Upgrade costs for dining plans 2013

[qder123]

Thanks for the information!

[Portapoose]

The biggest cost savings advantage that I see to the DxDP would be to eat at the Signature Restaurants instead of the TS. It gives you an opportunity to eat at the higher end when you normally might not. Although if you have small children, I don't see any advantage

[KimberlyE]

Glad to see a polite discussion on this topic - other threads get very snarky and heated! I do think that upgrading to deluxe depends on how you want to vacation, whether it's peak season or not, length of stay and what resort you select.

We are a family of 4 with 2 adults, a 6 year old and a baby. We always stay at Pop and usually have 4-5 park days. We always travel during FD and upgrade to deluxe for a variety of reasons:

1. New eating experiences is a major component to my husband's vacation strategy. He really enjoys trying new places and new foods. Half of his Disney excitement is dining so he wants unrestricted dining options.

2. My son and I are huge fans of character meals. We do a character breakfast every morning of our Disney trips. My husband tolerates these as he is not fond of buffets. So we automatically need at least 2 TS meals a day.

3. When looking at dining, I try to consider some QS dining plans but when I look at the menus, I just can't get over spending that much for everyday foods without table service . Example: @$15 for a meal of a pizza, salad, drink and dessert at Pizza Planet and for @$10 more I can get a salad, flatbread entree, and truffle cake. I know that's silly since it's covered under the FD plan but I would rather go to Mama Melrose's and get a lot more for my meal.

Note: Not all TS are what they are cracked up to be. We were impressed by the atmosphere and service at one but the food wasn't on par. And on the tip side, I've been reading some rave reviews of some QS places and have added those to my list of "future dining options".

4. If we were to pay OOP for our meals we would incur huge costs for 3 TS meals a day. It would prohibit us from enjoying our version of a Disney vacation. The charge for rooms at Pop is low enough per night that the % off without FD isn't going to cover our meals if we dined OOP with 3 TS meals a day.

5. We like not having to worry about meal costs unless we want an alcoholic beverage. We figure in our tips and budget that on our KTTK account. It isn't difficult to keep up with our credits because we get ADR's for every meal ahead of time. But it is easier with us because we are together for every meal and we don't do snacks normally (have to get a Mickey bar and a Dole Whip at least once, right). I'm sure when we have teenagers who roam on their own throughout WDW, we may have a different approach with tracking credits.

I can't give exact figures on amount saved because I don't know what the OOP would be for each meal but I will keep track this next trip and report back. I know that we did keep track on our last trip and our savings outweighed our upgrade costs significantly (looking for that info but can't find it). But again, that's because we would have done 3 TS meals everyday anyway.

While Deluxe dining works for us and is worth the upgrade cost it still has drawbacks. Yes, we do sometimes leave food (not often as my son is a major foodie and detests the blandness and lack of selection in the kid's offerings so he usually eats some of our entree's) but by foregoing snacks, we are usually don't leave much. We stockpile our snack credits and use them to buy a picnic lunch from Earl of Sandwich (we drive down to WDW) for our trip home. The rest go to the Goofy Candy Store - we love enjoying treats from WDW for weeks to come.

I will say that if we upgraded resorts or really increased the length of our stay, we might change strategies.

[Poohs100AcreWood]

Quick question, as I looked through this thread and couldn't find the answer.

I got the free dining plan promo, but I have several TS meals booked, so I figured I would save money by upgrading to the regular plan. If I call to upgrade, is the balance due on the spot, or would they add it to my balance of the package? I have almost 6 months until my vacation, but can only afford small payments at a time.

Thanks for any help!

[KarlaG4Kids]

Originally Posted by Poohs100AcreWood

Quick question, as I looked through this thread and couldn't find the answer.

I got the free dining plan promo, but I have several TS meals booked, so I figured I would save money by upgrading to the regular plan. If I call to upgrade, is the balance due on the spot, or would they add it to my balance of the package? I have almost 6 months until my vacation, but can only afford small payments at a time.

Thanks for any help!

If you have plenty of time before your balance is due, I believe they will just add it to your balance due. It is worth it, especially if you plan to eat a few TS or character meals.

[StuckInKS]

Originally Posted by Portapoose

The biggest cost savings advantage that I see to the DxDP would be to eat at the Signature Restaurants instead of the TS. It gives you an opportunity to eat at the higher end when you normally might not. Although if you have small children, I don't see any advantage

Really? The DxDDP would cost us $266 per day. Just a Chef Mickey's breakfast sets us back $156. Then we get 12 snacks. That's another $50 or so. That leaves $60 for TWO meals. Even if they were both CS, we would still come out ahead; however, we could use those two credits to do CRT for dinner, which costs us $290. So, a $290 dinner for $61. OR you could look at it as $266 for a $290 meal, 12 free snacks AND a free Chef Mickeys breakfast. Either way, looks good to me

[Poohs100AcreWood]

Originally Posted by KarlaG4Kids

If you have plenty of time before your balance is due, I believe they will just add it to your balance due. It is worth it, especially if you plan to eat a few TS or character meals.

Thanks for the reply. I'll try giving them a call tomorrow and see what they say.

[disneyfreak7]

If free dining is booked at a value resort. Can I pay the upgrade to go from Quick dining to dining plan?

[Cafeen]

Originally Posted by disneyfreak7

If free dining is booked at a value resort. Can I pay the upgrade to go from Quick dining to dining plan?

Absolutely. You will just have to pay the difference between the QSDP and the DDP which is described on the first page of this thread. (Note: the Free Dining promotion occurs during non-peak season, so you can use those numbers)

[disneyfreak7]

Originally Posted by Cafeen

Absolutely. You will just have to pay the difference between the QSDP and the DDP which is described on the first page of this thread. (Note: the Free Dining promotion occurs during non-peak season, so you can use those numbers)

We are hoping for FD four our Dec trip and are hoping to start our vacation on the very last day FD is offered. So that means our trip would go into peak season. so would we then have to pay the peak prices later in our trip?

[Minnie39]

Hi there can anybody help?

We are a family of 4 (2 adults, DS 12 & DD 8) coming to WDW in August for 18 nights. We booked with virgin Holidays and got free dining QSDP. We've enquired about upgrading to DDP to be told that it will cost us £3000+!!! We only want to upgrade not buy another package!!!

Can we upgrade when we get there? We're staying at Port Orleans Riverside.

Many thanks

[IrisSphere]

I am wondering if anyone ever did the calculation on the extra tip that you would need to pay if you upgrade to the deluxe plan? I know it's all subjective, but wondering if there is even a ballpark floating around somewhere?

I can of course estimate based on the places we would like to eat at, but wondering if people ever considered this in the "upgrade" costs.

Thanks!

[TDC Nala]

Originally Posted by IrisSphere

I am wondering if anyone ever did the calculation on the extra tip that you would need to pay if you upgrade to the deluxe plan? I know it's all subjective, but wondering if there is even a ballpark floating around somewhere?

I can of course estimate based on the places we would like to eat at, but wondering if people ever considered this in the "upgrade" costs.

Thanks!

Tipping discussion is not permitted on the Restaurant boards. Here is the Tipping Information Thread:

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2300858

Although discussion of personal tipping habits is not permitted on this thread either, and asking how much other people tip might fall into that category.

[IrisSphere]

A debate on tipping was not really the point of my question. But thanks anyway.

[TDC Nala]

Originally Posted by Minnie39

Hi there can anybody help?

We are a family of 4 (2 adults, DS 12 & DD 8) coming to WDW in August for 18 nights. We booked with virgin Holidays and got free dining QSDP. We've enquired about upgrading to DDP to be told that it will cost us £3000+!!! We only want to upgrade not buy another package!!!

Can we upgrade when we get there? We're staying at Port Orleans Riverside.

Many thanks

No, you can't upgrade when you get there.

I don't know if there are limits for UK bookings that are the same as US bookings, but for US bookings it has to be done no later than 3 days before arrival.

I would suggest you talk to your travel or booking agent and make it very clear to them that you are looking to upgrade only the dining plan, not the room or any other part of your package. If they still give you that figure, then that's what it would cost at the desk if they let you do it that way.