Can someone tell me if I have this right? Updated with another question

[Ladybugsy]

My parents have their room booked for the Free dining plan in Sept. 10 days. My aunt wants to join them, but may not stay the whole time. If she comes down, being on the reservation for the full 10 days, but leaves early, say after 5 days, do the credits still "belong" to the room, and can my parents use them as they wish?

 

[oogieboogie]

The credits are pooled together. So, if your aunt leaves after 5 days, then your parents will have those extra credits.

This happened to us last year. We were on the DDP, but our kids spent 3 days at grandma and grandpa's house in the middle of the trip, so we had all of their credits.

 

[Ladybugsy]

Thanks! Good to know.

 

[n2mm]

This also happened to us last year too. We had a room for 9 nights, but our daughter came for 4 nights (arriving later than us, and leaving before us). We listed her on our reservation and we still had the credits that she did not use. However, remember, you still have to buy a ticket for the aunt (of the same length of time--so you might want to think a one-day pass for all and upgrade each to the desired lenght). Plus, assuming your aunt is an adult, your parents will have to pay the extra adult fee for each night of the room. Not sure if the front desk will pro-rate it. I'm thinking if they did, would they pro-rate your credits too? We never told the front desk when our daughter left because we thought it might get too complicated. I believe the extra fee is $10 for a value; $15 for a moderate; and $25 for a delux.

 

[Bird-Mom]

We did this last year and are doing it again this Sept. My cousin joined/will join us for part of our stay. She has an AP, so we all booked one day tickets and upgraded mine, dh and dd4's. I think they will have to book the extra adult fee for all they days for it to be the same reservation, which would be the easiest-no possibility of check in/out again and the extra credits will stay.

 

[Ladybugsy]

Well, for 10 days the extra hotel bill would run around 100.00 plus tax. My Aunt is willing to pay that for a hotel for 10 days. And we already booked one day tickets since 7 of us have AP's already.

This leads me to another question...wouldn't it be possible to book another person in your room, even if they didn't actually show up, and pool their credits with yours? I ask because she may not come at the beginning of the trip, but more towards the end. And what if by some chance she didn't come at all? Hmmm....

 

[kaytieeldr]

Somebody posted recently that their reservation confirmation came with a message to the effect of "all persons on the reservation must be present at the time of registration; if not, the meal plan may be voided" but other posters reported getting no such message.

 

[Letsbgoofy]

I am having this problem myself. We planned to go without our 17 year old son this August. Now he says he wants to go - maybe! I put him on our reservation just in case. If something comes up and he doesn't go, I don't want to pay the $100 change fee. We also only have 1 day tickets, so I don't care about paying for his pass if he doesn't come.

Either way, he would be staying with his cousins in Orlando the first few days. After how full we were last year, I know we won't use his credits. But with the DP being free, I feel like I'm being dishonest if he doesn't end up coming with us.

 

[Bird-Mom]

I got another confirmation today and it had the "all must be present at check-in to receive the dining components." Well, my cousin will not be joining us until halfway through the trip, so I called and the CM I spoke to said that they would probably just not give us her room key until she stopped in at the desk. Ok...but as we DISers know, they put all the credits on all they keys. I told her that we did the same thing last year (which we did), and no one said anything at the desk. She told me not to worry then, it shouldn't be a problem, just tell them she is coming later and we did it this way last year.

Actually, I checked us all in last year because my dh took the 2 dds on Magical Express,I rented the car, and my cousin wasn't coming yet. I got to the resort first. No problem for me to check in everyone.

 

[PoohHappens]

THis all members present at check in thing is kind of strange, we always only have one of us check in while the others wait in a less crowded area.

 

[DMRick]

Boy, this sounds like it could be another problem for Disney with the free dining. I know last year a person posted she "added" two children they didn't have to their reservation and was pleased to announce they only had to pay for the one day tickets (and updated them to adult tickets) and got all the free extra dinings, which they then used for adult friends who were local to eat with them. I wonder how Disney will handle something like this, if more and more people have people come at different times, and extra kids. Sounds like it could really turn into misuse of the dining credits, and complications for those who do have someone added midstay.

 

[Pedler]

Boy, this sounds like it could be another problem for Disney with the free dining. I know last year a person posted she "added" two children they didn't have to their reservation and was pleased to announce they only had to pay for the one day tickets (and updated them to adult tickets) and got all the free extra dinings, which they then used for adult friends who were local to eat with them. I wonder how Disney will handle something like this, if more and more people have people come at different times, and extra kids. Sounds like it could really turn into misuse of the dining credits, and complications for those who do have someone added midstay.

I have to admit that I was suprised that Disney offered the free dinning promo again. I was suprised because it sometimes isn't the best idea to repeat promotions and potentially cause people to expect them. I know with our local AC Moore Craft store if we need a single item like a picture frame that cost more than a dollar or two I will wait until they run a 50% off coupon to get it. If there isn't one now there will be within a week. They run them that often and have conditioned me to wait for them. Even now when we look at going next year it will most likely be a the end of August partly because it works out well for us schedule wise and the crowds are low but they always seem to run some promo then and based on the last few years it would save us around $700 for a week stay.

As for the "phantom" room guests. Clearly that is fraud and theft. Still we have to remember that in the vast sea of WDW guests on any given day people that frequent the DIS, Mousesavers, TGM or any of the other big web Disney info sites are probably less than a half of a percent of the visitors to WDW. There just aren't that many DISers in the parks on any given day to have a signifigant effect on how things are. While some people may figure out on there own that they can make up children to get free dinning credits I would guess that most get the idea from places like the DIS. So if we assume that less than 1% of the folk on any given day are from the DIS and then that only 1% of the folk here would engage in such fraud (I like to assume that maybe most folk here, pool hopping and refillable mug reuse aside, woudn't out right lie about phantom guests to steal dinning credits.) then its only 1 out of 10,000 visitors that would do it. Thats what, maybe 5 - 10 people on any given day. While I think Disney is taking action to try to avoid the phantom children by saying you need everyone at check in I don't think the problem is large enough to cause any other changes in behavior.