An odd Dining Plan Question

[Momof5]

My family of 7 and another family of 6 are planning a 10 night stay at WDW from August 26-September 5. At present we’ve booked this through AAA and our package includes our rooms and 7 day park hoppers. We haven’t added the dining plan yet because we were undecided about its value for us and knew we could always add it later.

I understand that if a free dining plan offer is made as in years past, it will be announced sometime in April and will likely include dates from August 27 through September 27. To be perfectly honest our plan was to wait until April, see when the dates of free dining were, if any, and then change our reservations to try to take advantage of the free dining.

The problem with that plan is that very soon I will be able to make dining reservations. One of the things we were thinking of doing as a large group is Hoop Dee Doo. I have to pay for that up front at the time of reservation. However, if I planned on using the dining plan to pay for this I would need to have the dining plan on my package which I currently don’t.

Should I put the dining plan on our package now and make our reservations accordingly? If I do, will I still be able to convert to free dining later on? If not, can I cancel the dining plan portion of the package and keep the reservations intact and pay for dinner shows and such at the time I cancel the dining plan, or do I lose previously made reservations if I cancel the dining plan?

I know this is sort of convoluted, but I hope you’re able to follow.

I don’t really want to pay for Hoop Dee Doo because it will be quite expensive for a group of 13 people. However, we would love to go if it means only using 2 dinners each from our dining plan as the dining plan really offers a ton of food.

I look forward to hearing the advice of all the experts here.

Thanks.

Lori - 199 days until arriving at WDW

[vamaggie]

If your party is planning on doing at least one TS meal every day, the Dining Plan may make financial sense. Run the numbers for the places you plan to eat, factor in CS & snacks and see what comes up. I am not sure how AAA works with changing packages by you (when we tried to do this a number of years back they were NOT helpful at all!) but they may not be "on the ball" enough to get you free dining anyway (that is why we use MJ now) Good Luck!

[#1disneyfan]

Well when we went to Disney 3 years ago in September, they announced the free dining plan in the summer. My travel agent (a AAA travel agent BTW) called me and let me know that she had saved me $$$ with the free dining. I was thrilled since I didn't know about it. So in answer to your question, yes you can book the meal plan now and take advantage of the free dining later. Let your agent know that you are wanting the free dining too, just in case they are not into all things Disney. Our AAA agent is a Disney specialist so she is definately "on the ball". As I have nothing against MJ, they are not the only Disney experts.

[TBY2225]

I on the other hand, highly recommend using Magical Journeys. They will take care of it all for you. You can also ask them these same questions and they can tell you the best way to go. I have used lots of other travel agents and MJ is by far the best ones I have found!