which club level is the best?

[Disneyfreak616]

My vote is Yacht Club. Club level there was like a dream.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

Also, the big very expensive suites don't come up (for booking) on the website either. I'm talking about the big multi-bedroom individually named suites that are often the top floor of the deluxe resorts. (as opposed to the DVC suites) If you are asking which are the very best rooms, those are better then the regualr concierge level rooms. If you want to stay in one of those however, you have to be prepared to shell out over $1000 per night. I think they are all club level though!

I need to correct myself here...the OLD website never listed the big suites. the new Disney website lists some of them. I was very surprised!

Then again, the new website seems to be all about upselling! Good idea to take advantage of the club level now. If they sucessful in upselling it, it will become more popular, less available, and more pricey.

Feel free to vacation as you wish, but feel I should warn you, the club level combined with regular DDP is FAR more food than my family could eat, unless maybe we were going to use a substantial number of the credits for room service.

You mention a PIN code, so maybe you are getting a deal that makes it worthwhile. When I have priced out the reguar DDP for 2013, it doesn't save any money. Plus, it was just WAY too much food for us with club level. I haven't priced out the deluxe plan, but I can't imagine it is a good deal.

The other thing...and again, you may have very different ways of vacationing than I do, but most TS meals easily take 1 1/2 - 2 hours, between the time you arrive and when you leave. (since so often you have to wait for your table). Then you need to add in transportation time. One TS is nice, three means spending six hours a day in restaurants.

The CL at AKL had a beautiful view, and the food there was very good. The CL lounge there also has a bathroom. (Not all of them do) It's especially helpful on arrival and departure days, when you don't always have access to your room. Enjoy your vacation!

 

[loveshak22]

I need to correct myself here...the OLD website never listed the big suites. the new Disney website lists some of them. I was very surprised!

Then again, the new website seems to be all about upselling! Good idea to take advantage of the club level now. If they sucessful in upselling it, it will become more popular, less available, and more pricey.

Feel free to vacation as you wish, but feel I should warn you, the club level combined with regular DDP is FAR more food than my family could eat, unless maybe we were going to use a substantial number of the credits for room service.

You mention a PIN code, so maybe you are getting a deal that makes it worthwhile. When I have priced out the reguar DDP for 2013, it doesn't save any money. Plus, it was just WAY too much food for us with club level. I haven't priced out the deluxe plan, but I can't imagine it is a good deal.

The other thing...and again, you may have very different ways of vacationing than I do, but most TS meals easily take 1 1/2 - 2 hours, between the time you arrive and when you leave. (since so often you have to wait for your table). Then you need to add in transportation time. One TS is nice, three means spending six hours a day in restaurants.

The CL at AKL had a beautiful view, and the food there was very good. The CL lounge there also has a bathroom. (Not all of them do) It's especially helpful on arrival and departure days, when you don't always have access to your room. Enjoy your vacation!

Since I upgraded to the CL I have been deciding whether I should cancel the dxddp and just pay OOP. Like you point out, it seems like a lot of food! When I did the math, planning on about what I thought we'd order for meals the dxddp and the OOP costs were about even (we're eating at a signature restaurant every night) so I figured with the dxddp the snack credits were the "freebies" for us. It's not much but it was a little something. Plus on the DV we get 6 months 0% financing plus the 2% Disney Rewards made it more do-able. I didn't think we'd need the 0% financing but then we had some major car repairs so the 0% financing makes paying off the trip a little easier. Even though we could pay it all off now, with the car repairs, it'd make it a little tight without dipping into savings and I try to avoid that at all costs!

The basic plan is to do a quick breakfast at the CL lounge around 8:30 or 9:00 and head out for the day. Then we have a sit down TS lunch around 1:00 and then dinner between 7:30 - 8:30, depending on the day. It's just my DH and me and we're going at the end of January so I think we'll be able to get around the parks pretty quickly. We don't have hoppers and won't be going back and forth to the hotel in the afternoons so I think the timing will be O.K. Then after dinner I hope we get back in time to hit the CL lounge for some adult beverages before bed. And with the CL we'll stock up on bottled water for the park.

That's probably TMI but I figured I'd lay out sort of what we're looking at. I told my husband last night that this is the first time we're doing dxddp and we may never want to do it again because of all the food but we'll see! We're big eaters but even so, it still seems like a ton of food! I'm really hoping the signature restaurants have smaller, but high quality, portions!

In the end I paid $180 extra for 5 nights in a CL room. I'm hoping the few breakfasts, waters, and alcoholic beverages at night make up for that extra cost and then we'll get the other CL experiences to see if it's worth it for us in the future or not.

We get to AKL in 15 days...so excited!!

 

[mickeyluv'r]

Since I upgraded to the CL I have been deciding whether I should cancel the dxddp and just pay OOP. Like you point out, it seems like a lot of food! When I did the math, planning on about what I thought we'd order for meals the dxddp and the OOP costs were about even (we're eating at a signature restaurant every night) so I figured with the dxddp the snack credits were the "freebies" for us. It's not much but it was a little something. Plus on the DV we get 6 months 0% financing plus the 2% Disney Rewards made it more do-able. I didn't think we'd need the 0% financing but then we had some major car repairs so the 0% financing makes paying off the trip a little easier. Even though we could pay it all off now, with the car repairs, it'd make it a little tight without dipping into savings and I try to avoid that at all costs!

The basic plan is to do a quick breakfast at the CL lounge around 8:30 or 9:00 and head out for the day. Then we have a sit down TS lunch around 1:00 and then dinner between 7:30 - 8:30, depending on the day. It's just my DH and me and we're going at the end of January so I think we'll be able to get around the parks pretty quickly. We don't have hoppers and won't be going back and forth to the hotel in the afternoons so I think the timing will be O.K. Then after dinner I hope we get back in time to hit the CL lounge for some adult beverages before bed. And with the CL we'll stock up on bottled water for the park.

That's probably TMI but I figured I'd lay out sort of what we're looking at. I told my husband last night that this is the first time we're doing dxddp and we may never want to do it again because of all the food but we'll see! We're big eaters but even so, it still seems like a ton of food! I'm really hoping the signature restaurants have smaller, but high quality, portions!

In the end I paid $180 extra for 5 nights in a CL room. I'm hoping the few breakfasts, waters, and alcoholic beverages at night make up for that extra cost and then we'll get the other CL experiences to see if it's worth it for us in the future or not.

We get to AKL in 15 days...so excited!!

I know for us, by about day four, my family is begging to avoid buffets!

It make s a BIG difference if you are eating Signature meals! Signature is a bit like room service! (in terms of value) It sounds like you know what you are doing, especially in terms of thinking through the value/prices.

I think you will see a difference between the signature places and the regular TS. One of my favorite signatures is Narcoosee's.

Enjoy!