You can get yourself and three other people (or the number of your dependants) into the Parks and acts as a one-day Park Hopper, which does NOT count against your yearly allotment. Your yearly allotment only counts for sign-ins at your home Resort.
Other then free admissions and your regular discounts on food and merchandise, Disneyland Resort Cast Members don't get much more then that at Walt Disney World. Most everything else at Walt Disney World (including lesser destinations like the water parks, Cirque, DisneyQuest, Pleasure Island) is what they call "Florida Site", which means that you have to be a "Florida Site" Cast Member to get discounts at those places. This even extends as far as Cast Member events and soft-openings for new attractions, though local management can override the "official policy" at their discretion (like when local DAK management decided to let non-"Florida Site" Cast Members to come in for the Expedition Everest Cast Previews the morning of the first day of previews). Walt Disney World upper management enacted this form of horrible one-sided segregation around 2001, which is sad because the DLR does not use the term "California-Site" at all to segregate WDW Cast Members visiting there.
On any discounted meals now, including those with Cast Member discounts, the gratuity automatically is added and you can always ask to speak with a manager to lower the amount if you want (on the flip-side, you can always raise it on your own w/o a manager as well). The new Disney Dining Plan does NOT include gratuity and appetizer any longer as of this year's plan, all for $1 less then 2007 so the value of the plan was lowered tremendously... though still it is a pretty good deal, it's just definitely not as good as last year. You can purchase the DDP through DVC, but not through any Cast Member channels.
Speaking of tips, like with most all table-service restaurants outside of Disney... the tip is shared by not only the server, but the bussers and any wait help as well. If you're worried about getting horrible service because you are on the dining plan, I went last year during FREE dining and only experienced great to excellent service. There were multiple occasions where I left even more because the server and wait help was so good.
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