Family suites and free dining question

[familydisney]

I know it's been asked before, but if you stay as ASMu family suites, is that still quick service for free dining even though it costs an arm and a leg to stay there?? It's certainly not a "value", but since it's at a value resort, do we not get the basic DDP? Our family of 4 is bringing my mom on her first ever trip and now I commiserate with all of you families of 5. There just aren't any reasonable options. And when you add the 5 "adults" (kids are 10 and12)to the upgrade, we just can't swing it. Any ideas for us that I haven't thought of?

 

[212456]

I know it's been asked before, but if you stay as ASMu family suites, is that still quick service for free dining even though it costs an arm and a leg to stay there?? It's certainly not a "value", but since it's at a value resort, do we not get the basic DDP? Our family of 4 is bringing my mom on her first ever trip and now I commiserate with all of you families of 5. There just aren't any reasonable options. And when you add the 5 "adults" (kids are 10 and12)to the upgrade, we just can't swing it. Any ideas for us that I haven't thought of?

Some rooms at POR can accommodate 5 people and that would incude the regualr DDP. Maybe that would be a better deal?

 

[squirrel]

I did some pricing for a friend who also has 5 people in her family. Her youngest child is 6 and the other children are disney adults. I did all the pricing for the resort with the DDP (upgrading at values) and the tickets they wanted.

I priced it out for the All-Star Suites (most expensive), POR (least expensive), and 2 rooms at a value resort. The two rooms at a value was more expensive than POR, but for the extra room (beds, bathroom, etc) that they would get it would be worth the upgrade. As the two older children are opposite sex and they are too big to go on the trundle, it really made more sense to go with 2 rooms at a value. The trundle is recommended for children 3-9 yrs.

Price out two rooms at a value resort. You can then put one of the kids in the room with Grandma.

 

[BrerMama]

Yes, the familyi suites are QSDP for free dining. I actually just switched us from POR to the family suites, partly because I knew we would better utilize the QSDP. It was $200-300 more for the family suites than Riverside, but I figure we would have spent at least that much in tips. We last went in 2007 and we had 2 real adults, 2 tweens that were Disney adults, and 1 child. We had several meals that were $200 pre-tip. That's a $35-40 tip per meal, assuming I don't add an adult beverage to the meal. Times six nights, and throw in extra snacks/bottles of water and buying refillable mugs OOP, and I think we'll come out even with the family suites and be grateful for the extra room.

Then again, I couldn't even find four places we wanted to eat table service wise. Just not a priority for us at this point.

 

[familydisney]

Thanks for all the advice. I priced POR and got roughly $4000 for the trip, but with 3 adults and a 12 and 10 year old, I'm afraid we'll be too squished. Our family will take cheap over space if it comes to Disney, but since it's mom's first and probably only trip, she may like having more space and a separate bathroom.

We want the regular dining plan since we're used to it. If I had only ever tried QSDP, I'm sure I would have loved it, but it's hard to go back from the character meals, filet mignon, great desserts, etc. I priced 2 rooms at POP and, with the dining upgrade, it'll cost $1000 extra, the same price as a family suite. But then I remembered that with the family suite I also need to add the dining upgrade, so a total of $1400 more than POR. Now we're getting into the cost of a cabin at Fort Wilderness!

I desperately want to bring mom, but it's so much more complicated and expensive. We have the family of 4 thing down to an art form.

 

[3Minnies1Mickey]

Yep. Just booked it for September 2011. We upgraded to the regular dining plan, but our kids will still be disney kids so it just cost $22/night for the 2 or us to upgrade.