Premium Plan

[honeymo78]

Okay with all this speculation and supposed changes happening with the MYW Dining Add On I'd like to know about people's experiences with the Premium Plan (3 TS meals a day). Are there excluded items? Surcharges? One of my concerns centers around the 1 & 2 credit designated restaurants under MYW. With Premium there are no tiers like this - basically all TS is included (no V&A or Chef Table at Citricos were the last I knew of). People are speculating or reporting in some cases that higher priced entrees/desserts at 1 credit places are being surcharged or will be surcharged to keep them at 1 credit. I certainly hope this surcharge does not carry to the Premium Plan - it is a higher level plan and since there is no 1 or 2 designation there must be the thought that people could eat all their dinner meals at MYW 2 credit restaurants (more expensive restaurants). If an unlimited number of those meals is anticipated then it wouldn't be fair to charge a surcharge on higher priced menu items at the other restaurants. Example - I could order a $30+ steak at Yachtmans (probably will do that twice) yet be surcharged on the same priced item at Le Cellier b/c it is a 1 credit restaurant. Maybe the problem lies in whether the servers distinguish b/w the two plans, I know in the past when there were "wishes" we often had to explain that the server wasn't supposed to take 2 "wishes" off for each person since we weren't using wishes - just take one meal off for each person. (I'm not sure if anything in my post makes sense to anyone)

Okay bottom line - could anyone who has recently used the Premium Plan share their dining experiences or anyone who has recently booked one share what the CM has told them about it.
Thanks - I really don't want dining surprises on the honeymoon (one reason we chose a plan we were familiar with).

 

[Becky2005]

THIS I can answer!

We got back a week ago from going on the Premium plan. We went from 7/11-7/17.

We were able to order anything we wanted basically. We even were able to use some of our "extra" credits (there were days we skipped lunch - not intentionally but we were so busy running around doing activities and/or things that just worked that way! By the time we got situated, it was already time for our dinner PS! ). I had a 1 year old with us so they weren't on the plan but we just used the extra credits for him without a problem, I don't think we ended up paying for any of his meals. We paid for a milk for him at Rainforest because we had *so* much food that I just shared with him.

There were a couple could be problems (I didn't see them as problems, just as heads up).

We went to Fulton's and ordered baked potatoes instead of the mashed? or whatever it is they give you with the steaks. The waitress said there would be a slight upcharge of something like .90 to change it (I think it's that way if you are on any plan or not!). We were perfectly fine with it. However, when the bill came, we were never charged so it must have just been included in the plan. I even asked her about it, she looked at the bill they filled out vs. what we signed and it was the same $$, so she said it must have been included and not worry about it. (I loved the meal here!).

At Rainforest Cafe in AK, the Volcano is counted as 2 desserts, so the 2 kids shared it (which was fine as they didn't even eat it all anyway! - They had each wanted to order 1 for themselves - I think that had more to do with sibling rivalry than anything else! LOL! So, we had them share just one but it counted as both their desserts!). We each got souvenior cups.

We were able to get the Glow in the dark ice cube cups at both Chef Mickeys & Concourse Steakhouse - I didn't think those were included but they didn't charge us extra.

My DD who is 11, got to order off the adult menu and/or kids menu - either one, they didn't have a problem with it at all and I don't think they charged us extra. I know the boys also got to order appetizers if they wanted (there wasn't always things we liked so we just didn't order any then).

As a matter of fact, we all ordered Tinkerbell's Puzzle at Yachtsman which is on the kid's menu!

I didn't know until close to the end of the trip though that you can get coffee/hot tea with your dessert and that's included too.

Another catch (not a big deal) is the way the brochure is worded is that you get a juice with breakfast AND a beverage - so we tried to get milk & OJ for each of us at breakfast at the Food & Fun center but with CS it's one or the other, not both. It wasn't a big deal, just wasn't written very clearly in the brochure.

Then the only other problem was we checked out on the 17th from the package but we were staying there that night via room only reservation. The restaraunt had problems at dinnertime because it said we had 0 coupons left. They had to get a manager involved and called the hotel. It was fine but apparently the computer zeros you out BEFORE midnight. We had 3 credits left & I went to the food court around 11 PM to use them and had the same issue.

Overall, it worked great & didn't have any problems.

We ate at Sci-Fi; Yachtsman Steakhouse; Crystal Palace; Liberty Tree Tavern; Donald's breakfast; Rainforest Cafe; Chef Mickey's; Concourse Steakhouse; Princess Storybook breakfast; Cinderella's breakfast; Tony's Town Square? (forgot the whole name, Tony's works); Fulton's; Trail's End Buffet (lunch); ABC Commisary.

True it was mostly buffets but all the sit-downs were great.

Hope that helps.

 

[abacobaby]

Honeymo78 - is the premium plan different than the Disney Dining Plan? I am just a little confused since you wrote the premium plan is 3 TS meals while I know that the DDP is 1CS, 1TS, and one snack. Could you or someone else clarify for me if there is a difference and what exactly the difference is? TIA

 

[Becky2005]

Honeymo78 - is the premium plan different than the Disney Dining Plan? I am just a little confused since you wrote the premium plan is 3 TS meals while I know that the DDP is 1CS, 1TS, and one snack. Could you or someone else clarify for me if there is a difference and what exactly the difference is? TIA

The Premium plan is a more inclusive plan that includes 3 meals/day per person (and includes more restaraunts - no limit if it's TS or CS - you can do 3 TS, 3 CS or a combo of whatever you want), includes unlimited recreation, tickets to La Nouba, unlimited selected tours, it's not promoted very much at all but it's there.

Here is a link to the brochure
http://adisneyworld.disney.go.com/m...especific/eng/nontheme/tickets/MYWPremium.pdf

 

[jw50]

If it is your intent to try to do everything there is to do in the parks you probably do not want to go with the Premium Plan, you will waste too much time in the resturants

The Premium Plan also isn't cheap and you need to take advantage of the tours and recreation to make it worthwhile.

I don't know if being on the Premium Plan helps with ADRs or not (or the fact that it is only two of us and we aren't doing character meals) but I didn't have any problems getting reservations for any of the resturants 30-45 days before we am going. All of the reservations were within 10 or 15 minutes of the time I requested (out of 15 reservations 9 were the exact time I requested).

 

[honeymo78]

Thanks Becky - it seems like your experience earlier this month was just what we are expecting.

JW - we have never had a problem seeing everything we wanted in the parks plus recreation and eating all our meals. Plus if you do parasailing for 2 people that seriously makes it very easy to make it worthwhile $$ wise. Also loving prime cuts of beef helps - serveral restaurants have some excellent cuts available - which are by no means cheap. Staying away from CS is the key as well. It's really a waste of your meals on Premium.

 

[Becky2005]

Thanks Becky - it seems like your experience earlier this month was just what we are expecting.

JW - we have never had a problem seeing everything we wanted in the parks plus recreation and eating all our meals. Plus if you do parasailing for 2 people that seriously makes it very easy to make it worthwhile $$ wise. Also loving prime cuts of beef helps - serveral restaurants have some excellent cuts available - which are by no means cheap. Staying away from CS is the key as well. It's really a waste of your meals on Premium.

That is very true, if you aren't doing any of the recreation, then it doesn't make sense. I scheduled 2 tandem parasailings for me & DD and then me & DS-8; when I reserved she asked if I wanted the boat to ourselves since on the Premium it's included. I said *sure* she did say it was way more expensive but didn't tell me how much. When I signed the receipt at the marina it was slighly over $500! Plus, my DS-8 chickened out so he just went along for a boat ride! Hee Hee but since I was on the plan, it didn't even upset me one bit that he didn't go, since I wasn't paying out of pocket, it didn't matter. (They would have refunded the money for his cost of parasaliing, so if it happens to any of you that are paying out of pocket, they wouldn't just keep the money if it happens! Just since we were on the plan, it would have been more of a hassle to attempt to do any of that).

The older kids went on a guided fishing tour, DH & DD went horseback riding, we did 2 tours plus went and saw La Nouba.

DH mostly picked this plan because he wanted to eat steak all the time and didn't want to have to worry about counting "credits" or being stuck with OK, we used all our Table Service credits, we now can only eat counter, etc.. Basically, wanted the ease of going wherever he wanted to go and order whatever he wanted to order and have it covered, which in essence is exactly what we got. *That* part of the plan was awesome - we never had to watch the cost of something, the kids got desserts at every meal, got the fun things, got to try some new things (although my DS-5 ordered Mac & Cheese at every single meal except our last one where he got pizza! ). DD wanted to try kid's steak as none of them are really steak eaters, she didn't care for it all that much but since it was pre-paid, it wasn't an issue on her not eating much that meal. Sometimes she would pick a kid's dessert and sometimes she would pick an adult dessert (since she was considered an adult). Even my DH who usually doesn't eat desserts at all, was ordering desserts! Even if it was just a bowl of ice cream (never once was there a problem with us ordering off kid's menu vs. adult menu, etc...). I know we wouldn't have done that if we weren't on the plan (at least not at every meal!)

After reading all I have with the issues with the regular dining plan, I'm glad we decided to go ahead and go all out. For only 2 people, it probably would work even better since you won't have the age restriction issues that we had to work around.

I think we did end up paying more than if we had done it out of pocket but we just count that as a service charge. I think if we had ordered the 5 full appetizers at *every* meal like we were entitled to (we didn't always see things we liked so didn't order anything then), it would have been really close to breaking even (plus we had a lot of character meal/buffets because of the kids).

 

[honeymo78]

The last two trips (when I have been paying) we have saved at least $500 doing it this way. If we had kids it might be different, especially kids who are considered "adults". I can't imagine not going with this package ever again. I love the convenience of it too. It's nice being able to pay for everything ahead of time and not worry about what we're spending while we are there. We've decided not to do any tours this time and use that time at the water parks which we usually skip (too hot and crowded in the summer). Oh and we are renting jetskis twice - we would own some if we lived closer to the water so any chance to go out on one is fun. I'm hoping we can save enough to try the Platinum plan next year or 2007 even if only for a shorter stay. Room service would be so nice =) but I'm not sure it is worth the extra price.

 

[diswedwish]

The Platinum Plan is definitely worth the extra price We've done Silver, Gold, and Platinum - and if we had the $ we'd definitely do Platinum for at least part of the trip. It isn't that much different from the Gold (or Premium), but the little extras are worth it... We only did it for 3 nights though - I think it would be too much to do it for a long amount of time. On our last trip, we were going to split 7 nights Gold/3 Platinum, but it was too expensive, so we went Silver/Platinum which worked out just fine. Our next trip in Jan. will be our first non-plan trip, hopefully we'll be able to survive lol

 

[michellejed]

We have used the premium plan twice before and are on it for our next trip in Oct/Nov.

We all like to eat and love TS . We always got great service!

Dh and I like to golf and we are planning on 2 outings, all of us will be doing the parasail and kids will also do tube/wake board.

We plan on horseback ride, mini boats, mini golf and a few tours.

It is worth it for us!

 

[jrjac]

I am just a bit frazzled with this dining plan )
On all of our confirmations as well as on our final Guest Itinerary, it lists 7 DAY PREMIUM under admission. Does this mean we will are entitled to the things mentioned above like THREE TS meals each per day?

 

[Julia M]

THIS I can answer!
We ate at Sci-Fi; Yachtsman Steakhouse; Crystal Palace; Liberty Tree Tavern; Donald's breakfast; Rainforest Cafe; Chef Mickey's; Concourse Steakhouse; Princess Storybook breakfast; Cinderella's breakfast; Tony's Town Square? (forgot the whole name, Tony's works); Fulton's; Trail's End Buffet (lunch); ABC Commisary.

True it was mostly buffets but all the sit-downs were great.

Hope that helps.

How did you like Councourse Steakhouse? I hear very mixed reviews, but it's a place where everyone in our family would like stuff on the menu? Also, we're staying at the Poly, and I like the idea of ebing able to take the monorail

Thanks

Julia

 

[michellejed]

JrJac.........I would think that was for the park ticket, you can get a premium park ticket that has hopper and all the rest on it.

It wouldnt hurt to call and find out for sure,

Have a great trip

 

[Becky2005]

How did you like Councourse Steakhouse? I hear very mixed reviews, but it's a place where everyone in our family would like stuff on the menu? Also, we're staying at the Poly, and I like the idea of ebing able to take the monorail

Thanks

Julia

We liked it but we are plain food eaters. Definitely not foodies, so it was fine by us. I didn't find a single place we ate at that was awful or wouldn't return to. The service was excellent, the food was decent, the kids liked it. Everyone had something they could eat (and the Mickey Brownie was really good! - tasted the kids & then had cheesecake another night). We were staying at the Contemporary so it was just easy for us to go to. Since you are staying at the Poly, it wouldn't be that big of a deal to just hop right on over.

 

[pjupton]

Just curious - what is the per night cost on the premium package? I've looked around and seen what it includes, but not the cost.

Definitely not an option for this trip, but I could see using it in the future.