There are many things that one might expect to hear at a full-service eatery at the Walt Disney World Resort. An attentive server asking a guest if they can get them another Coke. Or an anxious parent — as they clutch their camera — asking when’s Mickey going to come through the restaurant again.
But what you don’t expect to hear is a patron swearing at the top of their lungs at a WDW restaurant manager over something they just found on their bill.
Yet over the past seven days, this scene has been repeatedly at Disney World eateries. With Security having to be called in several cases in order to deal with these irate customers. All because these WDW visitors are furious with the changes that have recently been made to the Disney Dining Plan.
“And what’s the Disney Dining Plan?,” you ask. Much like Disney’s Magical Express Transportation, it is yet another of the Mouse’s ingenious schemes to keep WDW guests (more importantly, their wallets) on property. Preventing them from wandering on down the road and then spending their dough at the SeaWorld Adventure Park or the Universal Orlando Resort.
Copyright 2008 Disney. All Rights Reserved
Initially introduced back in 2005, the Disney Dining Plan was an add-on offered to WDW resort guests who were booking a “Magic Your Way” vacation package. For one set price (initially $35 per day for adults and $10 per day for children ages 9 & under), Disney World visitors could then enjoy one table-service meal, one counter-service meal and one snack every day over the course of their vacation.
And right from the get-go, WDW guests just loved the Disney Dining Plan for its ease & convenience. Particularly because this “Magic Your Way” add-on covered the gratuity and all taxes at the resort’s table-service restaurants. Which meant that — at the end of the meal — all you had to do was hand your room key over to your server. He or she would then bring you back a receipt that showed how many credits you had left on your Dining Plan. And you were then free to head back into the parks and continue with your vacation.
And WDW managers … They loved the Disney Dining Plan too. Mostly because guests who prepurchased this Plan knew that all of their credits would expire at 11:59 p.m. on the day that they checked out of their WDW resort. So in order to get the most out of the Disney Dining Plan, that meant that these folks had to eat every single meal on property. Which didn’t leave them all that much time to go off property and explore the rest of Orlando.
This meant that WDW’s theme parks, shops and recreational facilities were reaping the rewards of all these trapped-on-property guests. The only problem was — given that they were now dealing with thousands of additional customers each day who were eating significantly discounted meals — the Food Service side of things at Walt Disney World was really taking it in the shorts here.
Copyright 2008 Disney. All Rights Reserved
From what I hear, the Disney Dining Plan was actually causing WDW Food Service to lose money. That the sheer number of additional patrons who were being served discounted meals every day meant that Disney World’s 60+ table-service restaurants were now working much harder to earn far less. Which is why Disney World managers then insisted that the Dining Plan had to be changed for 2008. So that Food Service could then begin to benefit from this extremely popular “Magic Your Way” add-on.
Which is why — starting on January 1, 2008 — the “appetizer included” & “gratuity included” features that had previously been offered as part of the table-service-meals portion of the Disney Dining Plan were dropped. To reflect this change, Mickey did lower the price of this “Magic Your Way” add-on from $38.99 to $37.99. But that one dollar price difference wasn’t enough to placate WDW visitors last week. Many of whom had booked the 2008 version of the Disney Dining Plan because of the ease & convenience that they’d enjoyed while using this same system on previous WDW trips.
And then — when these folks saw a specific line on their bill that said that the Disney Dining Plan no longer covered gratuity … Well, they went nuts. As one veteran Food Service staffer told me this past weekend:
“People have been absolutely furious about this change. Most of the guests that I’ve been dealing are people have previously been to the resort and are used to the earlier version of the Dining Plan. So they’re coming into this situation with certain expectations. Which is why they get really angry when we hand them a bill that now asks them to cover the gratuity.
Copyright 2008 Disney. All Rights Reserved
A lot of these people are insisting that — when they booked this add-on for their ‘Magic Your Way’ vacation package — that no one at Central Reservations ever told them about there being any changes made to the Disney Dining Plan program. Which is why they now feel blindsided by this whole “appetizer not included” / “gratuity not included” thing.
Our managers are totally caught in the middle here. They’re the one who have been tasked with implementing this new policy. But — at the same time — they’re the ones who are supposed to keep the guests happy. Which is why — right now — all we’re able to do is send patrons who complain over to Guest Relations. Have them lodge a formal complaint there about the changes that have been made to the Dining Plan.
But from what I hear, people are complaining all over property. The frontline staff — the servers and the managers — are taking an awful lot of abuse from angry WDW guests who weren’t expecting to pay gratuities on any of the table-service meals that they eat over the course of their Disney World vacations. That’s why they signed up for the Disney Dining Plan in the first place. For its ease and its convenience. And to now find out now that — in addition to handing over their room key — they’ve also got to hand over a credit card or a wad of cash in order to cover the tip is sending some of these folks right over the edge.
Copyright 2008 Disney. All Rights Reserved
The worst part of all this is that a lot of these guests are now taking this change in the Disney Dining Plan out on their servers. They’re storming out of these restaurants and not tipping their waiters at all. And these people actually earn their living through tips. So this change in the Dining Plan could wind up hurting a whole lot of WDW cast members who can’t really afford to have their wages drop.”
According to my sources at the resort, there have been so many complaints so far from guests who have previously been to WDW and now feel that this new version of the Disney Dining Plan is a complete rip-off that Mouse House managers have begun a running tally of these complaints. They’re also keeping tabs on the amount of “compensation” that restaurant managers have had to hand out in order to placate guests over the past seven days. And the word is that the Mouse intends to keep track of these Dining Plan-related complaints in the weeks and months ahead. So that management can then have some hard numbers to work with, should they ever decide to rethink the changes that have recently been made to the Disney Dining Plan.
Disney — for its part — insists that this “Magic Your Way” add-on is still a great value. Which is why — over at the official Walt Disney World Resort website — the company insists that would-be WDW visitors shouldn’t …
” … miss out ! To save up to 40% on all your Disney Dining needs — and to experience the convenience of pre-paid dining — be sure to purchase the Magic Your Way Package Plus Dining when staying at a select Walt Disney World Resort hotel.”
Copyright 2008 Disney. All Rights Reserved
Of course, the way guests who had previously visited WDW see this situation is that the Disney Dining Plan was a far better “Magic Your Way” add-on when it still included appetizer & gratuity. More to the point, a lot of these people say that they’d be perfectly happy to pay more for the 2008 version of the Plan if Disney would just fold those two features back into the table-service-meal portion of the Dining Plan.
But for now, Disney is just going to stand pat. See if these complaints eventually fade away. But as for the restaurant managers (Who have to deal daily with all these angry customers) and as for the poor servers (Who — in many cases — have already seen a significant drop in their tips), Mickey can’t revert to the old policy fast enough.
So what do you folks think ? Should the folks over at Central Reservations done a better job in getting the word out to guests booking 2008 vacation packages about the coming change to the Disney Dining Plan ? Or was it a mistake in the first place for the Mouse to cut the “appetizer & gratuity included” feature out of the table-service-meal portion of this “Magic Your Way” add-on?
Your thoughts?
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Anyway … Thanks in advance for your most gracious gratuity.