When booking for hotels, a must know detail is the Meal Plan. There are hotels that provide with different terminology/terms and unless you know what they are, you may end up paying for unutilized services or could up spoiling your whole stay.
Let’s start with the basic Meal Plan terms that are used:
- AP – American Plan
- MAP – Modified American Plan
- EP – European Plan
- CP – Continental Plan
- RO – Room Only
- BB – Bed & Breakfast
- HB – Half Board
- FB – Full Board
- AI – All Inclusive
The hotels will use these terms when booking or it could be your Travel Agent or even the online booking service you use. Let’s make the terms very simple now. Trust me, it’s just a piece of cake and all these terms are very similar as well.
If you check on the original terms of these, it will confuse you big time. How I suggest you keep this in mind is using the below idea:
Hotel Check-in: 1400hrs (you are allowed to use the room from this time)
Hotel Check-out: 1200hrs (you are to return the room back)
| Meal Plan | Room + Meals included |
| RO / EP | No meals |
| BB / CP | Breakfast |
| HB / MAP | Dinner + Breakfast |
| FB / AP | Lunch + Dinner + Breakfast |
| AI* | Lunch | Dinner | Breakfast | Local Liquor |
*AI Plans differ from hotel to hotel. Some provide with extras such as Juices, Ice cream, tea and snacks as well. Request for a full detail on this from the hotel.
See? It’s simple!
What you have to keep in mind is that, meal plan is active since you check-in and until check-out.
Let’s say you booked for FB and check-in at 1400hrs? You are entitled for Lunch, Dinner, following day Breakfast. Or you can discuss with the hotel and make the Lunch for next day. But, your standard Check-out time is 1200hrs. Now that would be a little inconvenient. So, it’s better to stick to the way suggested above.
This is the practical side of the operations.
http://grandworldtravel2.vacationport.net/Page/MealPlanDefinitions
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