Disney Dining Card: What Many People Don't Know

[red345]

Many people don't know this, but there is a way to save money at WDW restuarants. While down there we had gotten the Disney Dining Card and loved all the savings from it. Most times we saved at least $10 at every meal that we had in a restaurant in the parks and at the resort. This was great since we also had an annual pass and were pretty much able to cover all of the dining in WDW. Also the card allows you free parking in the theme park parking lots, but only if you are going to be eating at the park and you cannot use it for all day parking.

If you have any info, contact WDW reservations and they will be able to help you or if anyone on the site has the phone number please post it.

The card helped us out alot and should be taken more advantage of people who either are going to be there for extended trips or live down there. One more thing the card is 1/2 price for annual pass holders.

$50- one year membership to the club, but you normally get that back within 4-5 meals with three people
$25- for annual passholders, and can be gotten back within 3 meals.

We saved about $190 on meals alone by the way and used that for many number of things down there.

 

[JPVonDrake]

The Facts of Disney Dinning Experience...

You must be 21 years old and either a Florida Resident or an Annual/Premium Passholder to obtain membership. Cards are non-transferable and the member must dine with their guests.

1 Year Membership Prices:
Florida Residents $75.00
Premium / Annual / Seasonal Passholders $50.00
Florida Resident Renewals $60.00 (within 30 days of expiration date)

Disney's Dining Experience Benefits:
* 20% discount on all food and beverage (including alcohol) for member and up to 9 guest at participating table-service Disney restaurants
* 1/2 price admission to Pleasure Island for card holder & 1 guest (hard-ticket admission excluded)
* Free admission to Atlantic Dance Hall at Disney's BoardWalk for card holder & 1 guest
* Club Newsletter
* Complimentary parking if the guest enters a theme park for a short period for the sole purpose of dining. Guest should pay parking at the toll booth, then after dining, present membership card, receipt and parking ticket at Guest Relations for a refund of parking fee. Admission to Theme Park is required.
* Exclusive invitations to Disney's Dining Experience events

Exclusions
* Certain restrictions apply during holidays and special events, please check with the restaurant when you make your reservation.
* Blockout Dates include major holidays including but not limited to: Mother's Day, Easter, 4th of July, Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, New Years' Eve, New Years' Day
* Disney's Dining Experience discount cannot be used in combination with any other discount.

MEMBERSHIP AND CARD INFORMATION: Membership is not available on property. An active Pass Holder or Florida Resident should contact Disney's Dining Experience by:

Download an application at www.disneyworld.com/floridaresidents OR www.disneyworld.com/passholder
then contact Diney Dinning Experience Guest Services by:

Phone: 407-566-5858 (option 3) Monday - Friday 9 am - 5 pm
Fax: 407-560-3764 (24 hours)
Mail: Disney's Dining Experience, Post Office Box 10000, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830

Please allow 2-3 weeks processing time for new cards and renewals.
We issue 1 primary card and 1 spouse card.__ Both members must live at the same address and be 21 years of age or older.

Hope this helps! :sohappy:

 

[dxwwf3]

Ok I want to get this straight before I try and explain this to my Dad:

We WILL be able to order our DDC over the phone when we arrive at WDW and pick up our AP's.

But we will have to go to Epcot's Guest Relations, to pick up a a letter of authorization that will allow us to use the service for this trip without having the physical card yet. We must show a Photo ID in order to pick it up there.

And that's all we need to do in order to join.....right?

 

[swincha]

It is not good at counter service outlets, except at DAK (which has no table service outlets)

You can get 2 cards per family, per membership

I think you must be 18 or 21 with a valid ID to use the card (I read that someplace)

the list i saw showed counter service. can they fax me a list of who takes it. anyway just for dinner i figured with buying the card at 75 we will still save at least 60 bucks so i will order it tomorrow. leaving sat going to parks monday and on. i will ask for 2 cards in mine and dh's name

 

[swincha]

You must be 21 years old and either a Florida Resident or an Annual/Premium Passholder to obtain membership. Cards are non-transferable and the member must dine with their guests.

1 Year Membership Prices:
Florida Residents $75.00
Premium / Annual / Seasonal Passholders $50.00
Florida Resident Renewals $60.00 (within 30 days of expiration date)
MEMBERSHIP AND CARD INFORMATION: Membership is not available on property. An active Pass Holder or Florida Resident should contact Disney's Dining Experience by:

Download an application at www.disneyworld.com/floridaresidents OR www.disneyworld.com/passholder
then contact Diney Dinning Experience Guest Services by:

Phone: 407-566-5858 (option 3) Monday - Friday 9 am - 5 pm
Fax: 407-560-3764 (24 hours)
Mail: Disney's Dining Experience, Post Office Box 10000, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830
Hope this helps! :sohappy:

this is the info i have:
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]DISNEY'S DINING EXPERIENCE is a dining discount program good for 20 percent off food and beverage at a number of Walt Disney World Resort hotel and theme park restaurants and lounges. Previously, the DDE, as it commonly called, was only open to Florida residents.
[/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
-- General Membership: $75.00
-- Annual/Seasonal Passholders' Rate: $50.00
-- Renewals: $60.00 (for existing memberships received within 30 days of expiration date)
[/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]-- [/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Members must be 21 years of age or older[/font]

no where does it say i have to have an ap or be a florida resident. clue me in can i get this if i do not have an ap or am not a florida resident. also the list of places seem to include counter service. where is updated info on the disney site?

 

[swincha]

your right no counter service only food courts at hotels

 

[ClemsonTigger]

this is the info i have:
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]DISNEY'S DINING EXPERIENCE is a dining discount program good for 20 percent off food and beverage at a number of Walt Disney World Resort hotel and theme park restaurants and lounges. Previously, the DDE, as it commonly called, was only open to Florida residents.
[/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
-- General Membership: $75.00
-- Annual/Seasonal Passholders' Rate: $50.00
-- Renewals: $60.00 (for existing memberships received within 30 days of expiration date)
[/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]-- [/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Members must be 21 years of age or older[/font]

no where does it say i have to have an ap or be a florida resident. clue me in can i get this if i do not have an ap or am not a florida resident. also the list of places seem to include counter service. where is updated info on the disney site?

Please trust the information JP VonDrake has provided, you do have to have an AP to purchase.

For dxwwf3's question. I would be concerned about trying to order it while at the resort. If you have an AP but have not activated it, you still have the AP number to use to enroll in DDP. (I like to plan ahead and have things done, so even if I don't activate it, I have the AP voucher well in advance of my trip) If you are planning on an initial purchase of AP at the park, I would contact Disney or possibly PM JPVonDrake to get clarification. I would hate to have you disappointed by some delay in the application that would cause you to miss a day or two of use.

 

[bears163]

here is a link that takes you to the disney web site. on there is another link for the 100 places you can use the card. what a great deal this is. :sohappy: :sohappy: this thing i am trying to figure out is the free dining plan different from the plan you can buy as far as the places you can use them? anyone?

http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/wdw/tickets/packageDetail?id=PackageDetailMYWDiningPkg05Page

 

[wannabeBelle]

The MYW dining plan and the DDE plan are pretty drastically different. The Dining plan allows you one snack, counter service meal and one sit down meal per person per night of your stay. It is accepted almost everywhere I think. Some restaurants are in the Signature Catagory which means that in order to eat there you must "Spend" two of your sit down meals for one dinner there.
DDE is good for unlimited use at any sit down restaurant within the parks or resorts. The only counterservice that this is good for is in Animal Kingdom and at the All Stars & Pop where a sit down restaurant is not available!! So far I havent had any problem getting the 20% discount with the DDE. The only place that I have heard that does NOT accept this discout is Mitsukoshi Teppanyaki in the Japan Pavilion in EPCOT. Some people have used it and gotten the discount others have not been able to so that is a pretty muddy issue, although officially they are not on the list for the DDE discount. Hope this helps! Belle

 

[Nut4Disney]

your right no counter service only food courts at hotels

I ordered mine last month and received the letter in the mail with the list of places to use. It pretty much is all of the sit down restaurants, all food courts including the River Roost (bar) at POR, and several counter service places in each park. It also included alcohol in the bill.

 

[bears163]

thanks bell that does help. i knew the difference in points thing and the unlimited with the purchased DDE. the thing i wondered about the wheni compared the list of restaurants from the purchased plan to the dinning plan that is free. thanks for your help

 

[Nut4Disney]

Sorry Belle, we must have posted at the same time.

 

[dxwwf3]

For dxwwf3's question. I would be concerned about trying to order it while at the resort. If you have an AP but have not activated it, you still have the AP number to use to enroll in DDP. (I like to plan ahead and have things done, so even if I don't activate it, I have the AP voucher well in advance of my trip) If you are planning on an initial purchase of AP at the park, I would contact Disney or possibly PM JPVonDrake to get clarification. I would hate to have you disappointed by some delay in the application that would cause you to miss a day or two of use.

Well the thing for us is, we really don't need the DDC activated until the first day we use our AP's. That way we can use the card on this trip and on next years trip in early June. And the way I read a line on All Ears Net, it would be possible for us to order it as soon as we exchange our AP vouchers for our real AP's and use them. That basically what we would do on our first day there is get our AP's and then call the DDC number and then pick up the information at Guest Relations and we could then use the service.

So basically we would rather have a delay in the application that would make us lose 2 or 3 days on this trip than to order it before we leave and miss 5 or 6 days on next years trip. I hope that makes sense the way I explained it.

And hopefully speck or Drake can get the chance to reply back to this or my original post sometime in the next couple of days.

Thanks for everything.

 

[wannabeBelle]

Well the thing for us is, we really don't need the DDC activated until the first day we use our AP's. That way we can use the card on this trip and on next years trip in early June. And the way I read a line on All Ears Net, it would be possible for us to order it as soon as we exchange our AP vouchers for our real AP's and use them. That basically what we would do on our first day there is get our AP's and then call the DDC number and then pick up the information at Guest Relations and we could then use the service.

So basically we would rather have a delay in the application that would make us lose 2 or 3 days on this trip than to order it before we leave and miss 5 or 6 days on next years trip. I hope that makes sense the way I explained it.

And hopefully speck or Drake can get the chance to reply back to this or my original post sometime in the next couple of days.

Thanks for everything.

I can tell you I ordered my card on January 6th 2005 and when I got it a few weeks later it had an expiration date of 2/28/06 which just happened to match my AP!!!! So dont count on the dates matching up. I would also strongly advise you to take JPVonDrake's advice. He is a CRO cast member whose information has always been correct. I wouldnt gamble like that with my vacation and chance being really aggravated. Belle

 

[dxwwf3]

I can tell you I ordered my card on January 6th 2005 and when I got it a few weeks later it had an expiration date of 2/28/06 which just happened to match my AP!!!! So dont count on the dates matching up.

If the dates would match up for us, we would order it as soon as we get our AP vouchers in the mail. But since they aren't supposed to line up (I can't remember if I read that here or on All Ears), we can't take a chance like that. The card is supposed to be activated as soon as we order it over the phone right? But if we thought it might work out the same way it did for you, we would order it before we left Tennessee.

I'll wait and see what Drake says to do.

 

[Vernonpush]

When I ordered our cards, she said it would take 6-8 weeks for delivery. It took the full eight weeks. We were lucky enough to order when they were still sending out the e-mails and had no problem using that during our trip the first part of May. When the cards arrived on May 31st, the expiration date on them said May 31, 2006. So we actually have 13 months of use for the cards.

 

[Master Yoda]

When I ordered our cards, she said it would take 6-8 weeks for delivery. It took the full eight weeks. We were lucky enough to order when they were still sending out the e-mails and had no problem using that during our trip the first part of May. When the cards arrived on May 31st, the expiration date on them said May 31, 2006. So we actually have 13 months of use for the cards.

The processing time has more than likely shortened up a bit. When Disney first opened DDE up to AP holders there was a huge rush on them and they got a little overwhelmed. That initial rush has subsided so processing times are a little better.

 

[slappy magoo]

this is the info i have:
[font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]DISNEY'S DINING EXPERIENCE is a dining discount program good for 20 percent off food and beverage at a number of Walt Disney World Resort hotel and theme park restaurants and lounges. Previously, the DDE, as it commonly called, was only open to Florida residents.
[/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]
-- General Membership: $75.00
-- Annual/Seasonal Passholders' Rate: $50.00
-- Renewals: $60.00 (for existing memberships received within 30 days of expiration date)
[/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]-- [/font][font=Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Members must be 21 years of age or older[/font]

no where does it say i have to have an ap or be a florida resident. clue me in can i get this if i do not have an ap or am not a florida resident. also the list of places seem to include counter service. where is updated info on the disney site?

swincha, when they say "General Membership," they mean "Florida Residents General Membership." Perhaps it's a bad choice of phrase, but until this year, the discount was ONLY available to Florida Residents, so to Disney's way of thinking, the Florida Residents rate is the General Membership.

I think that essentially, they only opened the DDE to Passholders because the new Disney Your Way ticketing structure has a dining add-on option that an annual passholder couldn't take advantage of.

And even though people have published the list of all available restaurants in the DDE, when it comes to counter-service, the rule of thumb is, if there's a full-service restaurant in the resort or park, then you won't be able to use your DDE at a counter-service eatery. The Value resorts accept DDE at their food courts, as does Port Orleans French Quarter, as it's the only moderate resort with no full service restaurant. And some of the counter-service places in Animal Kingdom accept it, because the only restaurant is the Rainforest Cafe, which is techincally outside the park. Plus, it's the only nearby full-service restaurant. Any other fod court won't accept the DDE.

 

[AEfx]

the list i saw showed counter service. can they fax me a list of who takes it. anyway just for dinner i figured with buying the card at 75 we will still save at least 60 bucks so i will order it tomorrow. leaving sat going to parks monday and on. i will ask for 2 cards in mine and dh's name

The only counter service it works at is those at AK, and the value resorts (All-Stars and Pop).

The reason is because there are no Disney-owned sit-downs at either of those locations.

It's still an excellent value, but no, it will not work at most counter service.

AEfx

PS - This is why, on my last trip, I only ate one counter service at the MK. It costs you $9+ for a burger/fries/drink, at a counter, right? Make a PS for the Plaza - with the 20%, there was like a dollar difference between a fast-food burger and a freshly prepared, sit-down meal burger. They also have tons of other sandwiches - with the discount, the Plaza actually costs LESS than comparable counter food on some other things they offer. I ate there almost every day I was in the MK.

[Edit: It seems I have been corrected above - I didn't know about POFQ too!]

 

[AEfx]

If the dates would match up for us, we would order it as soon as we get our AP vouchers in the mail. But since they aren't supposed to line up (I can't remember if I read that here or on All Ears), we can't take a chance like that. The card is supposed to be activated as soon as we order it over the phone right? But if we thought it might work out the same way it did for you, we would order it before we left Tennessee.

I'll wait and see what Drake says to do.

I'm sure Drake will chime in and give similar advice, but I wouldn't take the chance.

First of all, as Belle said, they give you extra time - mine was actually good for 14 months and not 12.

Second, they may close up this "loop hole" at any time. TECHNICALLY, no, right now nothing is stopping you from picking up a cell phone and ordering it when you arrive. However, even best case scenario, don't expect to use it the first day, because they letters are (or at least were) hand-delivered to Epcot guest services from the DDE office. They don't instantly appear there.

They don't want it to look like an AP-add on, because it's not. Just like the e-mail letters not being sent any more they are working out the kinks in the system with all of us new users, and I wouldn't be surprised if it changes at any time.

Your best bet (after Drake reports in) is to just call Rosa. She will most likely answer the phone when you call DDE. She will be able to confirm for you immediately when the time comes, at the time of the call, how long it will be good for. DDE is a small operation, and I'm sure Rosa will be able to rid you of your fears.

It's been pretty standard to get at least an extra month, if not more, depending on the time of month you order. I really would suggest you do it before you go - just to avoid any disapointment because you never know what can change.

Good luck!

AEfx

 

[dxwwf3]

I'm sure Drake will chime in and give similar advice, but I wouldn't take the chance.

First of all, as Belle said, they give you extra time - mine was actually good for 14 months and not 12.

Second, they may close up this "loop hole" at any time. TECHNICALLY, no, right now nothing is stopping you from picking up a cell phone and ordering it when you arrive. However, even best case scenario, don't expect to use it the first day, because they letters are (or at least were) hand-delivered to Epcot guest services from the DDE office. They don't instantly appear there.

They don't want it to look like an AP-add on, because it's not. Just like the e-mail letters not being sent any more they are working out the kinks in the system with all of us new users, and I wouldn't be surprised if it changes at any time.

Your best bet (after Drake reports in) is to just call Rosa. She will most likely answer the phone when you call DDE. She will be able to confirm for you immediately when the time comes, at the time of the call, how long it will be good for. DDE is a small operation, and I'm sure Rosa will be able to rid you of your fears.

It's been pretty standard to get at least an extra month, if not more, depending on the time of month you order. I really would suggest you do it before you go - just to avoid any disapointment because you never know what can change.

Good luck!

AEfx

Thanks so much! I will wait and see what Drake has to say, but it sounds like they aren't enforcing the 12 months from the time you call and order. If that continues, we will have no problem ordering the card when our vouchers come.