Question about DVC discount

[AKLFan3]

As new DVC owners, my family and I are very pleased about using our discount on food, tours and merchandise in the parks. However, are there any "catches" associated with this discount? When we were at WDW in December, we took the Undiscovered Future World tour and were offered a 20% discount off of our lunch at Nine Dragons immediately after the tour. What we didn't know until after our lunch was that this 20% off was the cast member discount and the restaurant's policy for cast member discounts is to add an 18% gratuity, no matter what the party size. So this "discount" actually made our bill more expensive. It was cheaper just to pay the bill without the 20% off. Had we known this, we would've eaten at Japan as we originally planned. We only ate at Nine Dragons because of the discount. We don't care for the food there. Anyway, my rant is over. So, those of you who have used the DVC discount on food, do they add an 18% gratuity on to your bill or any other surcharge? Thanks

 

[DVC Mike]

What we didn't know until after our lunch was that this 20% off was the cast member discount and the restaurant's policy for cast member discounts is to add an 18% gratuity, no matter what the party size. So this "discount" actually made our bill more expensive. It was cheaper just to pay the bill without the 20% off.

How could that be? If you typically leave an 18% tip, then you still saved 20%. For it to be cheaper to pay the bill without the 20% off, what sort of tip would you be leaving?

 

[AKLFan3]

How could that be? If you typically leave an 18% tip, then you still saved 20%. For it to be cheaper to pay the bill without the 20% off, what sort of tip would you be leaving?

For lunch, we leave usually leave a 15% tip. It was only 2 of us and we had very small appetizers.

 

[corpcomp]

DVC Mike is correct. If your original bill might have been $100 with a 20% discount you pay $80, plus 18% on the $80 gets you to about $94.40.

Typically you pay 15-20% gratuity which would have been added to the original $100 or at least $115.

You had to have saved money, although it might not have been as much as you wanted.

 

[Chuck S]

Many discount plans are automatically adding the gratuity, including the Disney Dining Experience. In the past, I have had the gratuity added to the 20% DVC discount at some restaurants (who also rang it as a CM discount) and not at others. Either way, as the others have posted, you still save money. I would not be surprised in the future to see gratuity added to all dining discounts of 20% or more at table service and buffets. Remember that DVC discounts do not apply to every meal, they may be limited by time of day, or day of the week, and not every restaurant offers a DVC discount.

The only DVC shopping discounts are at DtD, and change from time to time. The Annual Pass discount of $100 off an adult pass is probably the best DVC discount, along with the tours.

 

[Dean]

As new DVC owners, my family and I are very pleased about using our discount on food, tours and merchandise in the parks. However, are there any "catches" associated with this discount? When we were at WDW in December, we took the Undiscovered Future World tour and were offered a 20% discount off of our lunch at Nine Dragons immediately after the tour. What we didn't know until after our lunch was that this 20% off was the cast member discount and the restaurant's policy for cast member discounts is to add an 18% gratuity, no matter what the party size. So this "discount" actually made our bill more expensive. It was cheaper just to pay the bill without the 20% off. Had we known this, we would've eaten at Japan as we originally planned. We only ate at Nine Dragons because of the discount. We don't care for the food there. Anyway, my rant is over. So, those of you who have used the DVC discount on food, do they add an 18% gratuity on to your bill or any other surcharge? Thanks

The main gotcha's that I can think of are the ones that apply to all discounts, namely that things can change at any time and that there usually are a handful of blackout days. Alcohol is generally not included for DVC or AP discounts. At times there are certain hours or days of the week blackouts for certain dining discounts but not as much as the AP discount I don't think. Going forward it appears Disney may take the approach you complained about earlier, that is adding 18% tip to all discounted meals. While I don't know for certain, I suspect the tip amount can be changed or reduced if one desires for a given reason. Personally I don't really mind if they do, I normally add about 20% or a little more of the non discounted price before tax. The more is dependent on the level of service, intangibles and what we order. Since we tend to be light eaters thus it's not uncommon for us to have a salad or soup each, share and entree and still usually don't get dessert. 18% for us is likely much different than 18% for one who orders a bottle of wine and large meals for each person. We also tend to know what we want so it's no uncommon for us to be in and out of a nice restaurant in 50-60 minutes.

 

[Mtnman44]

Ok, so you were forced to pay 18% tip instead of your normal 15%. This means that for you, that particular 20% discount program actually saved you 17%. This is far from a rant-worthy problem IMHO.

For lunch, we leave usually leave a 15% tip. It was only 2 of us and we had very small appetizers.

 

[MrsNick]

Just a guess, but the addition of a gratuity on discounted meals may be to make sure that the guest tips on the full price of the meal, rather than the discounted price of the meal. Not sure how they came up with the 18% figure, but I'm ok with it, since I'd usually leave about 20% anyway.

 

[haydeecm]

So what happens if you get really crappy service? I would think you should be able to complain and get the tip taken off? I normally leave 10% if service is not good, but i can imagine there might be a time when things merit a 0% tip. I would think when the tip is forced on you, servers are probably more likely to ignore you since they are already getting the same amount.

 

[AKLFan3]

Ok, so you were forced to pay 18% tip instead of your normal 15%. This means that for you, that particular 20% discount program actually saved you 17%. This is far from a rant-worthy problem IMHO.

No, we didn't save any money because as I said above, the 20% "discount" made the bill more expensive because of the 18% tip. We ended up not using the discount at all because why would we pay the extra money? And the reason for my rant is because we expected to save money using the discount, naturally. The only reason why we ate at Nine Dragons in the first place was because of the discount. It wasn't in our plans to eat there since it isn't any better than chinese food we can find in our neighborhood and it is more expensive. I consider myself a Disney veteran, so I'm not complaining about inflated Disney prices, and if we feel the food and service merits a 20% tip, we will leave a 20% tip. (We frequently do at Jiko, and Nine Dragons is not as nice as Jiko). My point is that the discount was not really a discount for what we ordered, and I'm concerned that the DVC discount is exactly like the CM discount.

 

[Dean]

No, we didn't save any money because as I said above, the 20% "discount" made the bill more expensive because of the 18% tip. We ended up not using the discount at all because why would we pay the extra money? And the reason for my rant is because we expected to save money using the discount, naturally. The only reason why we ate at Nine Dragons in the first place was because of the discount. It wasn't in our plans to eat there since it isn't any better than chinese food we can find in our neighborhood and it is more expensive. I consider myself a Disney veteran, so I'm not complaining about inflated Disney prices, and if we feel the food and service merits a 20% tip, we will leave a 20% tip. (We frequently do at Jiko, and Nine Dragons is not as nice as Jiko). My point is that the discount was not really a discount for what we ordered, and I'm concerned that the DVC discount is exactly like the CM discount.

Assuming you would have ordered the same items and left any tip at all, you did save money though maybe not as much as you'd expected. Assuming proper etiquette of tipping on the pre-discount amount, you would have saved 17% total based on your usual 15% tip. Your way a $50 meal plus tip but no discount would have been around $61 with tax. That same meal with the 20% discount and 18% tip would be around $50. There is no way it could cost you money as the tip was smaller than the discount. Even if you would not have tipped otherwise, you would essentially have broken even.

 

[Chuck S]

Yes, full price meal - 20% Disc. + 18% tip has to be less than Full price meal with no discount +15% tip, assuming you are ordering the same meal.

 

[dianeschlicht]

No, we didn't save any money because as I said above, the 20% "discount" made the bill more expensive because of the 18% tip. We ended up not using the discount at all because why would we pay the extra money? And the reason for my rant is because we expected to save money using the discount, naturally. The only reason why we ate at Nine Dragons in the first place was because of the discount. It wasn't in our plans to eat there since it isn't any better than chinese food we can find in our neighborhood and it is more expensive. I consider myself a Disney veteran, so I'm not complaining about inflated Disney prices, and if we feel the food and service merits a 20% tip, we will leave a 20% tip. (We frequently do at Jiko, and Nine Dragons is not as nice as Jiko). My point is that the discount was not really a discount for what we ordered, and I'm concerned that the DVC discount is exactly like the CM discount.

I don't understand how that can be. If you got 20% off and had to tip 18% (tips are always figured on the original price anyway), you still saved over the same order with your own tip added. Not much, but you did save.

 

[AKLFan3]

I don't understand how that can be. If you got 20% off and had to tip 18% (tips are always figured on the original price anyway), you still saved over the same order with your own tip added. Not much, but you did save.

I just checked the receipt and the reason why we didn't save was because we ordered alcoholic beverages. And since the discount wasn't applied to the drinks, just the food, that is why the bill came out more expensive with the discount than without, (which is what we didn't know before we ordered.) I think I read somewhere that the DVC discount doesn't apply to alcoholic drinks either. But my original question was just whether using the DVC discount automatically assigns an 18% tip to the bill.

 

[drusba]

DVC discount may or may not apply to alcholic beverages depending on restaurant. As to adding the tip, the policy is fairly new but basically having a discount card such as DVC, Disney Dining Experience, or AP now means that at sit down restaurants in WDW that take any particular discount card you will have that 18% tip added. That is a a recently created Disney rule not one created by or applicable only to DVC. The policy does not state you have the option to change the tip but I am not sure what they would do if someone asked.

 

[Chuck S]

Cast Member and DVC discounts do not apply to alcoholic beverages. The only discount I am aware of on adult beverages is the DDE discount, and that also will have 18% gratuity automatically added this year.