Free Dining questions, help a DVCer out

[snoopy5386]

We own DVC so I'm out of the loop on booking these days....
We are going to be taking a trip with my mom and sister in February and not using our DVC, instead booking regular rooms.
We'll have two rooms with my mom and sister in one and Me, DH, DD1 and DD2 in the other. My family will be AP holders, my mom and sister will not. If we book the free dining package is my family still required to buy tickets?
Also, we plan to check in on 2/17 and stay until 2/22. Will we be able to get free dining for our whole trip by checking in on the 17th?

 

[DVC California]

My family will be AP holders, my mom and sister will not. If we book the free dining package is my family still required to buy tickets?

You have two rooms but do you have two reservations? I think the way this works is that 1) If you have AP's, you still have to get at least one 1-day park tickets per guest and 2) Everyone has to get the same number of days (I could be wrong on #2).

If you have two ressie numbers, you might be able to get a different package for mom and sis re: Tix.

Also, we plan to check in on 2/17 and stay until 2/22. Will we be able to get free dining for our whole trip by checking in on the 17th?

Good question! I'd like to know the answer myself. I've read that you can but would like to know for sure. We may change our dates next year to take advantage of free DDP if we can check in just before the summer blackout.

 

[snoopy5386]

we haven't booked yet so we can do 2 rooms on one ressie or two seperate ressies, whatever is better....anyone know?

 

[lovesdumbo]

You can not book 2 rooms on one reservation. You have to book 2 reservations which can be linked.

Everyone must buy at least a 2 day ticket to get free dining. You & DH can save your tickets for another trip. They don't expire until 14 days after first use so if you don't use them they don't expire. You can use them toward your AP renewal if you plan on doing that.

Depending on where you stay an AP discount might be better for you & DH. Might even be better for mom & sis depending on where you stay too.

 

[snoopy5386]

good to know about the ressies. We're going over President's Day, so I'm not holding my breath for discounts. We've lucked out on the free dining by one night.

 

[MickeyMomOfThree]

You do get free dining if you check in during FD. We have done this for the last 2 trips and are again this trip. We had to add 2 days to the beginning of our trip to get there in time, but it saved us over $700 for our room and $300 for my grandparents' room to ADD 2 days.

So as long as you can get yourself there by the last day before the blackout you are good!

 

[snoopy5386]

Good to know. How about the tickets? Can we give our passes to my mom and sister? Then they'd have 4 1 day passes each and we'd have APs and be all set. Is this ok?

 

[n2mm]

Good to know. How about the tickets? Can we give our passes to my mom and sister? Then they'd have 4 1 day passes each and we'd have APs and be all set. Is this ok?

Sorry, but the new requirement for these packages are a TWO-day ticket. so each of you have to buy th 2 day tickets. We are AP holders and when we have HAD to buy these package tickets, we put them away and apply them to our AP renewals later. This works great and is a nice chunk of money. It's not a great value if you gave your tickets to someone else to use. Have your mom and sis buy whatever ticket they need for their package and you guys get the base tickets (2 day). The babies don't need them, but the 2 big kids. The dining credits will be separate, so even though you'll have a dining reservation for 6, you both have to give the server your cards and they will take 2 credits away from mom/sis and 2 credits away from you/spouse. Keep in mind that even though the babies are not on the dining plan, you are still a party of 6 and an automatic gratuity will be added to your bill which you can pay by charging to your room or cash (we prefer cash). YES, if you check in the last day of free dining, you will get it throughout your stay, but you are talking about prez weekend, so if I were you I would get online NOW and try to book this package for each of your group as some resorts are probably already not available. I think you can go to disneyworld.com and scroll to the bottom and choose "specials" and you'll find the promotions on that page. Remember, value resorts are QS and others are Basic DDP, but you can upgrade at a value for an additional fee to Basic DDP.

 

[snoopy5386]

I meant 2 day tickets - we've got 4 adults - me, DH, my mom and sister and 2 kids, my DDs who are 4 years and 4 months old. Can DH and I give my mom and sister our 2 day tickets for them to use? It might be a better value for us to keep them and use them to renew our APs, but my mom is paying for the whole vacation so we'd rather just give them the tickets if we can - then no one has to buy any tickets.

And combining/upgrading tickets, is this possible? Could they take two two day passes and combine them into one 4 day pass and pay the extra $ to upgrade to hoppers?

 

[Rachaelt]

Yes, they can. Unused tickets are transferable. I advised a guest the other day to apply her and Dh's 2 day tickets to add days to her son's, who was not a passholder.

 

[femme726]

so are unused tickets apply to other people in the family. My situation is we just got a package not using our DVC and had to get the 2day minimum pass, but we have an annual pass for my son bc he has been there a couple of times so can we use his 2 day for my daughter instead of just wasting it ??

 

[Rachaelt]

You can do that as long as he never uses it to enter the park at all, or you can save it to apply to his renewal.

 

[lovesdumbo]

I meant 2 day tickets - we've got 4 adults - me, DH, my mom and sister and 2 kids, my DDs who are 4 years and 4 months old. Can DH and I give my mom and sister our 2 day tickets for them to use? It might be a better value for us to keep them and use them to renew our APs, but my mom is paying for the whole vacation so we'd rather just give them the tickets if we can - then no one has to buy any tickets.

And combining/upgrading tickets, is this possible? Could they take two two day passes and combine them into one 4 day pass and pay the extra $ to upgrade to hoppers?

You can NOT combine the tickets.

The 2 day base adult ticket is $172.53 with tax.

A 4 day base adult ticket is $247.08

Using two 2 day base tickets would cost $345.06 so you "wasting" $97.98 by using the tickets you have to purchase for you & DH.

Also park hopping is a flat $57.51 charge and you would have to pay that twice if they used two 2 day tickets instead of buying one 4 day ticket.




It doesn't seem like Free Dining is worth it for your room. You would have to spend $500 on tickets you don't need for you, DH, DD(4). DDP wouldn't cost $500 for your 5 ngihts for the 3 of you. Unless you hold these tickets for future use I think I would keep a close look out for an AP discount for your room.

 

[Rachaelt]

If the tickets are unused, they can be combined.

 

[lovesdumbo]

If the tickets are unused, they can be combined.

No they can not. You can only use ONE ticket towards the purchase of another ticket.

See post #6 on this thread http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1452684

 

[Rachaelt]

Guest services informed me that they could the other night, when I was assisting a guest in a similar circumstance.

 

[lovesdumbo]

Guest services informed me that they could the other night, when I was assisting a guest in a similar circumstance.

I think they were wrong.

That ticket thread is by a very knowledgeable CM.