New Dining Plan

[Belle's World]

We are booked for late November early December and have just seen the new brochure with Dining plan.
Does anyone know if there is a list of restaurants included in each category? It just says the amount of restaurants not the specific ones.
As we are going with our 18 month old I was wondering if the buffet plan may be good for us as he will eat for free.
I am a shareholder so not sure what works out better. Buying the vouchers in advance which I believe then includes a drink at £21/€26 per person per day or using the shareholder discount.
Any thoughts?

 

[DLPdaft]

shareholder discount and paying on the day will always beat buying a half board dining plan at DLP .

 

[dhidra]

Standard includes plaza gardens, Agrabah, restaurant des stars and the buffets at Santa Fe, and Cheyenne.
Plus includes most of the table service restaurants and the restaurants at Hotel New York and Sequoia Lodge, also cafe Mickey.
And Premium includes Inventions, California Grill, buffalo bills and auberge de Cendrillion.

You get a pause Gourmande / Teatime treat voucher now aswell. If you would normally buy a drink & snack in the afternoon/evening then the meal plan may save you €6 per person per day on this alone.

 

[DLPdaft]

Standard includes plaza gardens, Agrabah, restaurant des stars and the buffets at Santa Fe, and Cheyenne.
Plus includes most of the table service restaurants and the restaurants at Hotel New York and Sequoia Lodge, also cafe Mickey.
And Premium includes Inventions, California Grill, buffalo bills and auberge de Cendrillion.

You get a pause Gourmande / Teatime treat voucher now aswell.
If you would normally buy a drink & snack in the afternoon/evening then the meal plan may save you €6 per person per day on this alone.

compared to a straight 15% shareholders discount on everything the half board plan includes? I'd be surprised if the saving was anything like 15% by buying a half board dining plan. Plus I'm sure when I was there last month the pause gourmande items, listed on the restaurant menus as pause gourmande, were 4.99 euros.

 

[jothp]

Hi, is it the plan that allows you to eat in the buffet restaurant of your hotel you are looking at? If so then it is quoting me £19 or E23 for Santa Fe/Cheyenne or £24/E29 for Sequoia/Newport/New York.

Working out for Sequoia etc hotels the buffet prices seem to be around E30 for an adult plus soft drink which is around E34 in total. (I have added a couple of Euros to the prices of DLRP as the menus there are now quite old) 15% discount on this is would make the price E29.10 which is around about the same as the cost of the voucher. (If it is the hotel plan then the pause gourmande is not included anyway so doesn't affect the value) I would imagine that the value for Santa Fe/Cheyenne would be similar but could calculate the numbers to make sure.

As the prices seem to be so similar I would say you would be better using your shareholder discount and having the freedom to eat in whichever restaurant you choose rather than being restricted to just the buffet restaurant in your hotel.

 

[Belle's World]

Thank you for all your replies.
It was the standard half board I was looking at that says it allows you to eat at 7 buffet restaurants.
I haven't made firm decisions on where we will eat yet but buffets will be free for my little boy so will probably do at least 3. Billy a Bobs has been recommended and we like Agrabah cafe. Not sure if these are included or not.

 

[jothp]

With the old meal plans the standard vouchers always used to be valid at the restaurants at Santa Fe, Cheyenne, Davy Crockett, Agrabah, Plaza, restaurant des stars, Billy Bobs, Annettes and Silver Spur. That makes 9 restaurants though and both Annettes and Silver Spur are table service restaurants so my guess would be that they have been removed from the standard plan to leave you with the choice of the 7 buffets. I'm sure they would be able to advise you accurately if you called

The buffets above would cost about E28 per adult including a soft drink(probably a couple of Euros more as the menus are a bit out of date) 15% off would cost you just under 24 Euros and the pause gourmande with 15% off would be about E4 so in total for your meal and a pause gourmande you would be paying about E28 with shareholder discount and only E26 with the vouchers so it looks like vouchers would be better value if you use the tea time treat.

 

[Belle's World]

That's what I was thinking. Just have to work out if we would definately eat at a buffet everyday as I still want to eat at my favourite Walts and possibly blue lagoon. We are big foodies and often do 2 big meals a day whilst there so that's not a problem. Thanks for all your thoughts.

 

[DLPdaft]

That's what I was thinking. Just have to work out if we would definately eat at a buffet everyday as I still want to eat at my favourite Walts and possibly blue lagoon. We are big foodies and often do 2 big meals a day whilst there so that's not a problem. Thanks for all your thoughts.

walts and blue lagoon often have their 2-course express lunch on, between 12noon and 3pm, which is 20 euros and you can use your shareholders discount on this too .

 

[jothp]

That's what I was thinking. Just have to work out if we would definately eat at a buffet everyday as I still want to eat at my favourite Walts and possibly blue lagoon. We are big foodies and often do 2 big meals a day whilst there so that's not a problem. Thanks for all your thoughts.

You could also use the vouchers at face value in Walts and Blue Lagoon but obviously you wouldn't make any saving doing that and you would be better off with shareholder discount there.