DDP - Will They Add Extra Plate Charges/ Disallow Sharing?? or

[melomouse]

After reading the Spoodles thread, and seeing the situation cleared up for the moment, I am wondering if it will be announced soon that anyone at a TS restaurant sharing with kids or adults will have an extra plate surcharge added, or have 2 credits charged even if only one adult entree is served for a larger party.

I'm sure everyone would be up in arms! I'm one of those weirdos who is okay sharing my meal and a kids meal, giving my kids stuff from my plate if they want "extra" dessert or something - but I still feel a bit uncomfortable sharing one whole meal in any restaurant. Rather order stuff and pack it up to take home, or leave it, or, in the case of DP, sending a dessert to another table.

Now many will reassure me that sharing is ok - understood that many people ALWAYS do this - and I plan to try a bit on my upcoming trip with DD(10) - and adding tip accordingly - in cash - if we do share.

I am just wondering if Disney might plan to put a stop to the sharing in one way or another. Of course - NO one knows what Disney will do...lol, but what are your thoughts???

 

[DCDisney]

It seems to me that they lose a lot more money on people sharing than they do with people paying for kids OOP. However much the food costs when you have twice as many people sitting taking up space as there are "paying" that can't help the bottom line. It seems like rather than prohibit sharing which would greatly upset people the quantity of food being served at TS is just decreasing making it less attractive to share.

Yvonne

 

[kcashner]

As you said, no one can predict what Disney will or might do. However, they know that many people do not eat as much food as is available on the DDP at a TS meal.

Ok, if I go to a meal on the dining plan, we will get 2 appetizers, 2 entrees, 2 desserts, and 2 beverages. Odds are that we will have the desserts packed up to take back to the resort. The total bill may well be over $110 with tip. It was at 4 of our restaurants (1 TS) on our recent trip.

If I'm not on the DDP, I wouldn't eat at a TS with a bill over $100 each day. IF I went to that restaurant, I'd order an entree and beverage, and we might split a dessert. Charge would be about $60 + tip. I'd eat at that sort of restaurant maybe once or twice during a one week trip, and have probably one character meal. My total dining bill would average less than $38 per person per day, but my dining experience would be signifcantly less too.

What would WDW rather have me do? I think they want my $. We recently paid $607 for 8 days of DDP. It was fun, but it was more expensive than my normal style of dining. It didn't cost Disney anywhere near $600 for my food and service for the week, but they got my $. Even the $4 donuts on the snack menu are $1.59 at my local grocery store, and the grocery store makes money.

I consider the DDP a win/win. I spent more, but I had a great experience. Disney got more $ from me than normal.

Will they change the plan--probably. How will they change it?--no one knows.

 

[PreppyPolyMom]

After reading the Spoodles thread, and seeing the situation cleared up for the moment, I am wondering if it will be announced soon that anyone at a TS restaurant sharing with kids or adults will have an extra plate surcharge added, or have 2 credits charged even if only one adult entree is served for a larger party.

I'm sure everyone would be up in arms! I'm one of those weirdos who is okay sharing my meal and a kids meal, giving my kids stuff from my plate if they want "extra" dessert or something - but I still feel a bit uncomfortable sharing one whole meal in any restaurant. Rather order stuff and pack it up to take home, or leave it, or, in the case of DP, sending a dessert to another table.

Now many will reassure me that sharing is ok - understood that many people ALWAYS do this - and I plan to try a bit on my upcoming trip with DD(10) - and adding tip accordingly - in cash - if we do share.

I am just wondering if Disney might plan to put a stop to the sharing in one way or another. Of course - NO one knows what Disney will do...lol, but what are your thoughts???

I don't think there will be a problem sharing, I think it was just limited to Spoodles and even that was a mistake on the part of the servers. The poster called Spoodles and spoke with the server who said sharing was fine.

 

[Aimeedyan]

I sorta doubt it... they've always allowed sharing and this isn't the first time they've offered a dining plan of sorts.

Now non-Disney places may start that, like Shulas already does, but I think they'll soon realize that people will just dine elsewhere instead.

 

[bicker]

I think that a plate-sharing charge is the least likely change they'd make. If anything, I'd figure they'd require that only child meals can be paid for with credits paid for at child rate. People shouldn't get "up in arms" about that change, should they ever make it.

 

[NMW]

Our family does not ever share meals. We all usually want different things for an entree at TS restaurants and sort of think sharing is gross. We do share appetizers that are meant to be shared though. It wouldn't bother us if Disney stopped allowing sharing or charged an extra plate charge, but I doubt they would. If anything, I could see the extra plate charge, as many restaurants outside of Disney do this. I think Disney wants to keep people eating onsite no matter what!

 

[melomouse]

Thanks, NMW - thought it was only ME on these boards who really wasn't ok with the shared entree thing.
"It seems to me that they lose a lot more money on people sharing than they do with people paying for kids OOP. However much the food costs when you have twice as many people sitting taking up space as there are "paying" that can't help the bottom line. It seems like rather than prohibit sharing which would greatly upset people the quantity of food being served at TS is just decreasing making it less attractive to share."

Smaller portions or separating credits, as bicker suggested, may be the next moves, I tend to agree...

 

[bicker]

Smaller portions are already being reported, though that's more of a national trend, rather than anything Disney-specific. We haven't eaten at Cheesecake factory for about six or seven years, so I was pretty surprised at how reasonable (small) the portions were when we ate there two weeks ago.

Splitting of meals has always been an issue -- the Dining Plan actually doesn't make the practice any more commonplace. Evidently, it has never been so commonplace as to require Disney to institute a plate-sharing charge before the Dining Plan -- the Dining Plan itself is surely not a reason to institute a plate-sharing charge now. If anything, the sharing that goes on outside of the Dining Plan is more of a concern to the business (since non-DDP patrons aren't beholden to Disney for a minimum number of meals, like the DDP patrons are).

 

[pedro2112]

Unpooling credits will be extremely unlikely due to the fact that the pooled credits encourage guests to spend more money out of pocket at disney dining, and less money to competitors.

 

[bicker]

I doubt they'll completely unpool the credits. However, they may simply have two separate pools. I do see your point about the OOP stuff, but that's not what a lot of people are talking about. They're talking about feeding the children off the parent's plates -- no OOP money that way. So it'll come down to which practice becomes prevalent, and to what extent.