nEW DINING PLAN CHANGES ARE LOUSY!

[bicker]

Bicker--The WS restaurants came into the plan in 2005. I'll agree with those posters who speculate the original contract was probably for around 18 months, through 12/31/2006.

...

I'll speculate that at least some restaurants found more MYW Dining guests than anticipated (particularly with Disney offering free dining), found guests were more creative with sharing than anticipated and some restaurants found guests were cherry picking restaurants based on lobster. Teppanyaki found they couldn't afford to be one of the only 1 credit restaurants that serve lobster. Pepper Market may be questioning why they're giving a $30 rib eye steak dinner for under $10. The compromise was allowing PM to restrict the dessert but now even that concession is gone.

That all makes a lot of sense, and especially explains why it is taking so long to negotiate renewals of the contract. Both Disney and the non-Disney restaurants have be abused by folks doing things like using child meal entitlements for adult meals, and unless they can come up with a way to get patrons to use the Dining Plan as it is intended, it will be very hard to come up with a mutually-acceptable contract.

 

[bstnsprts]

Both Disney and the non-Disney restaurants have be abused by folks doing things like using child meal entitlements for adult meals, and unless they can come up with a way to get patrons to use the Dining Plan as it is intended, it will be very hard to come up with a mutually-acceptable contract.

I figured it would take allot less than three days for you to blame all the changes on this. Do you have any hard evidence of this? These restaurants were making more margin on the people who were paying OOP for their kids meals than what they were receiving from Disney. As for Disney, what they are doing to these restaurants pales in comparison to a family maximizing DDP pooled credits. Millions have been invested by these restaurants to open on Disney property and Disney is playing a game of legal blackmail with them. Take a chance on having many empty tables, or accept what we are willing to pay you to provide meals for our guests, even though this amount does not give you the profit margin that you need to operate. These restaurants may have been filled to capacity with DDP, but that does not mean they are making money. Same can be said of the Disney restaurants, but Disney is reaping the other benefits that DDP brings. If these restaurants do not participate it will be because of Disney greed, not families using the pooled credits to their advantage.

 

[Pedler]

That all makes a lot of sense, and especially explains why it is taking so long to negotiate renewals of the contract. Both Disney and the non-Disney restaurants have be abused by folks doing things like using child meal entitlements for adult meals, and unless they can come up with a way to get patrons to use the Dining Plan as it is intended, it will be very hard to come up with a mutually-acceptable contract.

I don't think you can say that the non Disney owned restaurants have been abused by the whole child / adult credit thing. Disney doesn't separate credits and has no way to tell what credit is used to compensate a restaurant for a meal. They don't know that the meals purchased at Alfredos were with adult credits while the meals at LTT were with child credits. My guess is that the restaurant just rings up the meal as an adult or child meal and gets the flat rate compensation based on that from Disney.

Where they are getting abused is that they have been put into a position where they either enter into an agreement to take a flat rate for DDP patrons or lose that business. With Disney aggressively marketing the plan the choice becomes less business than there was pre plan or take a lower compensation per dinner, one that isn't price sensitive to what the order because it is all included, from however many people order the DDP and decided to eat at their place. For the Disney owned places taking in less money per patron but keeping them on site in Disney resorts and spending money on other Disney items the plan works great. For the non Disney owned places that don't get those extra benefits the plan doesn't appear to work so well. The problem is they have to compete with the Disney owned places that do take the plan.

The other problem accepting the DDP the non Disney owned places have is that it would appear from some of the posters that are glad the WS places are not listed for 2007 that some people avoided the WS places because of the effects of the DDP. So not only do they have to take a lower compensation amount than they would if the people paid for the meal then also loose some business from paying customers that avoid them because of the effects of the dinning plan or that get squeezed out because of all DDP folks.

I can see why the non Disney owned places would not like the dinning plan. Unfortunately for them there is no good solution. Take the plan and suffer the lower compensation, don't take the plan and loose out on business. It works out well for the Mouse but not so much these restaurants.

 

[Pedler]

I figured it would take allot less than three days for you to blame all the changes on this. Do you have any hard evidence of this? These restaurants were making more margin on the people who were paying OOP for their kids meals than what they were receiving from Disney. As for Disney, what they are doing to these restaurants pales in comparison to a family maximizing DDP pooled credits. Millions have been invested by these restaurants to open on Disney property and Disney is playing a game of legal blackmail with them. Take a chance on having many empty tables, or accept what we are willing to pay you to provide meals for our guests, even though this amount does not give you the profit margin that you need to operate. These restaurants may have been filled to capacity with DDP, but that does not mean they are making money. Same can be said of the Disney restaurants, but Disney is reaping the other benefits that DDP brings. If these restaurants do not participate it will be because of Disney greed, not families using the pooled credits to their advantage.

You have hit it right on the head. These places are basically in the same spot as all the folks in the transportation industry that are effected by the Magical Express. They are collateral damage. I don't think Disney decided they wanted to put limo drivers out of business with the ME. They wanted to capture people on site so they wouldn't leave. The effect on other transportation services is just a side effect. The same thing here. I don't think they are looking at this as a way to promote the Disney owned places over the non Disney owned places. The dinning plan, with its fixed compensation rates, helps them get lots of $$ benefits beyond food. Loosing some revenue on food is just a side effect. For the mouse owned places it doesn't matter because Disney gets other benefits. For the non Disney owned places they are in a big time bind.

One thing that wouldn't suprise me is to see in a few years if the DDP continues and it still has a negative effect on these places would be to see some of them change hands or just become operated by Disney.

 

[mandy200587]

I read somewhere on here that some were still pending. 2006 ain't over yet and everything can change on this plan. It says dining plan subject to change without notice.

 

[bicker]

I don't think you can say that the non Disney owned restaurants have been abused by the whole child / adult credit thing. Disney doesn't separate credits and has no way to tell what credit is used to compensate a restaurant for a meal.

The flat rate each non-Disney restaurant gets for each credit redeemed is likely held artificially low by the fact that Disney factors in abuse. If 1000 adult credits are sold and 1100 adult credits are redeemed, then the reimbursement for each adult credit redeemed must necessarily be lower. I believe that's why they've been auditing the program so much.

I read somewhere on here that some were still pending. 2006 ain't over yet and everything can change on this plan. It says dining plan subject to change without notice.

Yes, you're absolutely correct.

 

[Pedler]

The flat rate each non-Disney restaurant gets for each credit redeemed is likely held artificially low by the fact that Disney factors in abuse. If 1000 adult credits are sold and 1100 adult credits are redeemed, then the reimbursement for each adult credit redeemed must necessarily be lower. I believe that's why they've been auditing the program so much.

Yes, you're absolutely correct.

That could be though I would imagine the rates were set at the beginning of the program before they were aware of what the abuse levels would be.

Another area where the non Disney restaurants lose control with having to accept a fixed payment per dinner is on what they offer. If you know you will have a significant percentage of dinners that you will only get compensated at the fixed rate then you will be less likely to want to offer items that may be significantly higher than the fixed rate. Aside from the whole monetary issue these places lose control over what they can offer. If a place wanted to offer some sort of signature / expensive dish as some restaurants do they will be less likely to do so because of cost.

Or to put it another way rather than come up with an entree, price it and see how it sells they now have to run it by some sort of quick analysis to see if too many fixed rate people will order it. Or they most likely will just put in a cost ceiling and nothing can go above that. Assuming some of these places due to their unique nature take a certain amount of pride in what they offer the DDP does take away some of their creative control.

 

[bicker]

That could be though I would imagine the rates were set at the beginning of the program before they were aware of what the abuse levels would be.

We don't know what the reimbursement rate for 2007 will be. It could be less, or perhaps could simply not be increasing as much as the restaurants want it to, due to the added costs of the program which weren't factored into the rates the first time around.

 

[Lewisc]

We don't really know if the problem is Disney's greed or customers greed. Probably a little bit of both. It's certainly possible the restaurant makes out better if the family pays cash for a kids meal as opposed to using the meal plan but that saving is gone if the family uses the saved credits to either treat their extended family or to enable them to eat extra meals. A family that has 2A and 2C can double the number of meals they have if they pay cash for their kids.

One problem the restaurants may be having is the number of dining guests is probably higher than was projected. Free dining. Guests sharing. Guests paying cash for kids meals to increase the total number of available credits.

Prior meal plans weren't that popular. The savings weren't dramatic and we were forced to purchase LOS tickets. I wonder if one solution might be to promote the premium plan. Now that we're used to having a meal plan give guests the option of paying more.

I don't know if I agree with the term legal blackmail but you have a point. The restaurants, other than the ones at CSR, probably don't have any choice but accept whatever terms Disney offers.

I figured it would take allot less than three days for you to blame all the changes on this. Do you have any hard evidence of this? These restaurants were making more margin on the people who were paying OOP for their kids meals than what they were receiving from Disney. As for Disney, what they are doing to these restaurants pales in comparison to a family maximizing DDP pooled credits. Millions have been invested by these restaurants to open on Disney property and Disney is playing a game of legal blackmail with them. Take a chance on having many empty tables, or accept what we are willing to pay you to provide meals for our guests, even though this amount does not give you the profit margin that you need to operate. These restaurants may have been filled to capacity with DDP, but that does not mean they are making money. Same can be said of the Disney restaurants, but Disney is reaping the other benefits that DDP brings. If these restaurants do not participate it will be because of Disney greed, not families using the pooled credits to their advantage.

 

[Lewisc]

The difference is the non-Disney owned restaurants are partners with Disney as much as they are competitors. All of the restaurants at CSR, virtually all the restaurants at DTD, and basically the TS restaurants at AK are non-Disney. EPCOT has many Disney owned restaurants but I'm not sure Coral Reef and Le Cellier have enough capacity to handle demand if restaurants like Chefs de France don't wind up participating. I guess Disney could set up a buffet "restaurant" that's more like a cafeteria somewhere in EPCOT.


The plan will lose some appeal, at least to me, if the missing restaurants decide to go to buffet in order to profitably operate under Disney's reimbursement rates.

You have hit it right on the head. These places are basically in the same spot as all the folks in the transportation industry that are effected by the Magical Express. They are collateral damage. I don't think Disney decided they wanted to put limo drivers out of business with the ME. They wanted to capture people on site so they wouldn't leave. The effect on other transportation services is just a side effect. The same thing here. I don't think they are looking at this as a way to promote the Disney owned places over the non Disney owned places. The dinning plan, with its fixed compensation rates, helps them get lots of $$ benefits beyond food. Loosing some revenue on food is just a side effect. For the mouse owned places it doesn't matter because Disney gets other benefits. For the non Disney owned places they are in a big time bind.

One thing that wouldn't suprise me is to see in a few years if the DDP continues and it still has a negative effect on these places would be to see some of them change hands or just become operated by Disney.

 

[JimMIA]

I really doubt that "abuse" is what caused the current lineup. This is hardly Disney's first rodeo with a meal plan, and I'm sure they expected some "shrinkage." They're also well aware that the abundance of Internet sites discussing the plan would expose and publicize any holes in their systems, and that "shrinkage" would increase as a result over time.

I see two explanations which I think are more likely:

1. The negotiations are still in progress, and the lineup will change. Several months ago I was hearing that the 2007 DDP would feature two things: more restaurants, and tighter controls. I think it is likely that the eventual lineup will look different from what we see today.
   
2. The DDP was much more popular than anticipated, and that upset the mix of DDP/non-DDP diners the restaurants were expecting. DDP diners yield a fraction of the revenue an OOP diner does, so that resulted in much reduced margins. To accommodate that in 2006, restaurants did the only thing they could do - change menus to remove more costly items to reduce the bleeding.
   
   For 2007, they have two choices: get a higher reimbursement from Disney, or opt out of the plan. Since Disney has decided only to raise the price $1 per day, there is limited ability to pay more to the restaurants. That may be what's complicated the negotiations, or it may be the reason non-Disney restaurants choose not to participate. They may run their models and find they are better off with less traffic, but with all of it OOP.

 

[JimMIA]

EPCOT has many Disney owned restaurants but I'm not sure Coral Reef and Le Cellier have enough capacity to handle demand if restaurants like Chefs de France don't wind up participating.

I don't think there's any doubt about that -- you can't get into Le Cellier as it is now! It will be VERY difficult next year, if the lineup holds as it is now.

I also think you're going to see a backlash against DDP from the free dining folks this year. I don't know how much of it we'll see here, because hopefully all of our members are savvy enough to know to make ADRs. But I'm sure a lot of WDW newbies are going on the free plan and will be in for a shock when they commando the parks all day and then "drop by" for their TS dinner!

We were at WDW in May, during pretty low visitation, and saw days where there was no TS availability all day at MK when it opened in the morning. We also saw a number of irate visitors who could not get into restaurants. I wouldn't want to be a host/hostess at a WDW restaurant the next six weeks!

 

[Lewisc]

Jim--Disney's option is to open more buffet restaurants. They did this last using the taco restaurant and will be doing this year, setting up a buffet restaurant in tomorowland. I'm sure Disney could do the same in EPCOT. Odyssey, the building that was used for the celebration and even the WoL pavilion are all locations that might be available. Disney could even convert a CS restaurant to a TS buffet. A generic buffet isn't what most of us buy the plan for.

It won't be popular but the room service option is way for Disney to get guests to burn credits and get fed.

The non-Disney restaurants have a third option. They have to make money with whatever reimbursement rate Disney gives them. That might include trying to surcharge some items such as what Teppanyaki did or just getting rid of every expensive menu item. Even consider changing the restaurant to a buffet.

I don't think there's any doubt about that -- you can't get into Le Cellier as it is now! It will be VERY difficult next year, if the lineup holds as it is now.

I also think you're going to see a backlash against DDP from the free dining folks this year. I don't know how much of it we'll see here, because hopefully all of our members are savvy enough to know to make ADRs. But I'm sure a lot of WDW newbies are going on the free plan and will be in for a shock when they commando the parks all day and then "drop by" for their TS dinner!

We were at WDW in May, during pretty low visitation, and saw days where there was no TS availability all day at MK when it opened in the morning. We also saw a number of irate visitors who could not get into restaurants. I wouldn't want to be a host/hostess at a WDW restaurant the next six weeks!

 

[Gerweniel]

For what it's worth, my sons and I dined at Teppanyaki Dec 2005 and used the dining plan. The hostess gave us separate menus in which the lobster and sushi were not included, but we bought sushi ala carte which was well worth the cost. Not sure if they changed the rule to include lobster in 2006, but I doubt it. If we had wanted lobster, we would have paid for it. As it was, the meal was terrific regardless.
If we went to a restaurant and wanted something not included in the dining plan, we just ordered and paid for it with no hassle at all - and included appropriate tip. Our experience with the dining plan has been fantastic and I am sorry to see that some of the WS restaurants will not be participating in 2007 as it may prevent us from visiting them in the future. However, at least in Teppanyaki's case since it is one of our favorite restaurants, we will go even if we have to pay OOP, but some of the others, probably not. I guess I better change my ADR's for our Halloween trip to include some of the places in WS we have not tried and will be off the plan.

 

[JimMIA]

A generic buffet isn't what most of us buy the plan for.

Exactly. A buffet is certainly a way to accommodate more people, but even if it's a spectacular buffet, it's not what I buy DDP for.

 

[kaytieeldr]

I'm going to try to find messages in the archives from last year which almost surely would exist if that was the case.

I have the 2005 brochure stored in my computer, as well as the restaurant information on a spreadsheet - but I don't know how to, or even if I can, post either or both here. May I e-mail one or both versions to someone with more expertise, for comparison to the 2006 (and 2007) participants?

 

[Michelle1125]

Several people in the Yahoo All Ears group have said that last year a bunch of restaurants didn't sign up until the fall or closer to the new year.

On another note, wow I wish I hadn't read this thread. I'm feeling guility now for purchasing the dining plan for my January trip. I feel like I'm cheating the restaurants even though we won't be abusing the plan. I guess I didn't think about how much money they were losing.

 

[KellyFam]

The thing of it is, no one knows just how much (if any) that the restaurants are losing. This discussion only came about because of the preliminary 2007 dining guide.



"I truly think the free dining was a big mistake for Disney. Why not offer 10.00 off a room per night.When some people hear free they take advantage of a situation and I'm sure that happens frequently."


I don't understand what is meant by taking advantage...are we still talking about the pooled credits or are we talking about people actually booking during free dining? Because if it is the pooled credit thing, it seems as if it happens as much or more in the oop ddp then then free. As for the other, Disney got more money out of my family because of it. We have a trip to Orlando planned because of a company meeting that I am attending (which happens to be on Disney property). We extended out stay, but had no intentions of staying on property or going to any of the Disney parks. Because of this, we are. $10 off a room would not have done anything to sway us.....I get that and more with AAA.

 

[Pedler]

I also think you're going to see a backlash against DDP from the free dining folks this year. I don't know how much of it we'll see here, because hopefully all of our members are savvy enough to know to make ADRs. But I'm sure a lot of WDW newbies are going on the free plan and will be in for a shock when they commando the parks all day and then "drop by" for their TS dinner!

We did see this somewhat last year during the free dinning then but apparently it wasn't a big enough issue for Disney not to offer free dinning again.

In our case we had ADR's and all that but as you know the best laid plans....
Anyway we decided that on our last day we wanted to move things around a bit. We couldn't get into the Whispering Canyon Cafe at all, Chef Mickeys not until aftger 9:00 PM so we ended up making a same day ADR at LTT. As it turned out it worked out well and we really enjoyed the place but even when we got there for dinner they were telling people it would be an hour or more wait without a resservation. Keep in mind that this was a day that the park was so empty in the morning our kids were able to walk onto Dumbo at 10:00 am. I recently looked at some video of that morning in Fantasyland and the place was empty yet ressies at those places didn't have much in space for a same day resservation.

 

[JimMIA]

Keep in mind that this was a day that the park was so empty in the morning our kids were able to walk onto Dumbo at 10:00 am. I recently looked at some video of that morning in Fantasyland and the place was empty yet ressies at those places didn't have much in space for a same day resservation.

Right, that's the kind of thing we saw in May. 5-10 minutes for Small World or Dumbo, walk on the Carousel or Teacups, but don't even think about walking in to a restaurant!

That tells you a lot about the success of DDP.

I don't think Disney would ever even remotely consider not doing DDP because of lack of restaurant capacity. They're not selling food -- they're selling room-nights!

Like I said, I don't think we'll hear the screams of the free DDP folks because I think the DIS free DDP folks know the system pretty well and will take care of themselves. But I'd hate to be a host or hostess!