Not so "FREE" Dining

tj4ua

Earning My Ears
Joined
Mar 22, 2017
I would recommend pricing your vacations out both ways. I currently have a reservation in Aug book on the summer offer at a value (All Star Sports) and once completed pricing it out using the same Dining plan and ticket package my existing offer was about 200 less than the "Free" dining offer. Free is not always free.

YMMV i suppose, but seems there is a point where the rack rate drives up the cost.
 
Absolutely correct. Free dining is usually a good deal at a value resort, but maybe not so much for a solo or 2-person booking. The general rule of thumb is that free dining is likely the best available offer the lower the grade of the resort and the more people per room. It's when you start mixing them (value resort with few people or deluxe resort with max capacity) that it gets trickier.

But in any case, always price it out with all available discounts, because there may be one that is flat out financially better or at least fits your party better (if your dining style doesn't mesh nicely with the dining plan, for example, it's not a good idea no matter how much the cost savings is).
 
It is also getting to be a worse and worse deal for everyone every year as Disney works on its phase out...
If Disney offers another fall ticket deal (like they have for spring and summer), or one has Florida ticket options, one could probably do better with a RO in almost all cases (unless you are 4-5 adults in a room). Next year, it might be all cases the way the special is going...
 
Free dining is a good deal for people that don't live in florida, this year specially, Florida residents discounted room is way better deal than FD, if you also add all annualpass discount on food and merchandise is worthless to get FD offer
 


I totally agree that Free Dining isn't always the best bet. However, if you are only saving $200 by not getting it, and thus having to pay for meals out of pocket wouldn't you spend more that that in the end? I am confused...
 
I totally agree that Free Dining isn't always the best bet. However, if you are only saving $200 by not getting it, and thus having to pay for meals out of pocket wouldn't you spend more that that in the end? I am confused...

They are paying for the dinning plan in the situation where it was 200 less so they now have 200 to pay for any extras above and beyond the dinning plan then they would have on the "free" dinning plan deal. They compared apples to apples and found that the discount they have is the better one.
 
It worked out for us this year. 3 adults at the Pop. We are AP holders so were going to do a ticketless dining package. Free dining was the same price within $100, but we got 2 day hoppers for the 3 of us to use later for free. A value of $770. No way a room only discount at the Pop would ever save us that.
 


The "free" will depend on when you booked. We booked in June for September 2017, with dining and 4 days of non-hoppers. After the price change in dining and tickets and adding hoppers, a "free" dining package is $100 more than what we booked at. Had we booked after the dining and price changed for 2017, then we would have saved about $300.
 
I am a FL resident and for me it worked. I am paying $10. more without a room discount but am eating for free.
Getting a 2 snacks and a free mug is a deal for me.
Yes I have to buy 2 day hopper but I will put this towards my AP.
Awesome!!
 
It ended up being a really good deal for us... I calculated it out, even after having to upgrade it to add a table service as we are staying in the Caribbean beach in September. We're getting 525.00 for staying there coz of the construction that will be going on there... Also after adding free dining on all together I'm saving 1300 bucks. As prior to adding the free dining my balance due in August was 3600 that is after my 200.00 deposit, it went down to 2800. So that's a total of 800 savings plus the free money they are giving us for staying there during construction....
 
It was a really good deal for us as well. Was worried that the rack rate for rooms would not work out in our favor, but we wound up saving over 600 dollars, even tho we upgraded from QS to the regular plan. One thing I don't understand is when it's said that Disney is making Free Dining less and less of a deal every year because they want to get rid of it. I get that it's less of a deal for some, but surely if Disney wanted to get rid of it, they just wouldn't offer it anymore.
 
I agree that it's a discount. Some discounts work out better than others. FD is a better deal for people that have 4 in a value room than if they were in a deluxe.

It's like anything, shop around and find the best offer for what you want. If you were to have your house painted wouldn't you want to get a few different quotes? It's the same with Disney.

I had 3 different deals since February. First I booked the Savory Summer Offer (1 CS meal per person per night), then I switched to the Room Discount with Canadian Ticket Discount, and now I have FD.

I might have been able to keep the trip cost down if I stayed with the Room and Ticket Discounts but then I would be counting money and eat less expensive just because I'm paying out of pocket. I did an estimate on what we would spend on food and FD was close and I know I didn't include 2 snacks per person per day. I also didn't include any drinks with our CS meals as I would just get free ice water.
 
I always cost it out and choose the discount that works best for us. One year we booked FD on one room and RO discount on the other. There is no way to know unless your do your own math.
 
We were set on booking free dining whenever we decided on the trip. It is the first fall trip for us and we've never had the option before. However, when it came down to booking it ended up being smarter for us to go with a travel agent discount. In our case we also think we'll prefer not being tied down to a dining plan and doing more of what we want when we want.
 
Yep, always do the math!
DH and I are going in November and for us, FD is a good deal. We got a standard POP room (exactly what we wanted). We were going to buy hoppers anyway. We are not upgrading to DDP from QSDP because we were planning to eat mostly QS anyway. We may do 1 or 2 TS OOP if we feel like it. A RO discount at a value is MAYBE $20 a night. Discount tickets (at least what's available now) don't save much from Disney's price. Maybe $10 a night. The two of us can't eat for $30 a day.

And if we were paying OOP, I would be constantly looking for ways to pinch pennies, and this way we can splurge a little. Get a Dole whip EACH instead of sharing! LOL.
 
Free dining works great for me and my daughter. Staying 13 nights over Christmas - 15-28 Dec - with 10 day hoppers at value with free dining upgraded to DDP for less than $4000. I am thrilled.
 
It worked out for us this year. 3 adults at the Pop. We are AP holders so were going to do a ticketless dining package. Free dining was the same price within $100, but we got 2 day hoppers for the 3 of us to use later for free. A value of $770. No way a room only discount at the Pop would ever save us that.

But the value of those tickets is not what it used to be with Disney's new rules.
 
Whether it's "free" or not, I can tell you it is a HUGE savings for our family of four that includes two teenage boys! There's no way any room discount is going to come close to saving me enough to feed everybody! Even paying for the upgrade to regular DDP instead of QSDP is a major savings, since a TS meal every day is a key part of our vacation.

Everyone needs to do the math for their own situation. But I'm amazed at how many people scoff at those of us using the free dining, as if we're being taken advantage of. I challenge anybody out there to find me a deal that's better for a family of four adults, who have at least 1 TS a day, and want to add park hopper anyway. Please, please...if you can come up with math that works better for our situation, I'd love to hear it!
 

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