Regular dining plan and paid for Luau??

[phoebesmommy]

Upgraded from QS to Regular dining plan in November. I paid in advance for my daughter and I to do breakfast at castle and for our family of 5 to do the Luau, best seats, for like $260.00 (because I didn't want to use our sit down meal credits up) I'm now wondering if this was not the best choice- if it would be cheaper to upgrade to deluxe dining. But if I did that, could I get refunded the money I just spent and pay for it with my dining plan?

 

[Cafeen]

I wouldn't upgrade to DxDDP just for the Luau, as you'd likely be spending much, much more for the upgrade than the Luau tickets. Also, DxDDP follows the same rules as far as Category and seating that DDP does, so your current choice may not even work with the plan. (I don't know how Luau seating works, mind you )

Unless you want the deluxe experience (doing mostly 2 TS per day, many 2 credit meals, 3 courses at each meal), then I'd keep with what you got now.

If you DO decide to upgrade, they can refund your card when you pick up tickets. Do note that this may take a few days to show up (up to a billing cycle is what they usually say). Also note that while some have had success in switching from OOP to DDP beforehand, it's rare and most would have to cancel/rebook in order for it to work right, which leaves the possibility of losing the reservation in the first place.

 

[brymolmom]

What are the rest of your reservations? Have you done regular DP or deluxe before? How many in your family?

The reason I ask is that we've done the regular dining plan several times and it is a LOT of food (especially since we have 4 people in our family and we frequently split 2 - 3 meals).

We actually get sick of eating big meals after about the 4th or 5th day. So I intentionally schedule 1 two-credit meal during our trip so that we don't have as many huge meals. For the day that we are 'missing' a table service - we just eat lighter fare at CS places...again sharing meals frequently to give us 'extra' credits to use on the day with no TS.

Works out great - we never pay OOP for anything and we're not as stuffed as we would have been otherwise.

So my advice would be to use credits to pay for that meal (not sure if you can get it back - but I would try) and then just schedule enough other TS meals to use up your TS credits. Not pay OOP for any.

 

[TDC Nala]

They say you can't get Category 1 seating at the Luau if you are paying with dining credits. I don't know what they do about this if you have already booked and then switch to dining credits. They might move you down to Category 2 or 3.

 

[phoebesmommy]

Thanks for the help! When I looked at it more closely it did not make financial sense to do the deluxe. I'm just going to stick with the regular and pay for the luau.