Money for tips with dining plan

[hdh23]

Ow much money did you all budget or spend on a week vacation? We will have the deluxe dining but I want to prepare before hand for everything. Thanks in advance.

 

[Twinmom23]

How many of you are there? That makes the difference. For us, it's 2 adults and 2 kids and I think the tips end up being around $20 or so for the character meals. Those are the most expensive.

 

[bbak3030]

We had the regular dining plan and there are 4 of us. We spent an additional $800 that included tips, adult beverages, the BBB (that was $280), Anna and Elsa dolls, and a few other things. We had budgeted $1500 and didn't come close to that. This was for a week.

 

[imthemamahere]

We also do the deluxe dining plan. It really depends on how many people in your party, and where/how you'll be using your dining plan points.

Quick service meals don't require a tip. Unless things have changed in the last year and a half, I don't recall there even being tip jars at the counter-service restaurants...

Sit-down dinners, you should plan to tip based on the value of your meal - so if you'd normally tip 20%, and your dinner for two at Le Cellier would have cost $120 out of pocket, you're looking at a $24 tip for that one meal. Buffets come in for a slightly lower % tip, usually, but again, should be tipped based on what the meal would have cost out of pocket.

If most of your planned meals will be at the table service restaurants, well, if you want to do a little math, you can estimate the possible costs of your meals and then have a rough idea of what your tip budget should be...

 

[purple figment]

Here are websites to look at menus to help you figure out the total costs for what you might order:
http://allears.net/dining/menu/
http://www.wdwinfo.com/wdwinfo/dining/diningmain.cfm

If you are doing buffets and fixed price meals the prices are on this thread:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3108466

Check the first post on the tipping sticky for general information. This is also where the mods ask that tipping questions be asked:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2300858

 

[mickey2000]

We always leave 20%

 

[lblume91]

I always budget $25 per TS meal then tip 20% based on the bill. 20% usually ends up being less than $25 for the four of us but it's easier to have too much than not enough!

 

[jenjersnap]

I always budget $25 per TS meal then tip 20% based on the bill. 20% usually ends up being less than $25 for the four of us but it's easier to have too much than not enough!

This is what I did, pretty much. I put $25 per TS meal onto a Disney giftcard plus estimates for adult beverages, charged tips to MBs, then every few days, I went to the front desk and cleared my balance. (I would recommend not waiting until the end as we did have a few errors on the bill along the way). I over-estimated by $160 in the end.

 

[Zooey72]

I would think same as you would if you were paying OOP. It annoys me that Disney took the tip out of the Dining plan. The DDP may not be the best bang for your buck but what is nice is that you can turn your brain off and just get what you want. I would be more than happy to pay more for the DDP if they included the tip again. When it was part of the plan I still tipped even though it was included if the guy/girl did a good job. But that is because I wanted to, not because I had to.

I go with 20% for sit downs and 10% for buffet (that is a base, I vary it depending on the kind of service I get). Sorry, if it is a buffet I am getting my own food and I don't count that as being the same as having the food brought to me. I figure the wait staff makes up for lower tips with volume since they don't have to do as much.

 

[Pumbaa_]

Closed thread since it has turned into a tipping discussion