Upgrading DDP at resort

[samcrawford01]

Hi all,

Following my first trip to Disney World in March this year, which was mind blowing even at the age of 27 ... my husband and I have just booked next year's big kids' holiday for April 2015.

This time, we have opted for a resort where you get the free QS dining plan. Whilst we have figured out that we can upgrade the dining plan to include TS meals, we have a couple of odd questions:

* Can we upgrade the dining when we get to the resort, and will it be the same price?
* If we can upgrade at resort, how does this work? Can we add it to our room bill, and then pay for it using our free Disney Gift Card?
* If yes to the above, can we upgrade part way through the stay? E.g. 8 night trip, could we go reception on the 4th day and just upgrade for the remaining days?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[TDC Nala]

You can't do it at the resort. The deadlines for adding or upgrading a dining plan are 72 hours prior to arrival for a package reservation and 48 hours prior to arrival for a DVC reservation.

Even if you upgrade ahead of time, you cannot do a partial upgrade. You must upgrade the plan for your entire stay, or for none of it.

 

[samcrawford01]

Thanks TDC Nala.

Here's another one then ... am I correct in saying that you can check in online before you get there? I was tempted to do that this year but didn't want to do it wrong so waited until we arrived! Could I check in a week before (or whenever it opens) and then charge the upgrade to my room ... and then pay using gift card?

 

[TDC Nala]

You can check in several weeks before. This is just to speed the process upon arrival (although it doesn't always).

You cannot charge anything to your room account until after you arrive at the resort and check in physically.

If you want to upgrade your dining plan, you will need to call the WDW reservation line and do the upgrade. If you are within 45 days of arrival you will need to pay for the upgrade as soon as you add it. If you are within 2 weeks of arrival you will probably have to pay $15 for making any changes to your package. (This is if you have a package. If you have DVC you have to call Member Services for the upgrade no later than 2 days before arrival and pay for it as soon as you add it, no fees though)

If you are getting a free gift card from Disney as a bonus for making a package reservation, you will not receive the gift card until you physically check in, so you cannot use it to pay for the dining plan.

I have never heard of a free gift card being offered in conjunction with free dining, so this must either be a discount I've never heard of, or you are from Britain.

 

[samcrawford01]

Thanks again. Yep, from Britain. Had free dining and gift card this year too, think we managed to get back based on when we booked. We used the gift card to pay for all tips for all 4 people on the table service dining plan and still had a bit left over

Now to decide whether to upgrade or not!

 

[TDC Nala]

I think the rules in Britain are the same but you might want to try asking on the UK board. Pretty sure you can't do anything about adding or upgrading once you get there but I don't have any idea when they would give you the gift card.

 

[samcrawford01]

We had to go to Downtown Disney to collect the gift card, but we were still able to pay off the room bill using the card as long as things hadn't already been charged to our credit card.

 

[samcrawford01]

Oooh final question regarding dining ... for now ... we are currently a party of 2 and we are more than likely to add another 2 to the trip before we go. We did that this year and just called up and they received the dining plan etc which we were on and just had to pay for park tickets.

Question: is there any way to kind of split the dining plan up into 2 or 4 allowances, so that for example the other 2 people couldn't use more than half of their share of dining allowances if we ate separately? E.g. could we have my husband and me on 1 allocation and the other 2 people on a separate allocation? I remember when we checked in that we could provide more than 1 credit card for the room, and if we wanted ,could have a different pin for each, so could you do this for dining?

 

[vicki_c]

Oooh final question regarding dining ... for now ... we are currently a party of 2 and we are more than likely to add another 2 to the trip before we go. We did that this year and just called up and they received the dining plan etc which we were on and just had to pay for park tickets.

Question: is there any way to kind of split the dining plan up into 2 or 4 allowances, so that for example the other 2 people couldn't use more than half of their share of dining allowances if we ate separately? E.g. could we have my husband and me on 1 allocation and the other 2 people on a separate allocation? I remember when we checked in that we could provide more than 1 credit card for the room, and if we wanted ,could have a different pin for each, so could you do this for dining?

No, if you're all in one room, the credits will be pooled. You'll have to keep track yourself and work on the honor system.

 

[mgsquared]

Uhm. I'm in Austria, how are you getting the free dining AND a gift card? Are you booking through a certain place? I'd love to know!
Sorry to be a post hijacker. Curiosity is killing this cat.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

There are special discounts for residents of Great Britain that don't apply to residents of other European countries.

 

[samcrawford01]

Ahh, didn't realise that GB got extra discounts. I just went through disneyworld.disney.go.com It must be a British site / have a British element as we paid in GBP£ as well.