Wedding and Dining Plan

[Allisonjane]

We booked our holiday for September when they were offering the free dining plan, we were told we couldn't book the wedding until 8 months before. Now we are about to book our wedding we have been told we cant have the dining plan and a wedding on the same booking, has anyone else experienced this?

 

[Malibelle]

We were told in order to even get the dining plan, free or not you would have to book a Magic Yourway trip( room, tickets and dining) outside of the wedding discounts. THey can still count towards your room block but you would have to give them the reservation #. If you want the room discounts from the wedding you can not get the dining plan and you have to purchase park tickets separately.

 

[Summer-Caitlin]

I don't understand this I booked my wedding through Disney 11 months before and I am on free Dining. Who did you go with? I booked through Going Places.

 

[Allisonjane]

I booked through cosmos, i have booked a package at the pop century for 14 nights with park passes and dining plan. I am trying to book my wedding through cosmos too but they have said disney wont let them add the wedding to our booking cos of the free dining plan

 

[Allisonjane]

Caitlin did you book your wedding with a travel agent or direct with disney?

 

[Summer-Caitlin]

I booked my Wedding direct through Disney, I preferred to do it this way, cause as you have stated the TA has restrictions to what you can and can't do, plus you cut out the middle man if you book it direct through Disney!

 

[Maggimus]

We used AAA... but we booked our Wedding and our Stay as two completely seperate transactions.

We booked our wedding through DFTW (The wedding was around $3,000 plus the characters... all paid directly through our WC).

We then went through AAA and booked our stay-- we booked the hotel, the tickets, and the dining plan.

No one should turn you down for the dining plan-- that doesnt make since. As long as you are staying on property and purchasing park tickets-- I dont know why you couldnt. I would ask again if they can finangle it so that you can get the dining (when theres a will-- theres a way).

I know you arent doing a custom wedding so the room block part does not apply to you.

 

[Allisonjane]

At the moment cosmos are looking into it and will get back to me, but if i have no luck will have to try and book direct, i was just a little nervous of doing this, thought it would be easier to have a point of contact in the UK. If you book direct do you still get the same package? and can you do it all over the phone?

 

[Laurafoster]

I would personally book direct with Disney - especially at the moment with the great exchange rate! Disney are great to work with!

 

[balatonbabe]

So what I'm hearing is that my plans for getting the wedding discount for the room block are useless, as I was going to recommend the DDP to my 40-80 guests for my custom wedding? Should I just recommend MYW bookings to all of my guests? What about grand gatherings - no DDP then either? And what about my DF and 2 DDs - we book MYW for the DDP too?

Ahhhhh....I need help!

 

[disprincessatheart]

For custom weddings, if you use the room discount, you cannot get the dining plan. Many guests may have alternate discount options (AAA or a good travel agent) and they can book those discounts with the Dining Plan. My EM said that they're trying to get the rule changed but for now, it's one or the other, not both. We're doing the DDE discount card and using the 30% discount on our room - we'll save more money overall this way anyway.

 

[shaun&miranda]

I'm a UK bride, and dealing with DFTW is great - even from over here! I have been really impressed with their service.

Email is essential due to time difference, but phone calls are very reasonable if you have a good phone package. I think we have only spoken to our co-ordinator once by phone - all other communication is by email, and when we went over to WDW in December we had a planning meeting.

I was advised by friends who had married abroad that all the travel agent really does is take your details then phone Disney Weddings and tell them exactly what you told the travel agent! Just cut out the middle man and you will get quicker answers and a really helpful person to deal with at Disney rather than the UK travel agent who will just tell you what (as they see it) "Can't be done"

Miranda

 

[balatonbabe]

We were told in order to even get the dining plan, free or not you would have to book a Magic Yourway trip( room, tickets and dining) outside of the wedding discounts. THey can still count towards your room block but you would have to give them the reservation #. If you want the room discounts from the wedding you can not get the dining plan and you have to purchase park tickets separately.

Malibelle, I don't understand how this is added to the room block? Are you saying that a) we set up a room block, b) we and our guests book MYW, c) then give the room reservations #'s to be applied against the room block?

 

[Allisonjane]

Im even more confused now, im guessing the room block discounts apply to custom weddings because i've never heard about it before, mine will be an intimate with only 7 of us. Im also worried because i've requested sunset pointe for my september wedding and several threads on here say that location is only available october to march, my travel agent isnt aware of that either

 

[disprincessatheart]

Yes, the room discount is only for custom weddings. I don't know about the location issue.

 

[SRUAlmn]

For custom weddings, if you use the room discount, you cannot get the dining plan. Many guests may have alternate discount options (AAA or a good travel agent) and they can book those discounts with the Dining Plan. My EM said that they're trying to get the rule changed but for now, it's one or the other, not both. We're doing the DDE discount card and using the 30% discount on our room - we'll save more money overall this way anyway.

This just came as a total shock to me and I am so bummed!!! I'm afraid if we switch to a AAA or AP discount we aren't going to get a room because everything is booked now! I was wondering where you got your 30% room discount. Does the DDE have a room discount option? Thanks!

 

[lurkyloo]

Hi SRUAlmn!

I saw your other post about getting hassled over adding the dining plan to your wedding-discounted room reservation, so I have to chime in.

I think you should do like the poster you quoted and keep your 30% wedding discount on the Contemporary rooms and just use the Disney Dining Experience card to get a discount on all your meals (instead of buying the dining plan). You can buy the card if you are an AP holder (which you will be cuz you're having a Custom, right?) and use it at all the table-service restaurants in WDW for 25% off meals AND drinks (this is a big selling point for some people).

That way you don't risk messing up your hard-to-come-by Contemporary room reservation and still save as much money as on the Dining Plan - or more. A lot of people feel DDE is a better deal than the DP because you are not limited as to how many and which kind (table service/counter service) of meal you eat.

Sorry to go on so long, but I have done a TON of research on this for my upcoming trip...

 

[SRUAlmn]

Hi SRUAlmn!

I saw your other post about getting hassled over adding the dining plan to your wedding-discounted room reservation, so I have to chime in.

I think you should do like the poster you quoted and keep your 30% wedding discount on the Contemporary rooms and just use the Disney Dining Experience card to get a discount on all your meals (instead of buying the dining plan). You can buy the card if you are an AP holder (which you will be cuz you're having a Custom, right?) and use it at all the table-service restaurants in WDW for 25% off meals AND drinks (this is a big selling point for some people).

That way you don't risk messing up your hard-to-come-by Contemporary room reservation and still save as much money as on the Dining Plan - or more. A lot of people feel DDE is a better deal than the DP because you are not limited as to how many and which kind (table service/counter service) of meal you eat.

Sorry to go on so long, but I have done a TON of research on this for my upcoming trip...

Thanks! I'm glad you've done a ton of research too! We have been back and forth about it because when we did our research and listed what we would eat, the DDP came out to be about $200 less than the DDE would be. However, what we have been indecisive about is whether or not we would eat that much food each day. We already have the DDE, so I guess we might as well use it and save ourselves the hassle of changing all of this and messing something up inadvertently. The last thing I need 2 days before the wedding is to find out we don't have a room because I mixed something up!

We just wanted to be able to go to a bunch of nice restaurants and choose what we wanted and enjoy our honeymoon, rather than feeling like we should just order whatever is the cheapest. I guess my motives are a little selfish because my DF is SUCH a budgeter that this is what he will do- order whatever is cheap, or suggest we share things, or say no dessert because it costs too much. If we had the DDP, it would already be paid for and he would be ok with whatever we ordered

 

[disprincessatheart]

the 30% off is the custom wedding discount for the last week in April this year for the GF. I think it's the same for all deluxe hotels that week. If you're booked at the contemporary for your wedding then you already got the max discount they offer that time of year.

A note on the DDP from my perspective. We got the free DDP this fall when we went down for our planning trip. We timed the trip to get the DDP free so we could test it out. We found that we ate a lot more than we would on a normal trip. Usually we eat mostly CS and then do one or two sit down meals for a week at Disney. We also usually go off property for a sit down meal somewhere less expensive. We found that we spent a lot of time waiting for our reservations and working around all the meals with the DDP. We had 4 adults that love to eat and we all thought it was too much food and too many sit downs for a regular week of vacation. Once we found out that we couldn't get it with our discounts, we were sort of relieved not to have to go through the hassle.

Additionally, we figured that we're arriving late sunday, doing a rehearsal dinner on Monday, all day Tuesday is tied up with the wedding, so by the time we're past weddign meals, we really won't use all that comes with the DDP. With the DDE we get discounts on meals that fit our schedule, instead of doing meals just because we got them.

Just my 2 cents!