Gold Plan Questions

[StaceyA]

Hello...
Can someone tell me how the gold plan works?
I have done the silver plan before so I know how the Wishes work with that one, but with the gold there is "coupons"?

I see that on the day of arrival you get dinner, every other day is breakfast, lunch and dinner and then on the day of departure is breakfast and lunch...what if you miss one of the 3 meals during the week and you want to use it the first day (we are arriving early and might want to use it for lunch)

When you check in do you just get those "coupons" up front like the wishes and just use them anyway you want?

Thanks for any info on this plan you can give!

 

[dansyr]

Hi StaceyA
We've done the gold plan once before and are planning on doing it again this Sept. so I have a little experience. You are alotted 3 meals per night booked. For ex. if you are staying 7 nights you will have 21 meals per person to be used as you wish. You can use your meals until midnight of the day you check out. Your meals are all put on your room key/ park ticket. When you dine somewhere you just let them know you are on the gold plan and hand them your card at the end of the meal and one meal will be deducted.
They aren't like wishes though. You can't use them for whatever you want. You'll get 3 meals a day....anywhere except for chef's tables and and V&A's. You get tours that are listed on the gold plan brochure, recreation, etc to use as many times as you want.
Hope that helps.
If you have any other questions...just let me know.

 

[StaceyA]

We are staying for 9 nights, how many meals does this include? Is it true that the first day you get one, and your last day you get two?

So if we used two on the first day, could we just use one on the last? (did that make sense?)

In essence what Im asking ( I think) is do they just give you all your meals when you get there and when you use them is your business? Like if you wanted to eat 5 meals a day (not that im going to) they would let you?

I just got up, so I really hope this made sense...LOL

Thank you!!

 

[mom_rules]

Absolutely. It differs from the silver because if you don't use all your wishes there is not merchandise for you to spend them on-you lose them. Keep in mind-it's a lot of food and alot of time spent at restaurants. We use the gold more for golf, tubing, parasailing, wakeboarding and mini golf. Usually have a character breakfast and a really nice dinner at an expensive sit down restaurant-so if you don't use all your points you still feel like you got your money's worth.

We've used gold twice, then went concierge (no add-on), this time we are doing concierge with Silver add-on. We'll use our Wishes for our expensive dinners and probably just have breakfast and snacks in the concierge lounge (alcoholic beverages are available in the lounge-not included on any of the add-on plans).

 

[diswedwish]

We loved the Gold Plan

You will get all your "coupons" upon check-in. The first night we stayed room-only, so the day the Gold Plan started we used 3 coupons each for meals, no problems at all. Another day we did the Keys to the Kingdom tour which included lunch, so we had an extra coupon on our last day. Your coupons will be listed on the bottom of the receipt after each meal just like the wishes on the Silver Plan. Since you're staying for 9 nights, you'll get 27 coupons a piece = 54 coupons total. Hope that wasn't too confusing!!

We saved over $1000 by going with the Gold Plan. We did eat 3 meals a day, all of the 2 wish places from the Silver we ate at for dinner. We tried parasailing and the water mice, and did the Keys to the Kingdom and Backstage Safari tours. We also saw Cirque which we loved as well.

HTH

 

[StaceyA]

Yes it did help thank you, Diswedwish!

I understand just what you mean by the coupon breakdown, we have done the wishes before so I just thought of the coupons as wishes for food...LOL

We have the Silver Plan booked now and are thinking about the gold plan, we have always done really well as far as saving tons of $$ by going with the Silver because we like to eat at Sit Down Restaurants and that is where the most money comes into it.

Thanks again for the help everyone!

 

[zipDdoodah]

We've done Gold before but never tried eating at a counter service restaurant with it. Has anyone done this? If you eat counter service, what exactly does the meal include? Wanna make sure we get our money's worth.

 

[dansyr]

It includes appetizer, entree, side dish if not included with your entree, dessert and non-alcoholic drinks. I would try to avoid using it for counterservice though. Your wishes are equal to about $37 dollars. I don't know if you could spend that much at counterservice.

 

[mom_rules]

Aren't Silver Wishes worth about $68/2 =$34 (+taxes) and Gold
139/3=$46 (+taxes).

At these prices-definitely pay for counter service meals and save your "Wishes" for more expensive sit down ones.

 

[StaceyA]

Originally posted by mom_rules
Aren't Silver Wishes worth about $68/2 =$34 (+taxes) and Gold
139/3=$46 (+taxes).

At these prices-definitely pay for counter service meals and save your "Wishes" for more expensive sit down ones.

When we have used the silver plan, this is what we have done, we saved our wishes for dinner shows, Cirque, tours and nice sit down places where we know we will get our $$'s worth, and if we want something quick or if the place is on the less expensive side, we just pay and save our wishes for the other things.

I would never use a wish for counter service, or any type of breakfast as these are usually a waste of a wish.

 

[zipDdoodah]

We are using the Gold Plan, which doesn't come with wishes. You just get 3 meals a day. I know with all of the tours and things we have planned it may be hard to use them all at sit-down restaurants. Plus, some of the tours include meals (leaving us with extra). That's why I ask about the counter service. We've never used the Gold Plan at counter service before because we wanted to make the most of our money, but if we decided for some reason to go with one because of lack of time, etc., I was wondering what you are allowed to order at one.

Another reason to go to counter service would be to get something quick for the kids before taking them to the activity center and baby-sitting while DH and I go out to California Grill.

With the Silver Plan, I would DEFINITELY not use wishes for counter service. There are so many better things they could be used on, but the Gold may be a different story if it means skipping a meal all together or grabbing something quick.

I think I have it planned where we won't have to utilize counter service other than for: 1. An extra meal because we will automatically get one at Sunrise Safari (we could use this for snacks maybe) and 2. For the kids before baby-sitting.

Any suggestions on how to maximize the Gold Plan for these 2 instances? Thanks!



Cole on Tower of Terror




:thewave:

 

[dansyr]

In that case ...I agree.. use em or lose em. We had the same thing happen last time.....so instead of losing wishes...we used them in the food court a couple of days.

 

[StaceyA]

You can use the Gold Plan at counter service..here is a link to a brochure that has all the places listed that you can eat.

http://adisneyworld.disney.go.com/m...especific/eng/nontheme/tickets/F_GoldWDTC.pdf

I see some of the places listed for the MK alone are Casey's Corner, Cosmic Rays, Main St Bakery...im not sure about using it for snacks though, I don't know if you have to stick to the App, Entree, Dessert regimen. Someone else might know!

 

[mom_rules]

The restaurants definitely "Push" all that you are entitled to on you but you do not have to order all that food. For sitdowns restaurants the more expensive and the more food you order the greater the server gratuity will be. For counter service you just order what you want-last time DS ordered hotdog,fries soda and chocolate chip cookie and used one coupon.

 

[diswedwish]

We ate counter-service once on our Gold Plan trip. It was at POR's food court for breakfast. You get the same things as you would with sit-down meals. So for breakfast we got 1 entree (the scrambled eggs combo), 1 cold drink (oj or milk), and 1 hot drink (coffee). Not as cost-effective, but definitely better than losing a coupon

HTH

 

[manning]

Want to save a lot of money. Don't use any plan. It's cheaper ala cart.

 

[StaceyA]

Originally posted by manning
Want to save a lot of money. Don't use any plan. It's cheaper ala cart.

While this is true, we like to use the Silver plan since we like the fact that most everything we do is paid for in advance, and we have added the numbers and we have saved a ton of money compared to what we would have paid for the meals, cirque, tours etc...
Yes I know we wouldn't have bought the app, entree and dessert everytime, but we really do like trying all these restaurants we wouldn't have normally gotten to try....

 

[zipDdoodah]

I agree with Stacey. It's nice to know you don't have to worry about paying for anything once you arrive. Like she said, you DO save money compared to what you would pay if you ate at all of the same restaurants and did the same tours, recreation, et cetera. We've done it both ways, and we always have lots more fun when we do the silver or gold plan. You just don't have to spend all of your time calculating what gets spent on what, how much money you have left for food each day, etc.


If you want to plan a "budget" trip, then it's not worth the money, but if you wanna "go all out" and be pampered, it's totally worth it.

 

[StaceyA]

Originally posted by zipDdoodah
If you want to plan a "budget" trip, then it's not worth the money, but if you wanna "go all out" and be pampered, it's totally worth it.

 

[WDWRC]

Y'all are doing a great job on showing the values of these plans. It can often be difficult to "sell" these plans to guests b/c they don't see the value. To maximize Silver wishes- use them for dinner shows! Go the Yachtsman Steakhouse! Go to Cirque!

The same goes for Gold Plan- do a character meal each morning!! Go on park tours! Rent boats for an entire afternoon! Tax and gratuity included on the meals, and order whatever you want!!! Another added bonus to Gold- if you have kids 3-12, you have unlimited Children's Activity Centers!

Tracy