It's not just the lack of availability that is the issue with the dining plan or free dining. It's the quality of the food that is served that becomes extremely limited and often depleted. Before you dispell this idea just take a moment to open your mind and think about it from a business standpoint. First and foremost you need to understand that at the end of the day NO business survives by giving stuff away for free. The money to pay for it will come from somewhere. Just as you are maximizing your savings by comparing the bigger picture and going with the best offer for you, Disney is looking at the bigger picture and choosing where to offer discounts to maximize their profits. If free dining didn't make them good money by strategically offering it they wouldn't do it year after year. We all know what the cost of the dining plan is. Each restaurant runs on their own budget with a cost to income ratio for everything they serve. They have a cost to produce it and a price to recover that cost plus turn a profit. If Disney is giving you your dining for free then they are, in turn, paying the restaurants you dine in an amount to cover your expense. Do they pay the restaurant the menu prices? Highly unlikely. To add to this, even those who pay for their dining plan, there's going to be a set portion of the daily dining plan cost that will be routed to the restaurants you dined in. Again, that amount of money is NOT likely to be the equivalent of the menu prices. So, for the restaurants to remain profitable it is in their best interest to take actions to ensure they reduce their costs as much as possible. This can be done several ways. For example: purchase lesser quality ingredients, reduce portion sizes, eliminate better quality dishes that cost more to make, and cut back on staffing. Additionally, menu prices are increased to further cushion the gap between cost and price which, in turn, puts a little extra burden on the customers who don't use dining plans and pay out of pocket. Dining plans can, do, and have played a role in the quality of what is being served. I forget who it was, but a member here did speak with s food service/management person candidly some time back about this topic and he did confirm that it DOES play a substantial role in quality.
If limited ADR availability isn't enough to chap someone's tush, try cluing them in that they get to pay more for less. That's not gonna make 'em real happy. I, for one, understand.
To those who are happy they get preference with restaurant ADRs because they were astute enough to make their ADRs 6 months in advance, I'm happy you're so fortunate to be assured without question when you'll be able to vacation that far in advance. Not everyone is so blessed as you with a life of absolute certainty. There are many good people in this world who carry responsibilities that doesn't make that possible for them. Compassion for your fellow man isn't a bad thing. No one of us Disney fans were born with the knowledge to work with the nuances of WDWs booking processes.
I've done the oober planning, spent my years getting a rush working the system. Ill be honest, I'm pretty much over it. I'd rather not have to plan each meal 6 months ahead of time. Heck, I don't even want to think about what we'll eat for dinner next week. I'd rather go on vacation and be in the moment. At this point, the fact that this crazy planning is even necessary is enough irritation to be a deterrent. Then, to think I'd have to go thru all that planning work only to get there and pay crazy amounts of money for lesser quality pretty much makes up my mind. Y'all can have it. There's plenty of Disney magic to be had without all this to bother with.
Have a magical day, y'all! :wave:
No clue what the SPIRITED CHANGE is but I know enough to recognize that change is a very good thing. :animwink:
