Deluxe During Split Stay — Yes or No?

[have2getaway]

We are thinking about doing the Deluxe dining for the last leg of our trip, which is the Polynesian Thursday, Friday and Saturday before MLK. My concern is that we are staying at the Poly over MLK weekend and I’m concerned that it will be busy and may be difficult to get quick counter service meals. I’d rather be able to schedule a couple sit down meals than to have to rely on getting counter service in Magic Kingdom. Also, we really want to try to do BOG for dinner, possibly Hoop Dee Doo, and CRT for breakfast or dinner. Anyway, we are still thinking this over. I hate to waste on Deluxe, but 3 nights seemed like a small amount, especially if we throw in some signature meals. It will be me, DH, and 3–9 year old boys. What I don’t want, though, is to have to do too many long sit down meals that require dressy attire. I’m leaning towards character buffets, or even regular buffets, but decent food. We did like the GF Cafe on our last trip. Anyway, are we crazy to do the Deluxe while at MK but the regular plan while at BC?

 

[kaytieeldr]

The only location that requires better attire is Victoria & Albert's - and your nine year olds are prohibited until after their next birthday.

 

[sharonabe]

Even with the DxDDP, the new BoG dinner will not be a good value. It's only $55 for adults, but it "costs" 2 TS credits. Add up the costs of that one with the others you want to do to be sure you're not losing money.

 

[have2getaway]

The only location that requires better attire is Victoria & Albert's - and your mind year olds are prohibited until after their next birthday.

We ate at California Grille and Artist Point on our last trip. Are we permitted to just wear park clothes at all restaurants except Victoria and Alberts? We went dessert up to both because we weren’t sure.

 

[have2getaway]

Even with the DxDDP, the new BoG dinner will not be a good value. It's only $55 for adults, but it "costs" 2 TS credits. Add up the costs of that one with the others you want to do to be sure you're not losing money.

This is what worries me. We won’t eat 3 TS a day. Perhaps, we should consider paying oop for the kids’ meals at some of our restaurants. Can we do this? It might cost us less to go this route than to spend nearly $400 more on meals we won’t use.

 

[sharonabe]

This is what worries me. We won’t eat 3 TS a day. Perhaps, we should consider paying oop for the kids’ meals at some of our restaurants. Can we do this? It might cost us less to go this route than to spend nearly $400 more on meals we won’t use.

I'm not sure I understand what you're wanting to do. If you get the regular dining plan, you can't use the kids' credits to get adult meals, so that won't help you. If you pay OOP for the kids and have the DxDDP, that means you'll have even more credits to use.

 

[gillep]

If you use mobile ordering you shouldn't have an issue with long waits for CS meals (as long as you are choosing restaurants that participate in mobile ordering). We were there on January 3rd when it was insanely busy and mobile ordering worked great, we never waited more than a couple minutes.

Keep in mind that if you did the dining plan for the first part of your trip you would be able to your refillable mugs for both of your stays, if you are big mug users.

Personally, as it seems you are not quite sure exactly what you want to do I would just pay OOP. I will do the deluxe plan on a split stay but only for a night or two, as it is just too much food for us for any longer, and only if it fits with our scheduled plans. I also would always do it for the first part of the trip so that we could use our mugs for the second stay, and so that we had the transition day and that night to use up those credits.

 

[Rich M]

Depending on how you do the credits would be the value for you. Kids price on DxDDP is pretty good value especially if your doing character meals. If you do the breakfast meals and then do those dinners at BoG and Hoop then you might be good. You really just have to look at your options of which you want to go to a price them out to know if its work it. We are doing a major split stay on our next trip and we choose the three nights that we are staying at to go for the deluxe but we are using credits on the move day also since we have until midnight to use them.

 

[have2getaway]

I'm not sure I understand what you're wanting to do. If you get the regular dining plan, you can't use the kids' credits to get adult meals, so that won't help you. If you pay OOP for the kids and have the DxDDP, that means you'll have even more credits to use.

Thank you for clarifying this. We did the Deluxe plan last time and so I thought the regular was similar in that the credits were all treated the same.

 

[have2getaway]

If you use mobile ordering you shouldn't have an issue with long waits for CS meals (as long as you are choosing restaurants that participate in mobile ordering). We were there on January 3rd when it was insanely busy and mobile ordering worked great, we never waited more than a couple minutes.

Keep in mind that if you did the dining plan for the first part of your trip you would be able to your refillable mugs for both of your stays, if you are big mug users.

Personally, as it seems you are not quite sure exactly what you want to do I would just pay OOP. I will do the deluxe plan on a split stay but only for a night or two, as it is just too much food for us for any longer, and only if it fits with our scheduled plans. I also would always do it for the first part of the trip so that we could use our mugs for the second stay, and so that we had the transition day and that night to use up those credits.

That’s good to know about mobile ordering. We were curious if that would speed things up for our CS meals.

 

[have2getaway]

Depending on how you do the credits would be the value for you. Kids price on DxDDP is pretty good value especially if your doing character meals. If you do the breakfast meals and then do those dinners at BoG and Hoop then you might be good. You really just have to look at your options of which you want to go to a price them out to know if its work it. We are doing a major split stay on our next trip and we choose the three nights that we are staying at to go for the deluxe but we are using credits on the move day also since we have until midnight to use them.

We are leaning towards not doing deluxe mainly for this reason. We won’t have the full benefit of a transition day if we are going to RPR in between. Im thinking about simply bringing a gift card or 2 to use for a couple of less expensive sit down meals.