Dining Plan Price Goes Up

I'm not sure if anyone has heard this yet but the basic dining plan has been raised to $41.99. My mom checked into the Boardwalk yesterday and was informed of the increase. I'm not sure when it went into effect.

Hmmm.

$41.99 current

$37.99 last

$38.99 until 2008 and it included appetiser and table service gratuity of 18%.

Disney made the Dining Plan $1.00 cheaper when they removed the included gratuity and omitted the appetiser. Now they are raising the
price $4.00 and we still have to cough up the gratuity without an appetizer. And no Chicken Strips at the counter service :cry:.

Actually, until this change the basic plan was $39.99. Either way though, it's ridiculous that they're raising the price and we still don't get appetizer and tip. I really can't believe that people complained that it was too much food. If you're full stop eating! If they had lowered the price a significant amount when they took app and tip that would have been fine, but this way, especially now, it won't make sense for a lot of people.

I guess it is keeping with the rise in all WDW prices.

I do not understand why people would complain about too much food when it was already paid for??? We would just get one appetizer to share instead of all of us getting one and we always looked forward to our table service meal.

IMHO I don't think it's worth it, we found ourselves trying to order the most expensive thing on the menu ,which was usually steak, and I don't even eat like that. You want to feel like your getting your monies worth and I'm not convinced that you ever are. Now it's up to $42.00 and on top of that if you want an :
appetizer - extra
drink - extra
tip - extra
Like I've said before, we felt the "free" dining was good during Food and Wine Festival because we utilitzed all of our snacks on the F&W food, so that worked for us. Not even sure I would do the "free" dining again, since we have to pay rack rates at the resort, your just saving money in one place to pay it out to another.:dizzy:

For my family's wants and needs, the dining plan was more cost effective for us. My children could get what they wanted without having to ask if they could get something and I didn't have to do the math to figure out if we could afford it. We also like to take time and relax to eat so the extra time for a meal really was nice.

I think I would do it again in a heart beat.

We used the plan when tips were included, we loved it. We used the plan after the change and tips were not included and the whole appetizer, desert thing. Was not at all happy with waiters telling me what, where and how about their tips. Depending on who you are, it still might be a good idea. We're actually contemplating just using the quick service dining plan for our next trip.

We've been lucky enough to visit the parks during 'Free Dining' times so we are very spoiled by the food adventures we've had. We haven't paid for food for years! We really enjoy sitting down to a nice meal every day and would probably pay for the plan at the higher prices when the freebies come to an end.