Frustration with WDTC UK :(

[wdw_nutz]

Hi everyone,

I usually post over on the theme park boards but I lurk around here too - I'm from Aberdeen but live in Wales. Hi!

I'm hoping you can shed a little light on my frustrating day. I have a holiday booked for 4th November to 18th November, staying in OKW with 14 day ultimate tickets and free dining. I'm now 49 days from arrival.

A few weeks ago we decided that we wanted to upgrade to deluxe dining and I called Disney to check that this would be OK. The guy on the phone said that it would be fine, no problem, any time up to our arrival. I have since paid the balance of the holiday as it was due on Sept 9th, but he said that even after that date upgrading wouldn't be an issue.

Today I called to add ME and to change the address on our reservation, and also to upgrade the dining. The cast member said upgrading to deluxe dining isn't an option for us as the free dining offer we booked expired months ago!

Huh?

She put me on hold and talked to Guest Services, who allegedly agreed with her that upgrading isn't a possibility for us. She said if I wanted to I could email the Walt Disney Travel Company UK (wdtc-uk@disney.com) and ask them to upgrade it for me, but chances are they won't do it.

The bit I don't understand is that we went last year on free dining and upgraded not long before we arrived, and it wasn't a problem. What's going on? I've never heard of Disney (or any other company for that matter) refusing the offer of you spending MORE money with them - the upgrade price from DDP to DxDP for 2 adults is somewhere around £500, I can't believe they don't want it?? We all know that the dining plan is actually more about convenience than value for money, especially with deluxe so I don't understand...

What do you guys think? Is there anything else I can do? I know that we could just spend the money paying OOP instead of upgrading to the dining plan but 1) we've planned all our days around ADRs and have a few signature meals booked and 2) we really don't like the idea of paying as we go, or charging to the room etc as we feel there is the potential to spend way more than we planned to. Also, the dining plan means we choose what we want off the menu rather than thinking about the price, and we know we can have 3 courses if we want them instead of thinking about the bill at the end.

So... should we cancel and re-book another package through an American agent that will get us free dining (as that is their promotion right now) and hopefully a room discount? What about annual passes - would it be value for money to get these and then use that discount to book a room? I'm so confused....

Oh I should also say that the offer we booked at the beginning of the year was a massive 40% off at OKW AND free dining AND 14 days for the price of 7 - I guess realistically there's no way we can match that. Is that why we're not allowed to upgrade our dining?

Thanks very much for reading - all opinions welcome!

Dee
x

 

[wayneg]

Hi Dee.
Don't think its something I have come across before, very few of us upgrade to the Deluxe DDP.

I think I would be tempted to try again if you really wanted it, you already have the free DDP so you are not wanting to add it, just pay to upgrade, my opinion would be you need to get the right CM to do it. Often with Disney its getting someone with knowledge.

You need to cost the whole package, what will it cost to cancel? if you are at 50 days out like I think you will lose 30% of your total price you have paid.
http://wdtc.disneyinternational.com/Terms-Conditions.asp

Doubt very much you will save anything like that with Disney.com

£500 is a heck of a lot of money for food, we had regular DDP last month for 16 nights bought anything we wanted on top, it totalled about $50 for 3 of us, too much food but you know what the Deluxe entails so you know all the costs involved.

1st move would be try again even 2 or 3 times until you are certain you have the right answer.

 

[2Tiggies]

Hi Dee

First of all, ordinarily I would normally try talk someone out of DxDDP for exactly the same reasons Wayne mentioned. I won't do that with you however as although it is not for us, I can quite see why you would see it as a better option for you.

I agree with Wayne (again). Give them a call and ask to speak to someone else. It won't be the first, or the last, time guests have been given incorrect information by WDTC. I don't really understand what the issue is since you are not cancelling a booking and not trying to add free dining after the offer is expired. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that you are fully paid up Your best bet is to give them a ring and try again. Ask for a supervisor if necessary. They are right though - the US WDTC will not be able to touch your booking. In fact I discovered the other night that apparently since the system upgrade earlier this year, the US office cannot even access the details of our reservations at all. (I was on the phone with the CRO in the US for an hour). I hope you get it sorted but I would urge you to fight it out here. I don't think you have a chance once you leave and you cannot do it at check in.

 

[catherine]

Have you booked with WDW UK? If so I think the period to book free dining has ended, so I think that you probably could upgrade to deluxe, but you may end up being charged the full price, not just the upgraded price. We wanted to make a change to our booking a couple of years ago and were told that we couldn't just pay the difference that we would have to pay the full price.

Good luck!

 

[2Tiggies]

Have you booked with WDW UK? If so I think the period to book free dining has ended, so I think that you probably could upgrade to deluxe, but you may end up being charged the full price, not just the upgraded price. We wanted to make a change to our booking a couple of years ago and were told that we couldn't just pay the difference that we would have to pay the full price.

Good luck!

I am just curious - was this also to upgrade from FD to Deluxe Dining? I only ask because until last year there was no UK option to upgrade. You could upgrade from QSDP to DDP but if you wanted DxDDP you had to pay full price, which could be why you encountered that problem.

 

[disneyholic family]

personally i would go with the regular free dining, without the upgrade to deluxe...

i'd be worried that if i fiddled with anything i'd run the risk of losing the free dining OKW package you already have - which is a fantastic deal!!

if you find that you are missing anything in terms of meals, you can pay out of pocket when you're there..

 

[catherine]

I am just curious - was this also to upgrade from FD to Deluxe Dining? I only ask because until last year there was no UK option to upgrade. You could upgrade from QSDP to DDP but if you wanted DxDDP you had to pay full price, which could be why you encountered that problem.

No it wasn't to upgrade the dining plan, it was to make another change on our booking, but I was told by more than one CM if we altered the booking we would lose free dining!

 

[wdw_nutz]

Hi just an update...

I did as the cast member suggested and emailed the Hammersmith office. They haven't replied! Disney has always answered email quickly in my experience but not this time.

Even if the answer was 'no' they should still reply - it's just rude not to! I'll give them another 2 days (just because all I think of is Disney doesn't mean they are as compulsively checking emails/Internet as me!!) and then email again, a little more assertively this time!

Will let you know what happens. thanks for all the advice!

X

 

[maria & rossi]

We upgraded to the ddp for our trip last month (okw). We'd booked through complete orlando and requested the upgrade after the free dining promotion was over, and just a few days before we had to pay the final balance. Complete orlando had to ring disney to change it, but we had no problem upgrading.

We were glad we upgraded even though we left a few ts credits. For the extra £20pp per day it gave us more flexibility. We prefer to eat at the 2 point restaurants (hubby is a chef and eating good food is all part of our holiday). We always have starters rather than desert and with our dd and her bf travelling with us it meant we werent constantly worrying if we had enough points.

Good luck with the upgrade.