Now I am questioning if I am going to be that complete lunatic or not. I am helping my son’s ex plan an August trip. I emailed her this morning at 6am telling her to check free dining. Then I was told you couldn’t upgrade so I told her to look at room only. Now, here you are saying she can upgrade. Do I email her again!
Well, there is progress. It no longer says someone ate the page, but “We had to Duck Out”.
" Pardon the Inconvenience
Some of our digital experiences may be unavailable at this time. We’re actively working to resolve this issue and provide the best possible Guest experience."
It might be worth checking into if she can get hold of somebody in the World or online - neither of which I am still able to do. but I’m going to keep trying. The email I received stated the free dining was for quick service only at value and moderate and for disney dining plan at deluxe; however, it stated an upgrade fee for each level.
HA! I got that message now as well!
oooh! just got in on phone
arrrgh!!! current wait time to speak to CM is over 25 minutes…
That doesn’t sound too long, I’d have expected well over an hour today.
Only had to wait about 5 minutes. The poor CM - I asked her to price several different options. She was very nice about everything and a great CM. We ended up switching to Contemporary!
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This is a good point. The room discount was definitely far more beneficial for us than free dining.
(But honestly, I just don’t like keeping track of credits, either).
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I am planning a trip for her that is different from anything I have ever done. She is booked at All Star Movies, with non PHs, and dining plan. It is her son’s 5th birthday and her mom is going with them. They definitely want dining since she wants to do the character meals. I have always had park hoppers but I don’t think she needs them.
What she does need is for me to stop sending her crazy emails all day long!
That’s no problem. Just switch to Text Messages!
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I would maybe call Disney and find out if it is cost effective. I did not anticipate the Contemporary being included and then when it was included didn’t think we could afford the upgrade, but it turned out it was well within our budget.
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For the fun of it, since the website is back in working order (albeit, EXTREMELY slow), I decided to do a comparison between 5 nights at the Contemporary using the Sun and Fun room price versus the Free Dining Plan price (including 6-day Park Hoppers) for two people.
The Sun and Fun put the price at $4169. (I picked a Theme Park room, since I was having fun!) To add in the QS dining plan brought it to just shy of $4700. With DDP, it was just over $4900.
The Free dining plan, same room and ticket options, put the price at $4723. That’s a savings of nearly $200.
So, the Free Dining plan, at least in this scenario, the cheaper of the two. However, that doesn’t factor in the savings in tickets by using UT instead, and food savings by not using the DDP. All said, it probably about breaks even.
If you add one more person, the savings I’m sure makes it a much better deal.
Interesting.
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Yes, even though we are now paying more for our trip, it was cheaper to go the free dining plan at contemporary rather than the sun and fun deal. We already had the dining plan booked anyway with our initial reservations at POFQ, and we had already bought our park hopper tickets before the price increase back in October. So, the upgrade in resort (theme park view at that), the walking option to and especially back from MK, the monorail ease to some of our ADR’s at GF and Poly (assuming I am able to get the ones I want on our ADR day next week), and DS10’s love of “trains” of any sort puts this at a win for us.
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Ah, the “free dining” trap! If you weren’t going to spend $700 on food then you aren’t saving that money!
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I rebooked our trip–even with adding parkhoppers, it saved almost 1000 off paying for the dining plan out of pocket and keeping our base tickets. I was excited!
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Well, that’s just it. We would probably not eat that much, and since we’re staying club level, we definitely will not eat that much, because of the lounge.
Also, the cost of the room is higher than usual, making the room-only discount more beneficial.
So choosing which discount really comes down to how much you’re spending on the room vs. the food. The difference is, the DDP is easier to justify because you have to eat anyway, right? But it’s harder to know just how much. Maybe not that much when it comes right down to it… unless it’s prepaid via the DDP, in which case you want to get your money’s worth.
I just ran the numbers and I think that doing an agency exclusive from MVT is going to be the better way for us to go than the Free Dining plan. I always feel like I’m doing something wrong by not going after this promotion, but the numbers have never made sense for us.
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I checked ours too and the MVT deal was much better, so I just kept our as it was.
I must admit, I love having the dining plan because it gives that all-inclusive feel and the DH and I pay zero attention to the price tag; however, we have never walked away without having credits (usually snack credits) to burn and we haven’t really made good use of the refillable mugs in the past. Logically I know that this is the right way to go, but I really wish we had the plan so we don’t have to look at prices.