Wow. I started this thread and never thought it would turn out like this. I just wanted clarification on the e-mail but a lot has been discussed that makes me think about this more and more.
This is evidently a very passionate topic for a lot of people and I must say I'm becoming more impassioned about it too. I don't frequent the disboards as often as I used to, only occasionally. But I wonder after reading the last response reported from Disney if anyone has thought of contacting the Florida Office of Consumer Affairs or the Florida State Attorney's Office to see if this is really legal to do and still classify it as a "gratuity" or if they will have to change the term to service charge or if they can limit this policy only to DDE customers and not have to apply it across the board to all table service customers. What if a customer crosses out the 18% and writes in a lower amount and a specific total and charges the meal to their credit card. Earlier it was pointed out that if you Disney changes the amount back after you sign the receipt they have committed credit card fraud. How will that play out in the media? How would the FL Office of Consumer Affairs or State Attorney's Office handle that kind of issue? How would the State Banking Commission deal with something like that?
If you pay with cash and left only the total discounted total plus what you felt was a reasonable tip, would the managers, servers, or some new bouncer types chase you out the door demanding that you pay more? Would they throw you out of the park if you refused to pay it? What leverage would they have other than canceling your DDE?
A lot has been discussed about this being a concession to the union but what union? Everyone says that all CM's belong to one union and there is no separate union for the food service workers and that the food service workers didn't want this and that the other union members out voted them. This all may very well be true; I don't know because I wasn't visiting the boards much over the summer and didn't know anything about this situation until after I started this thread, but this doesn't make sense. If the food service workers were out numbered by the non-food service worker CM's, why would the non-food service workers care about where the gratuities come from for the food service workers? i.e., why from the DDE customers only, why not force the
DDP customers to be presented with a bill for the tip on their meals rather than just excluding it from the plan and hoping the customer will know what they are expected to pay and be willing to pay it. Why not make it policy for all table service customers regardless of party size? I think the food service workers had more to do with this than they are being made out to have been involved with it. Certainly, the other CM's would have held out for something that would have benefited everyone, not just the food service workers.
Now one thing that I've been thinking about is this last reply from Disney that was posted, if our only recourse to dispute the 18% is to take it up with the manager, how will the servers feel if we DDE customers do just like Pete and others here have said and expect the highest level of service from them and complain when we don't get it? How happy will they be with this union if every customer using the DDE asked for the manager and told him/her that, "I don't feel the service was worthy of 18%, I think it was only worthy of 7%. The server should have done a better job if you're going to mandate that I pay 18% or you need to replace him/her with someone that is going to deliver that level of service." Now I know that most won't make that last statement because we all are just too nice to be that mean spirited to a complete stranger and cause them to loose their job over a few dollars (you can bet there have been a lot of nice people that used to work for big companies that have lost their jobs over a few dollars...think of all of those data entry jobs that got moved over to India because the pay over there is a "few dollars" less per hour than it is here in the U.S.) But what if we all did and the servers were constantly being humiliated in front of the manager and other servers and other customers by DDE patrons that said the level of service wasn't up to the standard that Disney was purporting it to be when they levied an 18% service charge. It would add an extra layer of stress to their day that they really don't want to deal with. If that happened often enough I suspect they would be asking Disney to change their policy pretty quickly.
I'm sorry to have gone on so much, but there has been a lot of things said that have got me to thinking and I thought I'd just cover them in one post while I "had the floor". Sorry if my views don't agree with anyone else's; I don't expect everyone to agree with me, but if you do, think about your right to determine your tip amount being taken way from you and receiving nothing in return. If Disney was going to make this change, they have had nearly six months to announce this change would be going into affect. Since that time I have renewed my DDE. Perhaps I wouldn't have paid $65 to loose my right to determine how much to reward my server when I dine at a Disney table service restaurant. Now I'm stuck with a DDE card and the decision of whether to just not use it and loose the 20% discount that I paid for and determine the tip amount or let Disney sit back and accept that I paid Disney $65 to allow them to have control of part of a significant portion of my vacation money.
. 
,
...
. I, for one appreciate it, as well as the tone taken when explaining, very nice, no flames
