Could be.
You know, I understand companies need to do what they think to maximize income etc, but boy, it seems so many changes are really eroding any good will the Disney name has had for customer service and taking care of guests. Even more surprising in these days of enormous profits.
Sure, they are spending a lot of capital in the last few years (finally), but they are having their cake, eating it too, and not letting us share ours now.
The bigger “loophole” (not a loophole!) that BoM exploited was to list adults as kids on the deluxe dining plan!
FWIW I do see that in the fine print, the docs always say “terms may be changed at any time.”
That’s standard practice, of course, but this new “rule” seems draconian - If I were to make a guess (I guess I am!) - I bet a poorly written internal memo about something related is being interpreted incorrectly.
I think this is just a rogue dining team, and that Disney had to back them up when called on it. I don’t think it’s standard practice.
As @JJT noted, Disney says you can state how many meals you want to redeem at a time. It doesn’t place an upper limit on that. You could say “1”, “5”, or “15” if you’ve got the credits.
The prohibition on transferring credits is clearly meant to prevent transferring credits to other reservations. I think it’s relevant to note that in this case, no credits were transferred.
The simplest way to get around this is for the person with the credits to order all the food. If asked, insist that you plan to eat all of it. There’s no prohibition against sharing food, and there’s no additional sharing charge.
I’m very interested in hearing if anyone else has the same experience.
Not arguing your point, just thinking out loud, really. I’m not an attorney but I always wonder how much they could get away with. Could the dining plan change to include only 2 snacks and no meals during the week of Christmas with no warning? Sure it would be a PR nightmare, but is it legal/enforceable? Like EMM at TSL, if all three TSL rides are down for the 2 hours, do they have to compensate you in some way (open other attractions, give you FPP) or just say sorry, the experience changed and it is now “wandering around TSL without crowds”?
EU law prevented them from introducing parking charges for UK guests (and any European guest I assume) for 2018 and 2019. I guess consumer laws over there might prevent any drastic changes?
THAT is why we can’t have nice things.
The most they could hope to do is limit you to the number of people on the dining plan on your reservation, since they can’t exactly require you to have a magicband on to go to dinner at a resort.
Well, I guess they could require it, but that seems excessive.
This discussion has been going on in Chat, and the original poster got an email from HS guest services “stating that they conferred with Disney Reservation Services and we def should have been allowed to use as many credits as we wanted H&V will be informed. ???”
This makes it seem like no one is on the same page.
I see this in the description of MYW packages. Not sure if it is new verbiage or not, but it does seem to suggest you canNOT share dining credits since no components are transferable:
And this too:
Except that they are not transferring credits to another account. They are using credits on their account to pay for the meals of those present. I think Disney is still being vague and restaurant managers seem to be interpreting things differently.
They are transferring them to people not on the package reservation. I think they are ok to stand their ground, even if I find it disappointing that they would do so.
Like I said, they are being rather vague and “transfer” can be left up to interpretation. Sounds like that is what is happening at the different restaurants.
I don’t see how “transfer” is vague though. Can you explain further?
I think it’s very vague! To me, if I had credits left at the end of my stay and wanted to give them to someone else to use, that would be transferring. If I go for a meal and want to pay for 5 meals, that’s not transferring them even if there are only 2 of us on the reservation. It’s just using them.
OK I guess I can see that.
So you’re reading it as - I can pay for whatever meals I want provided they are on the same tab as me, but Disney is reading it differently. Gray area!
Yes exactly.
Comes down to the legal definition of transfer. I think of it of changing of possession from one person to another. Not sure what the legal definition is
You can interpret it as transferring to different accounts or to different people. The transfer clause has been on all package information for quite some time. Disney didn’t allow credits to be shared when I went on my honeymoon in 2007. When I went in 2016, they did, no matter what they are trying to back pedal on. Now some restaurants are saying no. It is enforced inconsistently and the statement is now vague.
