How do AP holders save during Free Dining?

[jennipooh]

I'd like to hear from AP holders who have traveled during Free Dining. Did you do the math to find out which was cheaper? Paying "rack rate" + purchasing a ticket in order to get Free Dining, or did you find that the AP room only rate was cheaper? What does Disney do for AP holders during this period?

I am an AP holder, DS(now10) is not. (I did the math a bunch of different ways and this worked for us -back when he was still a "Disney Child") Mainly, I enjoy the room discount!

Last year we were originally planning to travel during Free Dining in August, but ended up going to the beach instead. When I changed our WDW reservations from August to December, we ended up saving tons of money! That left me wondering if Free Dining had been the right decision in the first place! Maybe I got too caught up in the word "FREE" to fully explore our options!

I would love to hear from AP holders about their experiences with this offer/ this time of year.

TIA!

[dizneeat]

We are two adult AP holders. We have gone for free dining for the last two years and it worked out very well for us.
I think it depends on where you stay. For us DDP is worth 80$ a day, so any discount larger than 80$ would be better than FD.
Here is what we came up with the last two years.
2007 - stayed at POP (possible AP discount was around $20 a day - Free DDP came out way ahead)
2008 - stayed at POR (possible AP discount was around $50 a day - Free dining still came out way ahead).
You can always use the one day ticket to pay towards your next AP and - and this is where the value of Free DDP kicks in for me. Not only IS it the better deal for us, but last summer the monetary value of DDP was $960, but our dining bills came up to 1400$!!! :thumbsup2 (Yeah, I did my homework and picked some real "bargain" restaurants)
We just returned from a trip (4/3 deal) and paid for the DDP and still saved nearly 200$!!

We booked bounceback FD for this August!! and I am so looking forward to it!:cloud9:

[i3utterfli82]

We have done free dining for the past 2 years as AP holders and it has been totally worth it..staying at pop and por.

[Pooh Girl 71]

We're AP holders and have done the free dining plan every year it's been offered. We usually stay at a value and buy a 1 day ticket. I then use the one day ticket to upgrade to my Ap when the time comes. We've tried lots of restaurants that we would have never gone to due to the price.

[jennipooh]

Thanks, everyone, it looks like (if it is offered) we will choose the free dining and hold on to the tickets for ap renewal.