QS Dining Plan questions

[NorCalGal]

I have free QS dining for the week after Thanksgiving at Pop. My uncle and I are the Disney freaks in the family, and he will be joining me. We did a week of free dining during F&W last year and had a great time. A couple things came up, though, and I wanted to see if any of you had wisdom to offer.

We don't mind paying OOP for things we want (table service meals or higher priced snacks), but I don't see any reason to pay OOP if it's possible to get it on our dining plan. What made me curious was that I was reading a dining review and they said they weren't allowed to purchase a child's meal on their dining plan, and we had done that with no problem last year even there were only adults on our DP. Here are the three things that happened last year that I wasn't sure about:

1) We decided to split a sandwich at Wolfgang Puck's, and my uncle wanted a cup of soup as well. The cashier said there was no way to get a cup of soup, even using a snack credit. Has anyone had a different experience?

2) My uncle loves corn dogs, but he only allows himself to eat them on vacation. He got corn dogs at Disney Studios, but was told there was no way to get them on the DP, even using a QS meal credit. Is that still true? Is there anywhere you can get a corn dog using the DP?

3) I had heard on Disboards that you can ask your concierge to change meal credits to 3 snack credits. We used up our snack credits faster, so I tried to have that done at Pop. The first concierge didn't know what I was talking about, so I just thanked her and left. I tried a different person the next day, and she also had no idea what I was talking about. I asked her to ask her supervisor, and he said you can only use meal credits as snacks if you purchase three snacks at the same time from the same place and ask them to charge it as a meal. I would prefer to have them switched over so we don't have to purchase three snacks at the same time from the same place (we like more flexibility.) I was just wondering if that was an old policy, or they just won't do it at value resorts. Has anyone had recent experience trying this? Especially with only 1 snack per person per day this year, we will run out of snack credits quickly.

TIA!!

 

[PictureJumpr]

1) We decided to split a sandwich at Wolfgang Puck's, and my uncle wanted a cup of soup as well. The cashier said there was no way to get a cup of soup, even using a snack credit. Has anyone had a different experience?
Not specically (i.e., soup at Wolfgang's), but in general, yes - unless they are already programmed to accept a snack credit in exchange for an item, it is unlikely to happen.

2) My uncle loves corn dogs, but he only allows himself to eat them on vacation. He got corn dogs at Disney Studios, but was told there was no way to get them on the DP, even using a QS meal credit. Is that still true? Is there anywhere you can get a corn dog using the DP?
Not sure about this one - not a huge corn dog fan, myself

3) I had heard on Disboards that you can ask your concierge to change meal credits to 3 snack credits. We used up our snack credits faster, so I tried to have that done at Pop. The first concierge didn't know what I was talking about, so I just thanked her and left. I tried a different person the next day, and she also had no idea what I was talking about. I asked her to ask her supervisor, and he said you can only use meal credits as snacks if you purchase three snacks at the same time from the same place and ask them to charge it as a meal. I would prefer to have them switched over so we don't have to purchase three snacks at the same time from the same place (we like more flexibility.) I was just wondering if that was an old policy, or they just won't do it at value resorts. Has anyone had recent experience trying this? Especially with only 1 snack per person per day this year, we will run out of snack credits quickly.
There is a difference between changing credits in the system, and alternate redemption, i.e., "building" a CS breakfast out of what would otherwise be three separate snack credit items where they can ring up one as your entree, one as your dessert, and one as your "beverage" (even if it isn't actually a liquid). I am not sure they can even change a credit in the system, as it were, which would allow a cashier anyplace to find snack credits available on your card in place of the exchanged CS credit. We often "build" CS "meals" at the resort food court by picking things with no spoilage issues - like fruit or chips or things that can be eaten at any time in the next few days, in order to use up CS credits after snacks are exhausted.

TIA!!

Hope this helps, a little

 

[figment_jii]

3) I had heard on Disboards that you can ask your concierge to change meal credits to 3 snack credits.

There have been no recent reports on the board (that I am aware of) of folks being able to convert 1 QS credit to 3 snack credits for use later. As the PPs said, some folks have been able to use 1 QS credit to get some snacks (the number seems to vary between 2 and 3) at resort locations only. So, sorry, but it is very unlikely that you'll be able to use 1 QS credit to get 3 F&W tastings.

 

[NorCalGal]

There have been no recent reports on the board (that I am aware of) of folks being able to convert 1 QS credit to 3 snack credits for use later. As the PPs said, some folks have been able to use 1 QS credit to get some snacks (the number seems to vary between 2 and 3) at resort locations only. So, sorry, but it is very unlikely that you'll be able to use 1 QS credit to get 3 F&W tastings.

Thanks for this info. I was thinking we'd be able to do this anywhere. We won't be there for F&W, but I was thinking we'd be able to do it in World Showcase and DTD to buy treats at Goofys. We'll be able to work around it, it's just nice to know the guidelines. Nothing stops us from our treats!

 

[NorCalGal]

Hope this helps, a little

Yes, thanks. At least it's confirmation that we didn't just get an inexperienced CM on the soup and corndog issues.

Of course, when we tried to get three snacks as a meal for breakfast at Pop, the CM couldn't figure out how to do it and insisted she had to use 3 snack credits (which we wanted to save for that day at F&W.) We were able to get it fixed at the concierge desk, but they were very grumpy about making the adjustment.

 

[PictureJumpr]

Of course, when we tried to get three snacks as a meal for breakfast at Pop, the CM couldn't figure out how to do it and insisted she had to use 3 snack credits (which we wanted to save for that day at F&W.) We were able to get it fixed at the concierge desk, but they were very grumpy about making the adjustment.

Yes, I've had the same experience at Pop and elsewhere with CMs not knowing how to or wanting to let us do this. Since it's technically not in the black-and-white rules of the program, we sometimes let it slide, and sometimes we get adjustments like you did. I chalk it up to different interpretations of what they can do under the program, different training, and different points of view in individual CMs. If it doesn't work out, I usually just let it go - since we usually get the DDP free anyway, the cost of my time is greater than the potential snacks.

 

[purple figment]

1) We decided to split a sandwich at Wolfgang Puck's, and my uncle wanted a cup of soup as well. The cashier said there was no way to get a cup of soup, even using a snack credit. Has anyone had a different experience? CS credit at WPE is a main item and a dessert or chips and a beverage. The soup would not be part of the CS credit. Also, not all side items on a menu are a snack credit, it is up to the restaurant to decide what they will allow.

2) My uncle loves corn dogs, but he only allows himself to eat them on vacation. He got corn dogs at Disney Studios, but was told there was no way to get them on the DP, even using a QS meal credit. Is that still true? Is there anywhere you can get a corn dog using the DP? There are corn dogs on some menus, but I don't know if they're included.

3) I had heard on Disboards that you can ask your concierge to change meal credits to 3 snack credits. We used up our snack credits faster, so I tried to have that done at Pop. The first concierge didn't know what I was talking about, so I just thanked her and left. I tried a different person the next day, and she also had no idea what I was talking about. I asked her to ask her supervisor, and he said you can only use meal credits as snacks if you purchase three snacks at the same time from the same place and ask them to charge it as a meal. I would prefer to have them switched over so we don't have to purchase three snacks at the same time from the same place (we like more flexibility.) I was just wondering if that was an old policy, or they just won't do it at value resorts. Has anyone had recent experience trying this? Especially with only 1 snack per person per day this year, we will run out of snack credits quickly. This year's dining pdf specifically says you cannot convert CS credits to snack credits, except for the "choose 3 things to assemble a meal (usually breakfast)." However, there have been reports that some people have been able to use a CS credit to get 3 snacks at their resort food court. Most often this is done when people are at the end of their vacation and have leftover credits so they'll get packaged snacks, candy, etc. to take home. Ask the cashier first and hopefully you'll find one who will allow it.

Converting credits is not something that's done at the concierge or GR so that you can pick up snacks in the parks or elsewhere.

TIA!!

My answers in red.

 

[TDC Nala]

While you MIGHT be able to use a CS credit to purchase up to three snack items in certain locations (usually resort CS, and you might be limited to items that are considered part of a continental breakfast) you will not be able to use CS credits to purchase samples at the Food & Wine Festival or to buy snacks at park shops, or convert them to do so.

The "have the concierge convert your credits" goes back several years and regarded converting TS to CS, not CS to snacks. At places that will do this (resort CS) there is no need to convert the CS credit, you merely redeem the CS credit at the cashier for the snacks. Be sure to ask the cashier BEFORE you pick out the snacks what you might be allowed to purchase this way.

 

[EmpressBubbles]

You can get the famous Corn Dog Nuggets with fries and either a brownie or Cracker Jacks as a QS meal at Casey's Corner on Main Street .

 

[NorCalGal]

You can get the famous Corn Dog Nuggets with fries and either a brownie or Cracker Jacks as a QS meal at Casey's Corner on Main Street .

That's actually awesome info for my uncle. I'm sure he'll be very happy.

We are going to be having a couple OOP table service meals, so since we share CS most of the time we will have a lot left over. We didn't have any issues purchasing from the food court at Pop on our last day to use up all our left over CS credits. Last year, we had six CS meals left over after our last dinner, and we had fun using up the credits buying snacks for our trip home and as souvies. I am oddly addicted to their rice crispie treats (Why do they taste better than homemade???), so I think I got four of those!