Surprised and disappointed

[ellynsoh]

I booked two nights at Movies through CheapTickets. Disney told me to contact Cheap Tickets to add the dining plan. Cheap Tickets tells me I cannot add a dining plan, even though I was well aware I would need to pay for it. If I had known this, I would have booked directly with Disney. I thought I was a fairly savvy Disney consumer, but I never expected this.

 

[momto3pirates]

You must book directly through Disney to add the dining plan. It’s always been this way.

 

[eeyoresmom]

You must book directly through Disney to add the dining plan. It’s always been this way.

I have booked the dining plan through Orbitz several times, although not recently. Orbitz will show the dining plan as included in the room rate, so not really an add on.

 

[Brett Wyman]

Can you cancel with cheap tickets?

 

[ellynsoh]

I can cancel, but the Disney price is now very high. I'll just get grocery delivery and save money. Lesson learned.

 

[Miffy]

OP, unless you were planning on eating a lot of character meals/buffets, the dining plan probably wouldn't've saved you any money anyway. I never use it and always spend far far less than it would've cost. So, relax! Everything is fine. Sounds like you got a good price on the room, which is a much better savings.

 

[ellynsoh]

OP, unless you were planning on eating a lot of character meals/buffets, the dining plan probably wouldn't've saved you any money anyway. I never use it and always spend far far less than it would've cost. So, relax! Everything is fine. Sounds like you got a good price on the room, which is a much better savings.

Thanks! That's what I've been thinking as well.

 

[bluezy]

OP, unless you were planning on eating a lot of character meals/buffets, the dining plan probably wouldn't've saved you any money anyway. I never use it and always spend far far less than it would've cost. So, relax! Everything is fine. Sounds like you got a good price on the room, which is a much better savings.

Completely agree with this!!! We've used the dining plan twice (out of our last 8 trips) -- both times it was "free" and provided a bigger discount than the room/package discount available at the time. I keep track of all of our dining/snacking expenses on our trips and we've always spent less on food by paying OOP than a dining plan would have cost us. This is mostly due to the fact that we don't specifically eat the way a dining plan dictates. Sometimes we prefer to do apps and dessert rather than a meal. Sometimes I just want a kids meal portion. Sometimes we order 3 or 4 entrees to split between 5 or 6 people because we're not starving and we want to try a bunch of things. We also prefer to not be tied to ADRs so we typically eat mostly counter service meals with a few TS meals throughout the week. We eat what we want, when we want, where we want without trying to save money and we still come out ahead (and we buy all of our snacks/drinks in the parks.) I say just take the money you were going to spend on the dining plan and put that towards your food expenses (you could even put it all on gift cards to use while you're there). I'll bet you'll still have money left over at the end of your trip (unless you were planning to do a lot of character meals or other 2 credit meals).