the schedule to take advantage.

Last word - if you're doing this treatment, don't shave your legs before you go. Salt on freshly shaved legs hurts, I guess. No one warned me before I went, but fortunately I skipped it that morning.

 

[ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!]

MzEeyore,

we're staying at the same place during the same time

i havent been to the poly during christmas, im really lookin forward to it! maybe we'll bump into each other

 

[bsusanmb]

If you really can afford it, and you were planning on eating huge meals, it is definitely worth it. If you are not a big eater, it isn't. DH and I were so stuffed trying to be sure we made the most of our wishes - we won't do it again. I prefer to buy the vouchers on hotwire and share a full course meal with an extra side or appetizer out of pocker. We also buy AP's as we go 3-4 times a year to WDW. Remember too that th e silver plan doesn't cover your snacking and that is extra money out of your pocket.

I like just using my room card and charging back to the room, using the Kingdom Lunch Vouchers, Q&C vouchers and then payong for my other luxuries on the card.

If you don't know WDW real well, and aren't working within a budget - go for it. Just don't get the gold plan - all of the websites will tell you that you can never do everything it offers. My friend and her DH and 2 kids just came back from a gold plan vacation - 5 nights, 6 days at Pop Century on the Gold Plan for $6000 all inclusive - she said they gained 15 pounds, didn't get to half of what they wanted to due to time constraints. What a shame.

Anyhow, have fun on your vacation!

 

[deanna2426]

We just got back from using the silver plan. Even though we didn't use our wishes as well as we planned, we still saved over $300 plus the value of the merchandise we used our last wishes on.

We ate at Kona Cafe (twice, plus once for take out), Narcossee's, Chef Mickey (2 times), Crystal Palace (2 times), Tony's Town Square, San Angel Inn, Donald's Breakfast, Hoop Dee Doo Revue, plus DH golfed and we did the Family Magic Tour. We had four wishes left, so we used them for merchandise.

We didn't use the wishes for most kid's meals, but did use them to treat friends to lunch one day. We had planned on using them at Yachtsman Steakhouse and Fulton's, but the kid's were tired and we didn't feel like putting them through one more long meal.

I can tell you that if I don't see filet mignon or lobster tail for awhile, I won't miss it!!! LOL!!!!!!!!!

In addition to saving money, it was nice to have our big meals paid for in advance.

Good luck with whatever you choose!

Have a great trip!