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View Full Version : Upgrade to Club lever? Ditch the meal plan?



FTMLuc
06-22-2015, 03:56 PM
We are going to Disney in Sept for 4 nights/5 days, staying at the Wilderness Lodge. This will be our 2nd and last Disney trip for a few years. When I originally planned it I decided to do a dining plan b/c wanted to do lots of character meals. Now as the planning gets more serious I am rethinking whether I want to be so tied down with sit down meals at specific times.
Here is our proposed itinerary:
Monday: arrival, evening at Epcot with late lunch at Akershus
Tuesday: AK, lunch at Tusker House; Halloween Party at MK
Wed: MK; breakfast at BOG @ 8:35, lunch at CRT at 2:20
Thu: Epcot; dinner at Marrakesh
Fri: morning at the hotel; depart

I have been waiting to see if any discounts would pop up for our room, but it did not fall into the free dining category nor into the late summer discount. We can upgrade to a club level for $50 more a night right now. I am thinking of cancelling the dining plan and just upgrading. Dining plan for the 3 of us is $580 vs. upgrade of $200 that would include some breakfast, snacks and a beer or a glass of wine in the evening. I am also not sure if we need all the sit down meals. DD might not cooperate for all the sit down meals all the time. I’d rather have an option to go back to the hotel and rest, grabbing some snacks offered at club level.

Do you think we need the Akershus meal upon arrival or leave that time free to browse through Epcot and get what strikes out fancy? That way if our flights are delayed, whatnot, I am not stressing about making our reservation. She’ll see some of the princesses at CRT, right?

We did Tusker House on our last trio 2 years ago and it was nice, however, DD is a lot more into rides not, so I’d rather spend the extra hour on those and head back to the hotel to rest/eat/snack before the Halloween party at MK. So I think I might cancel this particular reservation

Disney veterans, what do you recommend? Upgrade and ditch the dining plan and pay for the couple of sit down meals out of pocket? Good idea to cancel the Tusker House and Akershus? Other recommendations? Thank you!

rkold
06-23-2015, 12:24 AM
We are going to Disney in Sept for 4 nights/5 days, staying at the Wilderness Lodge. This will be our 2nd and last Disney trip for a few years. When I originally planned it I decided to do a dining plan b/c wanted to do lots of character meals. Now as the planning gets more serious I am rethinking whether I want to be so tied down with sit down meals at specific times.
Here is our proposed itinerary:
Monday: arrival, evening at Epcot with late lunch at Akershus
Tuesday: AK, lunch at Tusker House; Halloween Party at MK
Wed: MK; breakfast at BOG @ 8:35, lunch at CRT at 2:20
Thu: Epcot; dinner at Marrakesh
Fri: morning at the hotel; depart

I have been waiting to see if any discounts would pop up for our room, but it did not fall into the free dining category nor into the late summer discount. We can upgrade to a club level for $50 more a night right now. I am thinking of cancelling the dining plan and just upgrading. Dining plan for the 3 of us is $580 vs. upgrade of $200 that would include some breakfast, snacks and a beer or a glass of wine in the evening. I am also not sure if we need all the sit down meals. DD might not cooperate for all the sit down meals all the time. I’d rather have an option to go back to the hotel and rest, grabbing some snacks offered at club level.

Do you think we need the Akershus meal upon arrival or leave that time free to browse through Epcot and get what strikes out fancy? That way if our flights are delayed, whatnot, I am not stressing about making our reservation. She’ll see some of the princesses at CRT, right?

We did Tusker House on our last trio 2 years ago and it was nice, however, DD is a lot more into rides not, so I’d rather spend the extra hour on those and head back to the hotel to rest/eat/snack before the Halloween party at MK. So I think I might cancel this particular reservation

Disney veterans, what do you recommend? Upgrade and ditch the dining plan and pay for the couple of sit down meals out of pocket? Good idea to cancel the Tusker House and Akershus? Other recommendations? Thank you!

I don't know how many others here have stayed Club Level, but I have and I love it. We use to stay Club Level at the Yacht before we bought DVC points. We found the light continental breakfast was perfect for us. I'd eat some cereal, fruit and muffins. DD liked eating a bagel and boiled egg, my mother would always find something to eat and there was lots of coffee, tea, juice, and if you really needed it alcohol. The cast members working Club always happily gave out bottles of water to bring to the parks so you didn't have to purchase any. They also gave us bottled water for the room.

I was rarely there for lunch, but it was very light, mostly chips, candy and trail mix, though I will say the potato chips were delicious.

My mom who didn't go to the parks often made a light dinner from the appetizers. Some of them were quite good and there was always hummus, cheese, crackers and more fruit. We ate dessert too. The pastries were often delicious.

Usually at CRT you get: Cindy, Aurora, Ariel, Jasmine, and Snow White. I think I once got Rapunzel. I've had a little more variation with Aksherus, with Belle, Aurora, Cindy, Ariel, and Snow White, though we've had Mulan there instead of one of those princesses 2x. Aksherus is always slow and they're not good if you are late. They gave us a horrible time when we were late to a reservation once. If your flight is delayed, if your ME delayed (or if the rental car company is crowded) it can be easy to miss a reservations. I also think the food is very mediocre. I don't know how crowded when you are going is, but if it's not so crowded, you can meet Belle in the blue+white dress in France and meet Ariel as a Mermaid in MK. You do get a lot of the same princesses though at each meal.

If you're staying Club and are willing to wait until 5 to go to the party, you can eat lots of main course snacks before you go.

I admit, I'm not a big fan of the meal plans. You get a lot of food and you don't get to pick what you want. It also doesn't include alcohol should you be wanting some. I don't always want dessert and sometimes I want an appetizer instead.

megs4413
07-06-2015, 09:29 PM
I would absolutely upgrade to CL and skip the dining plan for that price. In fact, that's what I did the last time we went, albeit at AKL. It covered us for breakfast every single day and also covered us for drinks most days (because you can take drinks from the lounge with you). Anytime we were at the resort, basically, we could count on food/drinks at no additional charge. We utilized it for lunch even. It was also really nice to get a taste of the table service restaurants at the resort without paying for a full meal for our whole family. Also, beer. I mean, c'mon. :)

I think Akershus and CRT ressies for the same trip is overkill. I would choose which one is more important to you. Personally, I vastly prefer CRT. I would absolutely ditch the Tusker House reservation you have. Don't overfill that halloween party day!

If you go CL, you'll have access to the lounge from the time you check in to 10pm on the day you leave, just to keep that in mind.

So if I were you, my schedule would look like this:
monday: arrival, visit the Old Faithful Club to munch before heading to Epcot and touring. QS dinner in Mexico or Italy
tuesday: breakfast at OFC, AK touring, back to resort for a QS lunch supplemented with OFC daytime offerings, maybe dinner at WCC (have you done that before?), MK for party
wednesday: breakfast at OFC, MK touring, late lunch at CRT, back to resort and use OFC for most of dinner and especially dessert!
thursday: breakfast at OFC, Epcot touring, dinner at Marrakesh
Friday: breakfast at OFC, depart

Here's a link to the disboards discussion of WL. The club level posts are # 8 and 9 and 10. HTH!
http://www.disboards.com/threads/disneys-wilderness-lodge-and-villas-information-thread-2015.3372315/

anonomom
07-07-2015, 08:05 AM
Yes, CL all the way. Especially since, IIRC, the Dinner offerings at the WL are somewhat more substantial than at other resorts. I seem to recall they serve chili in addition to the usual appetizer stuff.

I find that CL offerings don't completely replace dinner, but do substantially reduce your need. We'd generally graze on the apps and then get 1 or 2 entrees at a QS restaurant to share among the five of us.