Premium or platinum packges, are they worth it?

[madfelice]

Not sure if I am in the right place here, but the title says it all. Are the premium and platinum packages worth it or should I just stick to the deluxe dining plan?

 

[timben]

I made a lot of calculations tempted by the dining plans and the various packages. We also plan to do some guided tours and see la Nouba at Circe du soleil.

Our decision finally was that if we ad up all additional costs for tours, Circe du soleil etc. to the deluxe dining plan the costs would still be below the premium plan.

The deluxe dining plan seems a good idea to us, that said that I am only informed about the menu prices via the internet or other boards. It makes case I guess, if you want to spend a lot of time in signature dining restaurants and are willing to use table credits for food courts as well.

Anyways as we skipped our vacation to December 07 we have to use the old dining plan and as we tried to figure out the ADRs we realized that this one is fully sufficient. Because we did not want to plan exactly each meal on each day, which seems to be necessary.

 

[honeymo78]

With the advent of the deluxe dining plan platinum and premium are more about the recreation/tours aspect than the food. Personally my family loves premium and platinum and unless we have no intention of using the recreation and tours we'll keep buying them.

There are some food differences b/w the packages though. On deluxe, signature meals, room service and dinner shows still cost 2 credits so if you like eating 3 meals a day, you'll have to pay OOP for something. With premium and plat they are all just 1 meal credit. Here's an example from our itenerary for next week - room service breakfast, lunch at Prime Time Cafe, and dinner at Brown Derby. On Deluxe DDP we'd have to pay cash for either breakfast or lunch. Since dining locations aren't finalized for 08 I can't say for sure, but in years past, premium and plat have included restaurants that the DDP didn't - like Fultons and Rainforest Cafe.

As 2 adults we typically will spend $200/day in food with 3 sit down meals. On Premium that leaves about $100/day we need to spend on recreation to break even. Between jet skis and parasailing a few times and a tour we have that covered. Does this cut into park time, sure, but we don't like to go commando. We like to get up early, get in some park time and then relax in the afternoon before hitting the parks again at night. Or we'll head off to some morning recreation or tour and then visit the parks in the afternoon or evening. We've never had a problem with not getting to do/see everything we like in the parks several times each trip.

Every family is different and these packages don't work/save money for everyone. You really need to use the non-dining components. Personally I can't imagine a warm weather vacation without one - wintertime we might consider deluxe since I won't want to be out on the lake.

 

[Colleen27]

It really depends on how much of the recreation you're planning to take advantage of and how old your kids are. I priced it both ways (premium vs deluxe dining) and found that even with going to Cirque, DH golfing 3 times, renting SeaRaycers for one afternoon, parasailing, and the kids spending an evening or two at the Cub's Den kids' club, the deluxe makes more sense for us by a huge margin.

The premium plan for us (2A 2C) comes out to $316 per day more than the DxDDP. There's no way we could possibly spend that much on recreation with the amount of time we like to spend in the parks. Plus the kids are too young for most tours, so we're limited in our ability to take avantage of that perk. If it were just DH & I on a kid-free trip, we'd probably upgrade to the premium, because between greens fees, Cirque, and tours, our recreation costs would add up a lot faster.

I find the pricing of the plan interesting, though. There doesn't seem to be a child's rate for the premium plan upgrade. When I price the same package for just 2 adults, I come up with a $158/night difference compared to the DxDDP, which is exactly half the difference I came up with for the 4 of us. It seems to be priced at the DxDDP cost + $79, making the total cost $149/night per adult and $99/night per child.

 

[honeymo78]

Colleen, you would love the "calculations" my husband just whipped up to justify bumping up from plat to premium next year. There is a $600 package difference b/w the 2 for our trip in 08. I'm definitely not complaining that he wants to bump it up but never in my life would I have guessed he would price stuff out to encourage us to get a larger package. But with the fireworks cruise, massages, and an extra tour that we would have to pay OOP for (treating my MIL to the dolphins in depth for her birthday so of course we have to go too) is just about that $600. Plus he wants to make it easier on me with ADRs - let our concierge planner take on the task of getting us seating for 7. And when exactly did my DH become as obsessed as me?

 

[asmit4]

Someone said that with the premium and platinum pkgs that "a meal is a meal". Meaning- you go to a "2 credit" place for dinner and it only counts as 1meal. Since you get 3 credits you could (though crazy) do 3 character meals in 1 day that are 2 credits and still have only used 3 credits.

Is this true that there is no distinction in restaurants? Also, where is the listing of what you get? I would love to be able to do parasailing and jet skiis " for free".

 

[honeymo78]

asmit - you could eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner at CRT in one day and still only use 3 meal credits. All meals, whether room service, TS, CS, dinner show, or signature dining all cost 1 credit. On platinum even Victoria and Alberts is 1 credit.

If you go to the disney site under reservations there should be a link for 2007 and 2008 packages - just keep clicking the links for plat or premium and there will be a pdf with a description of what is included. Under the recreation section for 07 platinum (basically the same for 08 and premium) it includes Golf (shoes, clubs, fees, golf cart, lessons), guided fishing excursions, water sports (parasailing, water skiing/wakeboarding, personal watercraft/jet ski), watercraft rentals (sea raycers, boston whaler montauks, pontoon boats, canoies, kayak, pedal boats), bike rentals, cane pole fishing, horseback riding, carriage rides, wagon rides, and mini golf. There is no limit to how many times you do these activiites. We have jet ski reservations for 3 times and parasailing scheduled twice. Several tours are also included however there are a few differences b/w plat and premium,

 

[ExtinctDino]

Not sure if I am in the right place here, but the title says it all. Are the premium and platinum packages worth it or should I just stick to the deluxe dining plan?

They're worth it if you're rich.

 

[Mary2e]

I just did the 7 night premium package and would say that for most people it is not worth it. We made the best use of it by doing the following:

• Went to Cirque
• Had room service every morning
• Ate most of our dinners in Signature restaurants
• Our lunches were mostly at the Kona cafe because we happened to be around our hotel every day at lunch time
• Ate in Chefs de France for a few lunches
• Took a tour EVERY SINGLE DAY
• Rented a float boat at for at least 3-4 hours (total)
• Went fishing
• Took carriage rides
• Went horseback riding.

We spend very little time in the parks. But to us it did not matter. We go to WDW all the time and we were looking to do other things.

3 TS meals a day were a lot of food, and the breakfasts went mostly to the ducks. Lunches were salads. We ate a good dinner. There were no snacks in the package at that time (last June) nor did we want any.

I would say that because we went at the end of June when the parks are open late and WDW is operating at full tilt, we were able to get the most for our money. We probably got more of a value than most people do because we were not concerned with going into the parks during the day. We went in every evening, but if it was crowded we just left.

As I said, if you want to go into the parks this isn't the package for you. You would be wasting your money by not taking advantage of all the extras that are included.

 

[honeymo78]

They're worth it if you're rich.

Not everyone who purchases these packages is "rich." You don't have to be rich to purchase the package, nor do only rich people find enjoyment in this level of inclusiveness. I don't consider my family rich but this is how my family choses to spend our money. Sure, we could spend nearly a month at a value resort for the cost but we can't take that much vacation at one time nor could we take 4 one week vacations. Its all about what you choose to spend your money on, rich or not. Saving up for a week of pampering and all inclusiveness gives me the incentive to put in extra hours at work.

 

[Mary2e]

Someone said that with the premium and platinum pkgs that "a meal is a meal". Meaning- you go to a "2 credit" place for dinner and it only counts as 1meal. Since you get 3 credits you could (though crazy) do 3 character meals in 1 day that are 2 credits and still have only used 3 credits.

Is this true that there is no distinction in restaurants? Also, where is the listing of what you get? I would love to be able to do parasailing and jet skiis " for free".

That is true. A meal is a meal no matter where you eat it. Only V&A is excluded, IIRC.

You can go to all character meals, all buffets, all Signature, anything you want and all that will knock off your total credits is 1 for each person in your party. We had 42 credits for a 7 night package.

Keep in mind, your best values on the plans are not the character breakfasts - it's room service

I was also sorry I wasted a meal at the Liberty Tree Tavern just to eat dinner with Goofy. It was the worst meal of the entire trip.

 

[asmit4]

They're worth it if you're rich.

LOTS of people here stay for 10 nights or even 14 nights at a value resort with regular DDP.

To take a full 6 nights is all we can do, so for us, spending the same amount on 5 or 6 nights is ok with us. Plus- loads of people go multiple times a year. We could save up for a year or even 2 years and afford the same amt of $$.

 

[Colleen27]

They're worth it if you're rich.

Nah. They're worth it if you are going to use the features; there is potential value of the plans for those who do a lot of recreation, dining, and tours. They're not worth it for rich park commandos any more than they are for poor park commandos!

 

[DizMom11]

I plan on using the Plat. Plan in April for 5 nights at GF. We will be staying 7 nights total, the first night will be GF club level, then 5 nights plat., and the 7th night GV at GF. Room service will be used most mornings and maybe some lunches. Sig. rest. at night. The room service is great because it saves time and gratuity is included in it, as opposed to reg. TS. We would like to try as much as it offers, and are not worried about getting much park time.

 

[Mary2e]

Then look at my plan above We did just about everything BUT go into the parks.

I started with some calendar pages, noted which parks were open when (including EMH) and then booked a tour for each day. We did this first because some are not offered every day.

I then filled in dinners and other activities based upon where we were going to go in the evening and/or be in the morning.

The fishing excursion was booked when we had nothing else planned, and the float boat rentals were for during our rest times in the afternoon.

I felt like I was planning an invasion, but it worked remarkably well. But you have to know what you're doing. I helped a newbie trying to do the same thing, and she had to redo most of her stuff because she was all over the place on the same day.

BTW - are you sure the premium & plat packages don't include gratuties? They have for as long as I can remember. These are their all inclusive packages and I can't imagine them NOT including everything. I don't think we spent $100 while we were there.

 

[DizMom11]

Unfortunately for 2008 gratuity is not included in the plat/prem plan except for room service/dinner shows (like Aloha). We want to try Vic. and Alberts and I figured tip for that alone will be about $100 for 4 people..

 

[Mary2e]

Wow... I can't believe it. We did the deluxe plan in the early 90s and just did it again. It had remained just about unchanged because it included everything.

I would bet that because gratuities are no longer included in the dining plans, they had to make this change also, since it probably would require the server to know which package the person was on when ringing it up.

This is a big loss, since we too use Signature restaurants almost exclusively, and it was nice not having to worry about paying anything extra, or even thinking about it.

 

[honeymo78]

Yeah the no gratuity is a big bummer but DH and I decided that at least food wise, we'll still be eating in the same places whether we bought a package or not, so we'll have to pay gratuties anyway. I know many people would change their eating habits without the package but after vacationing like this for so many years, its kind of part of the vacation. We did DDP for 2 short trips, one last year and one this year, and we still paid for a character breakfast everday and suffered through a CS lunch. That really showed us that we "need" those 3 meals a day no matter what package. So instead of coming home with a bunch of souveniers we don't need, our spending money will pay for tips. And like DizMom, we might do more room service lunches and most likely won't pay a full 18-20% for buffet wait service.

 

[Mary2e]

Well, I just went and priced the exact same package I booked in June, using regular season and the same ticket length. I used AAA so I got about a $300 savings on the room portion. We stayed at the poly garden view because it was all we could get.

Last year cost for 2 for 8 days was $5600 at the poly. In 2008 it's $5500 and they have included 2 snacks which we wouldn't eat anyway and a refillable mug.

We used about $250 per day in meals and some days more. This included room service breakfasts and Signature dinners. If we tip 15% on the meals it adds $37.50 per day to the cost of the vacation, plus we have to "think" about it rather than have it all taken care of up front.

This is a massive reduction in the value of this plan. It always was expensive, but this is making it ridiculous.

While we enjoyed it immensely, until it becomes truly all inclusive again, I don't think we'll take it. Let's face it, there was so much food that we had to take care not to eat too much and lived on salads for lunch. We could easily do the same OOP without being full all the time. Add to it that tours and activities get a AAA 15% discount, well, we could probably put the package together ourselves for the same or less money.

Take away the all inclusive aspect and I just lost all interest. The best part of the package for us what not having to worry about anything while having the ability to do just about anything we wanted without regard to cost.

 

[DisneyLover75]