Segmented Stay Question

[ccjohnson23]

We are going to the World in January and I am trying to see how I should break up our segments for dining. This presented a question, if we have the deluxe plan one day and the regular plan the next day and we go to a resturant (on the regular day)and want to order appetizers will they allow us to get these (we would be using the credit from the deluxe since they do not expire until midnight and we will not use them before this)?

Just wondering how they can seperate these out if you segment with deluxe and reg every other day. thanks!~

 

[rlovew]

I believe you need to get new cards each time you switch dining plans so you would have to know which cards have which plans. I would say with the problems people have on the dining plan split stays there is no way I would switch every other day and risk having an hour a day tied up in getting new cards and straightening things out.

 

[disneynutz]

And Disney still hasn't figured out what they are doing yet.

We were at SSR 3 weeks ago and unknown to us, when we checked in for our last segment, the Front Desk transfered our DDP credits to our new, non DDP KTTW cards.

At dinner we were told that we didn't have any credits left and that the KTTW card that we were giving them was voided. After a couple of phone calls to SSR, we were told to give them the non-DDP card which worked.

Bill

 

[bastraker]

We just went through this at BLT. We were there from 6/29-7/11 with lots of segmenting and lots of problems.

Different CM's will tell you different things, but this is what I learned. When your plans cross over like you stated above(deluxe credits spill into the next day when the next regular dining plan starts), keep both cards and use the original card which has the deluxe dining credits on it and the new card will have the regular plan on it.

You can also just charge things to the room if the cards for your meals dont work and then go to the front desk and they can fix it after the fact.

One other word of advice, call housekeeping and get your schedule straightened out with them if you are due service. We never got the services we were entilited to unless I called and housekeeping was frequentlly knocking on my door telling me that we were checking out when we were not.

Just go into this with lots of patience.

 

[disney ny]

I was so hoping they would get this under control! When I was there in February it was a big pain BUT the savings can be worth it. I just sat down to look at what I wanted to do next summer and it was only $18 more if I segmented one way to end up with 3 more table service credits. That is a lot of savings. The way I was looking at breaking it up is a huge old mess but you know what if they let us do it then they need to figure out how to get us our credits! I would suggest going down early each morning and checking on the credits and straightening out any mistakes- do not wait until you are ready to leave. If you have issues call MS and let them know right then you are having issues. Here is what I am looking at doing:

Day 1: DXDDP
Day 2: QS
Day 3: DXDDP
Day 4: nothing
Day 5: DXDDP
Day 6: QS
Day 7: reg. DDP

They were such pains about it when I was there and the one front desk person told me he doubted they would allow this much longer but you know what? I will go through it again if it means getting more for my money. Just be really on top of what you have and have used and document it and you should be ok.

 

[bastraker]

I was so hoping they would get this under control! When I was there in February it was a big pain BUT the savings can be worth it. I just sat down to look at what I wanted to do next summer and it was only $18 more if I segmented one way to end up with 3 more table service credits. That is a lot of savings. The way I was looking at breaking it up is a huge old mess but you know what if they let us do it then they need to figure out how to get us our credits! I would suggest going down early each morning and checking on the credits and straightening out any mistakes- do not wait until you are ready to leave. If you have issues call MS and let them know right then you are having issues. Here is what I am looking at doing:

Day 1: DXDDP
Day 2: QS
Day 3: DXDDP
Day 4: nothing
Day 5: DXDDP
Day 6: QS
Day 7: reg. DDP

They were such pains about it when I was there and the one front desk person told me he doubted they would allow this much longer but you know what? I will go through it again if it means getting more for my money. Just be really on top of what you have and have used and document it and you should be ok.

You can go down to the front desk as many times as you want, early, late it doesn't matter. It's all about getting a person who knows how to do it right. I had to go down nearly every day and sometimes 2 times a day. We even got locked out of our room one day. Some people will tell you when you get new keys that all the credits are there and to throw out the old keys. Not correct for us. I started keeping all the keys and bringing them with me.

Everytime you go down to get new keys, another person has to "touch" the reservation, the more problems can occur. Problems also occur because check out if 11am so if you go down before 11am and get your new keys, those keys sometimes get locked out after 11am. There were days that we would walk back from MK to BLT to go swimming around 2-3pm and we couldn't get into our room, we were locked out. We had to walk over to CM and get new keys made and one time they even had to cancel the whole resevation and re do it. That took a 1/2 hour.

As I have said in previous posts, if you segmenet your dining, you need to go knowing that there will be problems and have lots of patience.

 

[disneynutz]

I was so hoping they would get this under control! When I was there in February it was a big pain BUT the savings can be worth it. I just sat down to look at what I wanted to do next summer and it was only $18 more if I segmented one way to end up with 3 more table service credits. That is a lot of savings. The way I was looking at breaking it up is a huge old mess but you know what if they let us do it then they need to figure out how to get us our credits! I would suggest going down early each morning and checking on the credits and straightening out any mistakes- do not wait until you are ready to leave. If you have issues call MS and let them know right then you are having issues. Here is what I am looking at doing:

Day 1: DXDDP
Day 2: QS
Day 3: DXDDP
Day 4: nothing
Day 5: DXDDP
Day 6: QS
Day 7: reg. DDP

They were such pains about it when I was there and the one front desk person told me he doubted they would allow this much longer but you know what? I will go through it again if it means getting more for my money. Just be really on top of what you have and have used and document it and you should be OK.

You have to consider how much is your time and aggravation worth and are you at WDW to eat or do other things too.

Disney food is OK but not so great that I have to eat it. We like to eat at a couple of Disney restaurants per visit and having the DXDDP for a couple of nights let us eat well for three nights. The rest of the time we ate in the villa and saved a boatload of money.

Bill

 

[ccjohnson23]

You have to consider how much is your time and aggravation worth and are you at WDW to eat or do other things too.

Disney food is OK but not so great that I have to eat it. We like to eat at a couple of Disney restaurants per visit and having the DXDDP for a couple of nights let us eat well for three nights. The rest of the time we ate in the villa and saved a boatload of money.

Bill

I am all for eating in the villa, but we are now a party of 11 (more might come too). Out of the 11, 7 are children that have never been to Disney. We are going for 2 birthdays and my wife's graduation from college. We know that 5 of 7 will most likely never get to go back unless we take them again. Right now before dining, rooms, tickets, and airline tickets is close to 10K. I need to save as much as possible on food, but want to make sure we allow them to have every possible experience while they are there. We have a Grand Gathering reserved for Illuminations on the Birthday night. We will also be taking only the girls to CRT. I knew the boys didn't need to do this and it saves a bunch of credits. This is how I have it broken down. Please let me know what you think.

1st night - OKW - Deluxe
2nd night - BLT - Regular
3rd & 4th night -BLT - Deluxe
5th-7th night - BLT - Regular

This is how I have meals broken down.
1/7 - Via Napoli
1/8 - Chef Mickeys (switching hotel and will not have food in room from grocery) ; CRT for girls, Liberty Tree Tavern for boys; snacks for lunch because of early dinner
1/9 - breakfast in room, Pizza Planet, Grand Gathering
1/10 - Akreshus - girls only ; boys table breakfast,Les Chefs De France - dinner, room service or QS - if needed to use extra credits due to no lunch
1/11 - Tusker House, Flame Tree/qs , Boma
1/12 - breakfast in room, qs, Whispering Canyon
1/13 - breakfast in room, qs, Ohana
1/14 - breakfast in room, quick service lunch

Ideas on how to change or make it easier would be great, just not more money oop.

 

[ccjohnson23]

We just went through this at BLT. We were there from 6/29-7/11 with lots of segmenting and lots of problems.

Different CM's will tell you different things, but this is what I learned. When your plans cross over like you stated above(deluxe credits spill into the next day when the next regular dining plan starts), keep both cards and use the original card which has the deluxe dining credits on it and the new card will have the regular plan on it.

You can also just charge things to the room if the cards for your meals dont work and then go to the front desk and they can fix it after the fact.

One other word of advice, call housekeeping and get your schedule straightened out with them if you are due service. We never got the services we were entilited to unless I called and housekeeping was frequentlly knocking on my door telling me that we were checking out when we were not.

Just go into this with lots of patience.

Thanks for the info. I hope things are a little better when we go in Jan. We would have to get new keys 2 times if we do this.

 

[ccjohnson23]

And Disney still hasn't figured out what they are doing yet.

We were at SSR 3 weeks ago and unknown to us, when we checked in for our last segment, the Front Desk transfered our DDP credits to our new, non DDP KTTW cards.

At dinner we were told that we didn't have any credits left and that the KTTW card that we were giving them was voided. After a couple of phone calls to SSR, we were told to give them the non-DDP card which worked.

Bill

I hope that does not happen to us. I will be going down in the morning while everyone is getting ready and hopefully will be ready when they are ready. We can always hope.

 

[disneynutz]

I am all for eating in the villa, but we are now a party of 11 (more might come too). Out of the 11, 7 are children that have never been to Disney. We are going for 2 birthdays and my wife's graduation from college. We know that 5 of 7 will most likely never get to go back unless we take them again. Right now before dining, rooms, tickets, and airline tickets is close to 10K. I need to save as much as possible on food, but want to make sure we allow them to have every possible experience while they are there. We have a Grand Gathering reserved for Illuminations on the Birthday night. We will also be taking only the girls to CRT. I knew the boys didn't need to do this and it saves a bunch of credits. This is how I have it broken down. Please let me know what you think.

1st night - OKW - Deluxe
2nd night - BLT - Regular
3rd & 4th night -BLT - Deluxe
5th-7th night - BLT - Regular

This is how I have meals broken down.
1/7 - Via Napoli
1/8 - Chef Mickeys (switching hotel and will not have food in room from grocery) ; CRT for girls, Liberty Tree Tavern for boys; snacks for lunch because of early dinner
1/9 - breakfast in room, Pizza Planet, Grand Gathering
1/10 - Akreshus - girls only ; boys table breakfast,Les Chefs De France - dinner, room service or QS - if needed to use extra credits due to no lunch
1/11 - Tusker House, Flame Tree/qs , Boma
1/12 - breakfast in room, qs, Whispering Canyon
1/13 - breakfast in room, qs, Ohana
1/14 - breakfast in room, quick service lunch

Ideas on how to change or make it easier would be great, just not more money oop.

I think that you may be making the same mistake that we have made in the past. You are bound and determined to show everyone a great time based on your feelings and ideas, not theirs. Doing too much and having everyone stay in a group, eating where you want them to eat, when you want them to eat can cause conflicts and hurt feelings. How are they going to respond when and if the credits get screwed up or the room keys don't work? Just keeping track of the credits will be a challenge. Since most have never been to Disney, I would think that for the younger folks, the attractions would be more important than eating and I doubt that they will complain when they don't know what to complain about.

I remember a post from a few years ago where a large group was on the DDP. The Uncle had several meals each day because Disney let him, not knowing that he was using other peoples credits from the group. They didn't realize what he had done until they went to use the credits for a large expensive meal, only to find out that he had been buying hamburgers with TS credits.

Bill

 

[ccjohnson23]

I think that you may be making the same mistake that we have made in the past. You are bound and determined to show everyone a great time based on your feelings and ideas, not theirs. Doing too much and having everyone stay in a group, eating where you want them to eat, when you want them to eat can cause conflicts and hurt feelings. How are they going to respond when and if the credits get screwed up or the room keys don't work? Just keeping track of the credits will be a challenge. Since most have never been to Disney, I would think that for the younger folks, the attractions would be more important than eating and I doubt that they will complain when they don't know what to complain about.

I remember a post from a few years ago where a large group was on the DDP. The Uncle had several meals each day because Disney let him, not knowing that he was using other peoples credits from the group. They didn't realize what he had done until they went to use the credits for a large expensive meal, only to find out that he had been buying hamburgers with TS credits.

Bill

IThanks for that info. I don't think we will have too much of a problem though. Many of the people going ae younger children that will not be able to use credits without us knowing. Each day everyone will have a list of what they can use that dy and if they do it early or late it doesn't matter. Nothing is set for our last day so what ever is left (because someone didn't use something one day) will be used and oop if needed.

 

[sixisenough]

I just called DVC and segmented our stay while we are at OKW starting on Saturday and have 2 rooms total of 12 people. I think it should work out ok. The CM I had on phone was wonderful and helpful, but it did take around 40 minutes to complete.
Here is plan we are doing:
Day1: Arrive late so No plan
Day2: Deluxe
Day3: No plan
Day4: Deluxe
DAy5: Deluxe
Day6: No plan
Day7eluxe

Hoping for no trouble, but prepared to check in at desk daily, since We are staying in the HH area, and only are doing waterparks and Epcot this trip. My only concern is that this doesnt stress out the other part of our family that is going.
I am most excited this allows us to skip the counter service meals and do a couple of Sig dinners and not leave being stuffed!!! WE did Deluxe over Christmas time and it was just way too much food!!
I will let you all know how this turns out, i am just sooo ready to get to OKW and relax

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

I just called DVC and segmented our stay while we are at OKW starting on Saturday and have 2 rooms total of 12 people. I think it should work out ok. The CM I had on phone was wonderful and helpful, but it did take around 40 minutes to complete.
Here is plan we are doing:
Day1: Arrive late so No plan
Day2: Deluxe
Day3: No plan
Day4: Deluxe
DAy5: Deluxe
Day6: No plan
Day7eluxe

Hoping for no trouble, but prepared to check in at desk daily, since We are staying in the HH area, and only are doing waterparks and Epcot this trip. My only concern is that this doesnt stress out the other part of our family that is going.
I am most excited this allows us to skip the counter service meals and do a couple of Sig dinners and not leave being stuffed!!! WE did Deluxe over Christmas time and it was just way too much food!!
I will let you all know how this turns out, i am just sooo ready to get to OKW and relax

I think that OKW is one of the resorts that does have this under control. I was there on a segmented stay last month and did not have to check out and check back in. Our original keys worked for the duration of the trip. I hope you have as good of luck as I did!