2 rooms booked, should I switch MY room from free dining to 15% discount?

[mikegood2]

Looking for advice on what others think would be the better choice. We currently have 2 rooms booked with free dinning at the POP Century in July. My brothers family (4) will be staying in one room, so the dinning plan is obviously there best option. I will have a separate room that will also act as a room for us to hang out in if my nieces (13, 10) are sleeping, a place to eat or an extra bathroom when getting ready.

My brothers family was generous enough to invite me on their vacation and pay for my room, so when 15% discounts were announced today he will obviously be getting the $30 a day savings one way or another. Since my room is currently on the dinning plan, our choices would be to switch it to the discount OR keep the Quick service plan and pay him $30 a day (in advance). I think I know which way to go, but figured I’d try getting some opinions from others first.

Additional information to consider: This will be out first time on a dinning plan, so it’s new to us. We’re all considered adults, going for 7 nights, planning on 2 table service meals* at the moment, but it could change to 3.

What would you do?



* Aware POP is a QS plan and TS is not included with it.

 

[sharonabe]

First, if you're at POP, the free dining plan you get is the QUICK service plan, and there are no TS meals on that plan. So, any TS meals will be OOP unless you want to upgrade to the regular dining plan which is around $23 per adult per night.

Second, you can only get one discount, so your brother can't get the $30 unless you change your room from free dining. If you do that, will you just pay for your meals OOP? The QSDP for one adult is $55 per night, so that's still a better discount than the 15% off. I guess if you want to give him $30/night, that's up to you.

 

[mikegood2]

First, if you're at POP, the free dining plan you get is the QUICK service plan, and there are no TS meals on that plan. So, any TS meals will be OOP unless you want to upgrade to the regular dining plan which is around $23 per adult per night.

Second, you can only get one discount, so your brother can't get the $30 unless you change your room from free dining. If you do that, will you just pay for your meals OOP? The QSDP for one adult is $55 per night, so that's still a better discount than the 15% off. I guess if you want to give him $30/night, that's up to you.

Thanks! Yes, I’m aware that it’s a Quick Service plan and TS are not included. I just put that down for additional information. We still like to do a few TS meals. We will probably take those 2 or 3 QS meal credits we didn’t use from the TS meals, and do the 3-1 snack conversion and use it on snacks we can use for a next morning in room breakfast.

Also aware you can only do one discount on a room. Maybe I didn’t make it as clear as I though I did, but they would be keeping there QS Dinning plan for there room. Since my brother was generous enough to pay for my room (a Christmas gift) I’m gonna make sure he saves that $30 a day. My question was if it would make more sense to change MY room to the discount which would mean I’d pay for my meals OOP or to keep the free QS dinning plan and pay him the $30 a day. So basically my choices is pay OOP for all my meals of keep it like it is and essentially pay $30 a day for the QS dinning plan. Hope that makes more sense.

Actually just checked and you responded to a comment I made on the “Can Quick Service Meals” thread a few days ago and gave me some useful advice/info about 2020 dinning changes for kids and about possibly upgrading our dinning plan. We ended up running the numbers we didn’t think upgrading was worth it if we were only doing 2-3 TS meals.

 

[Disneylover99]

Thanks! Yes, I’m aware that it’s a Quick Service plan and TS are not included. I just put that down for additional information. We still like to do a few TS meals. We will probably take those 2 or 3 QS meals, we didn’t use from the TS meals, and do the 3-1 snack conversion and use in snacks that we can use for a next morning in room breakfast.

Also aware you can only do one discount on a room. Maybe I didn’t make it as clear as I though I did, but they would be keeping there QS Dinning plan for there room. Since my brother was generous enough to pay for my room (a Christmas gift) I’m gonna make sure he saves that $30 a day. My question was if it would make more sense to change MY room to the discount which would mean I’d pay for my meals OOP or to keep the free QS dinning plan and pay him the $30 a day. So basically my choices is pay OOP for all my meals of keep it like it is and essentially pay $30 a day for the QS dinning plan. Hope that makes more sense.

Actually just checked and you responded to a comment I made on the “Can Quick Service Meals” thread a few days ago and gave me some useful advice/info about 2020 dinning changes for kids and about possibly upgrading our dinning plan. We ended up running the numbers we didn’t think upgrading was worth it if we were only doing 2-3 TS meals.

Do you want/need the parkhopper ticket and would you buy discounted tickets if you don’t take the free dining? Dropping the hopper and buying discounted tickets can save you a bit of money, but it would probably be a wash. I’d probably just pay him $30 per day and take the fd.

 

[sharonabe]

My question was if it would make more sense to change MY room to the discount which would mean I’d pay for my meals OOP or to keep the free QS dinning plan and pay him the $30 a day. So basically my choices is pay OOP for all my meals of keep it like it is and essentially pay $30 a day for the QS dinning plan. Hope that makes more sense.

I guess your math will have to make the decision. Do you think you'd spend more than $30/night on food? If you can eat for less than $30 then take the discount. If not, then pay him.

 

[Traveling on cc points]

Thanks! Yes, I’m aware that it’s a Quick Service plan and TS are not included. I just put that down for additional information. We still like to do a few TS meals. We will probably take those 2 or 3 QS meal credits we didn’t use from the TS meals, and do the 3-1 snack conversion and use it on snacks we can use for a next morning in room breakfast.

Also aware you can only do one discount on a room. Maybe I didn’t make it as clear as I though I did, but they would be keeping there QS Dinning plan for there room. Since my brother was generous enough to pay for my room (a Christmas gift) I’m gonna make sure he saves that $30 a day. My question was if it would make more sense to change MY room to the discount which would mean I’d pay for my meals OOP or to keep the free QS dinning plan and pay him the $30 a day. So basically my choices is pay OOP for all my meals of keep it like it is and essentially pay $30 a day for the QS dinning plan. Hope that makes more sense.

Actually just checked and you responded to a comment I made on the “Can Quick Service Meals” thread a few days ago and gave me some useful advice/info about 2020 dinning changes for kids and about possibly upgrading our dinning plan. We ended up running the numbers we didn’t think upgrading was worth it if we were only doing 2-3 TS meals.

2 or 3 table services x 5 people can add up fast. You didn’t mention how long you are going for but I would run the numbers to see if upgrading your room to the deluxe dining plan would make sense. If you are staying 5 nights, that would give you 15 credits with is the perfect amount for 5 people to eat 3 TS meals.
if you go this route, I would wait until a few weeks before your trip to upgrade. as of today, sharing your credits is still allowed but could change at any time.

 

[mikegood2]

Do you want/need the parkhopper ticket and would you buy discounted tickets if you don’t take the free dining? Dropping the hopper and buying discounted tickets can save you a bit of money, but it would probably be a wash. I’d probably just pay him $30 per day and take the fd.

Thanks! Yeah park hoppers are a must for us. Our first trip in 2011 was at a Boardwalk hotel and my nieces needed an afternoon nap. We quickly realized we needed one just as much as they did.

I guess your math will have to make the decision. Do you think you'd spend more than $30/night on food? If you can eat for less than $30 then take the discount. If not, then pay him.

Thanks! I’m thinking I’ll probably be over $30 a day, so I think I’ll just pay him. Heck, if I cover one TS at Teppan Edo, we mIgor be close to even. Also think it might be more convenient if all of us had the plan.

2 or 3 table services x 5 people can add up fast. You didn’t mention how long you are going for but I would run the numbers to see if upgrading your room to the deluxe dining plan would make sense. If you are staying 5 nights, that would give you 15 credits with is the perfect amount for 5 people to eat 3 TS meals.
if you go this route, I would wait until a few weeks before your trip to upgrade. as of today, sharing your credits is still allowed but could change at any time.

Thanks! It was buried in there, but we’re staying 7 nights. We ran the math and figured we’d need to get to 5 TS meals before the regular TS plan getting close to breaking even. Wanted a little more freedom this trip, so don’t want to go that many TS.

 

[pooch]

I would price out upgrading your room to the deluxe dining plan. I think that would be around $65 per night (?). That would cover 4 TS meals for everyone. Figure out what the TS meals you want will cost & compare it to the upgrade. When I took extended family a couple years ago, 5 adults and three kids, we were spending at least $300 per TS meal. Even without the 3 kids, you’re probably close to $250 per meal so at least $750ish versus an (estimated) upgrade of $500ish