Cast member guest discount with dining

[The V Gang]

Hi everyone,

I'm new to the board and was hoping from some help.

My family and I will be visiting WDW in April this year. We are booking through my cousin who gets a 40% room discount (he's a cast member). I know dining plan is sometimes available as well at a discounted cast member rate. Does anyone know if this applies in our case?

Thanks!

[Strmchsr]

to Intercot!! Glad to have you here.

I'm not sure if CMs can get the dining discount for guests or not. I think so, but I'm not 100% sure on that. I suppose to know for sure you would have to ask your cousin, but I'm sure someone else might come along soon that can tell you.

[Fangorn]

My DS is also a cast member. We were just there for his wedding and had a number of rooms booked at his CM rate. When we were making those reservations, the Dining plans were available to some of the rooms but not others. It depended on the dates. During the course of the conversation with the CM reservations agent, she told us that they had just received notice that morning (October 20) that for stays beginning Jan 1, 2013, there would be no CM discounted dining plan available to guests on a CM Friends and Family discount. In addition, those guests would not be allowed to add the dining plan even at full price. If the reservation is actually for the Cast Member, then the dining plans MAY be available at certain times, but there's no guarantee. The notice did leave open the possibility that Disney could change their mind.

I can't tell you for sure that this information is 100% correct, but considering that she had just been given the information, had the memo in front of her and read it to us verbatim, I'm pretty confident that at least on October 20, 2012 that was the story. Could it have changed? Sure.

Before I submitted this, my son got back to me with an update. Currently, there is a CM offer for Friends and Family that does allow the dining plan to be added. The offer only runs through 3/32 and the discount on the DP is only a few dollars as opposed to almost half off as in the past. So it looks like Disney did change their mind to some degree. Whether they will make anything available for April is anyone's guess.

Steve