Just returned on Deluxe plan -- not again

[timandlesley]

And you could use snack credits on your room only night to buy breakfast to eat the next morning!

I love this idea and am considering it but what about tickets that final day? Do tickets expire then too??? How would this work? We're there June 8-18th at the WL and am considering the Deluxe dining and doing what you are saying by making the 17th a room only but could we still go to MK on the 18th before we leave for the airport?
Lesley

 

[pilferk]

We're going to be doing it for our upcoming December trip. It seems to make sense for us, considering the trip.

We'll be doing a few 2TS dining experiences. We have a host of other TS plans...all places we love. We will (just as we did this past trip) excercise our own "portion control". We've run the numbers and it seems to work out for us, just based on the cost of Jiko's and Hoop De Doo + our "normal" meal expenses for the rest of the week. Other's mileage may vary.

 

[Bride In The Attic]

That's what I was starting to think. Right now I have the DxDDP. I am planning on eating at a lot of TS restaurants. Then I realized that the 18% tip is going to start adding up by eating at a bunch of TS restaurants. Eating at a lot of TS restaurants will be nice, but I am wondering how much money I will have spent at the end of my trip in just tips. I don't mind paying the 18% tip, it's just that I didn't think about how much I would spend in just tips.

ITA - when I add up my oop expense on tips on the Deluxe plan it comes to about $350 for our 7 nights - add that to the cost of the deluxe plan and it's not such a good deal for us. The regular DDP still puts us ahead as our tips wouldn't be as much (we wouldn't be eating at 2TS restaurants every night!)..

 

[disneyfav4ever]

That's what I was starting to think. Right now I have the DxDDP. I am planning on eating at a lot of TS restaurants. Then I realized that the 18% tip is going to start adding up by eating at a bunch of TS restaurants. Eating at a lot of TS restaurants will be nice, but I am wondering how much money I will have spent at the end of my trip in just tips. I don't mind paying the 18% tip, it's just that I didn't think about how much I would spend in just tips.

I figured out that I'll probably eat about $1,000 worth of food, so I'm budgeting $200 for tips.

 

[poeticdiabetic]

First of all, I was really interested in the Deluxe DDP, because I wanted to avoid the CS restaurant hassle. Plus, my two DSs are getting older, and I was thinking that they would appreciate having more food.

But I was really looking at the tip issue, and Disney's food is expensive. Our bill is normally around $150 for dinner. If we spend another $100 or so for lunch, our total price for the day would be over $250 a day. $250 a day for 5 days would be about $1250 for the trip, and our tips would be $225 for our trip. That's a lot of money for tips.

So, we've decided to go with the regular DDP. We will fight the crowd at the CS restaurants. And we will go to the TS restaurants once a day. That way, our tips will be only around $162 for the trip. And with the money we save by going with the regular DDP and not with the Deluxe DDP, we can afford to spend an extra day.

 

[praline3001]

Remember that tip is included with room service....
it is also included with CRT

The Deluxe plan is not for the tight budget no matter how you look at it.
If you do have hungry teenagers in your party or a family who prefers eating at nicer places over budget meals than the deluxe works for that type of family.

I am going to use Narcooses as an example for my family.
We are a family of 5 (4 of us over the age of 10)

Appy - 14
surf and turf (which we will all most likely get as we dont get the chance to eat decent lobster in new orleans...) $54
dessert- $8

that comes to $76 a person x 4 = $304

That morning we will eat at chef Mickeys
$19 per adult x 4 = $76

so our grand total for the day (2 meals as 1 is a 2ts meal) cost wise if we paid OOP is = $95 per person ($380 total for the family)

Since the Deluxe plan is $69 a person you can see we do save some money using it. Would my family eat at 2 TS a day even if we didn't have the plan? You betcha! We HATE HATE HATE CS meals.
We like having a nice TS meal but that is my family.

 

[timandlesley]

I love this idea and am considering it but what about tickets that final day? Do tickets expire then too??? How would this work? We're there June 8-18th at the WL and am considering the Deluxe dining and doing what you are saying by making the 17th a room only but could we still go to MK on the 18th before we leave for the airport?
Lesley

Can anyone answer this for me? If you stay for 9 nights total, and buy a 10 day hopper and only do 8 days DDP deluxe and then do room only on your 9th night can you still use your tickets on that 10th day or do they expire at midnight that day too??
Lesley

 

[TLSnell1981]

A 10 day hopper is a 10 day hopper. It's good for 10 days....the pass will expire 14 days from the first day of use...unless you buy the no expiration option.

 

[Tricia1972]

Can anyone answer this for me? If you stay for 9 nights total, and buy a 10 day hopper and only do 8 days DDP deluxe and then do room only on your 9th night can you still use your tickets on that 10th day or do they expire at midnight that day too??
Lesley

What you will have to do is this:

*Check in on day 1. Days 1-9 (which is a total of 8 nights) are covered on the DxDDP or the DDP.
*You will check out on Day 9 and re-check in for room only on Day 9.
*You will not have any meal credits left on Day 10. They expire at midnight on Day 9.

If you buy 10 day park hoppers, your hoppers do not expire until day 10.

 

[timandlesley]

What you will have to do is this:

*Check in on day 1. Days 1-9 (which is a total of 8 nights) are covered on the DxDDP or the DDP.
*You will check out on Day 9 and re-check in for room only on Day 9.
*You will not have any meal credits left on Day 10. They expire at midnight on Day 9.

If you buy 10 day park hoppers, your hoppers do not expire until day 10.

So when I check out on Day 9 and re-check in for room only on Day 9, even though my 10 day hoppers are on my ORIGINAL room key they will still be good all the way through Day 10, or when they issue me new room keys they will have to re-load them with my tickets? I'm just confused about how that will work when they give me the new room key, won't my old one shut down with dining plan and tickets at midnight on Day 9? Sorry for all the questions just making sure I'm super clear because I booked through AAA and my agent is super confused about this option but I want to do it because it would save us like 200 bucks!
Lesley

 

[Cinderumbrella]

Remember that tip is included with room service....
it is also included with CRT


We HATE HATE HATE CS meals.
We like having a nice TS meal but that is my family.

Is this true about CRT?? I wonder why??

Ditto for us about CS meals! I never even had one until our 2005 trip with the DDP (previously we always went on the silver plan). I complained most of the trip about how much I missed having all TS meals! I just remember getting to a CS place, fighting to find a table, sending DH off to battle the lines and get the food, having a whiny toddler wondering what was taking Daddy so long and why couldn't he go too 15 minutes later he would finally appear with the food and we would have other patrons hovering like buzzards so they could get our table when we were through (not that I wasn't guilty of the exact same thing trying to get our table in the first place! ).

Most of our days will begin with a character buffet and end with a signature dinner and we will use all those snacks to fight off the midday munchies. Using Praline's math above of our food costing $95 per day for a $70 plan makes sense to us!

 

[luckytobeme88]

I have noticed that no one has ever mentioned the fact that all taxes are included in the dining plan. The only non-inclusives are gratitudes for the waitstaffs at TS restaurants, correct?

 

[Tricia1972]

I have noticed that no one has ever mentioned the fact that all taxes are included in the dining plan. The only non-inclusives are gratitudes for the waitstaffs at TS restaurants, correct?

Yes, and that's an important point to remember when doing your calculations as to whether the plan works for you or not.

 

[TLSnell1981]

The gratuity is also included at HDD and SOA. These are dinner shows. The dinner shows have always included gratuity as far back as I can remember.

I think CRT has gratuity included because it is a package. It would be confusing to figure out how much to tip for food when the photos are included in the price.

 

[Tricia1972]

Eek, posted in error on the wrong thread. My post had NOTHING to do with the topic.

Have a magical day!

 

[praline3001]

The gratuity is also included at HDD and SOA, not just CRT. These are all dinner shows. The dinner shows have always included gratuity as far back as I can remember.

Thanks for the info as I didn't know the other 2 tips were included

See if your worried about the tips you can eat
a dinner at CRT one night...
CRT breakfast one morning...
HDD for dinner one night...
SOA for dinner one night
then room service the rest of the stay.... look, NO TIPS NEEDED

 

[TLSnell1981]

Thanks for the info as I didn't know the other 2 tips were included

See if your worried about the tips you can eat
a dinner at CRT one night...
CRT breakfast one morning...
HDD for dinner one night...
SOA for dinner one night
then room service the rest of the stay.... look, NO TIPS NEEDED

...and remember they all use 2 TS credits each!

 

[praline3001]

We just returned ourselves from using the Deluxe dining plan.
It was really worth it for our family of 5!
I don't eat a lot but DH and the boys went NUTS over all the food... I think they even got filled up once or twice

The refill mug saved us lots of money on drinks during our stay. I want to say we averaged filling them up 3 times a day.
($3 a drink x5 people x3 times a day = $45 in drinks x 8 days= $360 saved)
Now had we not done the plan, we probably would have been more conservative with the drinks.
We used all of our snack credits too! Whenever the kids were thirsty or wanted a snack we used those until they were gone. They bought pastries and snacks in the little shops and got plenty to drink with the snack credits.
My DS10 got addicted to the pretzels so he snacked on many of those.

We didn't have any problems with the tipping part ... it was all pretty clear.
We ate at some GREAT places too!

 

[angelmav]

We just returned ourselves from using the Deluxe dining plan.
It was really worth it for our family of 5!
I don't eat a lot but DH and the boys went NUTS over all the food... I think they even got filled up once or twice

The refill mug saved us lots of money on drinks during our stay. I want to say we averaged filling them up 3 times a day.
($3 a drink x5 people x3 times a day = $45 in drinks x 8 days= $360 saved)
Now had we not done the plan, we probably would have been more conservative with the drinks.
We used all of our snack credits too! Whenever the kids were thirsty or wanted a snack we used those until they were gone. They bought pastries and snacks in the little shops and got plenty to drink with the snack credits.
My DS10 got addicted to the pretzels so he snacked on many of those.

We didn't have any problems with the tipping part ... it was all pretty clear.
We ate at some GREAT places too!

You do realize you could have bought the Refillable Mugs anyway. You saved the $12.99 each with them included.

 

[praline3001]

You do realize you could have bought the Refillable Mugs anyway. You saved the $12.99 each with them included.

Yeah I know, but still wanted to add that we did use them a lot.