Talk me in or out of Tables in Wonderland

I’m headed out at OMG-thirty Saturday morning for the World on the first of three trips within the next 12 months. This one, I am going semi-solo as my DD and her DH and DD5 will be there as well, though staying in AoA while I am off site. I will be upgrading to the Annual Pass while there. My next two trip are in September for a week with my DSIL for F&W and maybe MNSSHP. The third trip, next April, DH and I will be taking our whole tribe - we have between us 9 kids, 6 with spouse/partner, and 11 grandchildren, and most of them are planning to go. I think, including DH and me, there will be 12 - 14. Whew! (We’re putting them up in our timeshare villas, the rest is on them)

So … Tables in Wonderland. Worth it? Or not? I see the AP is getting 20% discount most places, I also have the Disney Visa. I’m thinking the greatest value will be on the big family trip for the occasions we all dine together.

The AP 20 percent ends at the end of September. Even with that discount, we still bought TIW last month. It pays for itself quickly if you eat table service very much (we do). Plus it includes discounts on alcohol. The only thing you should be aware of is there is no splitting checks. If it is in your name, you must pay at each meal, so be prepared to keep track of how much each person/family owes you. We did this easily with our group of 4 friends back in January, might be a bit harder with a lot of people.

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I bought one with my last AP. The first trip with four of us and one larger dinner with family had me saving the cost of TiW plus another $40. My son and his girlfriend love to have a drink with their meals and on my last trip we also visited Crew’s Cup, BlueZoo, and the Nomad Lounge. Three trips I saved over $500 ( minus cost-$350).

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I bought TiW for our current AP and a couple of years ago as well…I looked at the menus/prices on Allears.net to calculate about how much I’d be spending on meals based on the dishes I/my party would likely order to figure out what the break-even point would be for the $150. For this current AP, I figured it would take two trips with three TS meals.

Basically - you’ll have to do the math for yourself. :slight_smile: Everyone will be different, and for some, it can pay itself off in one trip.

I do like the alcohol discount, especially at lounges, where DH and I find ourselves frequently vs TS locations.

Bon appetit!

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Take a closer look at the restaurants that are offering the 20% discount for AP holders (not the TIW discount). Some of our favorite restaurants are not on the list! (We are not yet AP holders, but a friend forwarded the list to us.)

The “worth it” factor depends almost entirely on how many people will be eating how many TS meals, with the number of signatures a factor. Alcohol consumption is another factor. On our last trip, DW and I ate 14 TS meals, 7 of which were signature, and I figured we saved about $350 beyond the cost of the card (which was cheaper back then).

In “pure math”, if the card costs $350 (that’s double what it was in 2014), then you’ll have to spend $1,750 to “break even”. With multiple trips and/or a large family (or in your case, both), and more TS meals than QS meals, I would think it would be a “good deal”.

One or two things to keep in mind with TIW. You can only include up to 10 people at a single meal, so with 12-14, a couple would not be covered (but if they’re children, this isn’t a huge factor). Also, YOU, the card holder will have to pay the entire bill (i.e. no split checks get the benefit). Unless you do a cash-only thing and collect from everyone in advance, for 10 people you’re talking about dumping $2,000-5,000 on your card for every meal (and upwards of $7,000-8,000 for signature of some CMs).

Going back to the math, let’s say you spent $5,750 (a theoretical, but not unrealistic, number to make the math easy) for a dinner at CRT for the bunch of you. Subtract out the $1,750, and that leaves $4,000. 20% off of that is $800 savings on just that meal…