Disney Dining Free, not really free

[waltslostnephew]

When I check rates on wdw.com, if I just try to book on the regular tabs for 2 adults 2 kids for 6 day 5 nights All star movie, my rate is 1630.94. If I click on the free dinig offer, everything the same, my rate becomes 1879.00.. What gives?

[Mousemommy1]

Originally Posted by waltslostnephew

When I check rates on wdw.com, if I just try to book on the regular tabs for 2 adults 2 kids for 6 day 5 nights All star movie, my rate is 1630.94. If I click on the free dinig offer, everything the same, my rate becomes 1879.00.. What gives?

"free dining" means rack rate on the room and then also requires a minimum ticket purchase (I believe at least 2 days).

Did you have tickets when you priced the first scenario??

[Spunky946]

It's not really free dining right now. It's getting the adults and kids prices for dining and tickets. It added tickets in, which may be the difference.

[Marthasor]

Originally Posted by waltslostnephew

When I check rates on wdw.com, if I just try to book on the regular tabs for 2 adults 2 kids for 6 day 5 nights All star movie, my rate is 1630.94. If I click on the free dinig offer, everything the same, my rate becomes 1879.00.. What gives?

The current promotion is a "Stay, Play and Dine" offer, meaning they are offering you an overall discount when you purchase a room, ticket and dining package. It is NOT a free dining offer. I'm not sure of your dates, but in many cases, you are better off taking the room-only discount and adding tickets and dining (if you want it) to that discount. I know for dates I checked in February, the room-only offer with tickets and dining added on was a far better deal than "Stay, Play and Dine". So again, it's not a free dining offer. I think Disney has offered free dining for so many years, that this new promotion is very confusing to a lot of people

[homerjay316]

You might also check to see which dining plan you are getting in each scenario. I think that the stay/play/dine at a value resort gives you the Quick Service meal plan by default. If you go for the regular DDP, you are paying the difference. The DDP is free with a moderate or higher room. I'm not certain about this, but it might be worth checking.

[manateesmom]

Definitely price out S/P/D versus room-only discount plus tickets and food. For us, it was cheaper to do room-only plus discount tickets from UT plus food OOP. Some people want the dining plan for psychological reasons, but it's rarely a good financial deal over paying OOP, and particularly with the S/P/D you're probably not going to save money.

[lanejudy]

Originally Posted by waltslostnephew

When I check rates on wdw.com, if I just try to book on the regular tabs for 2 adults 2 kids for 6 day 5 nights All star movie, my rate is 1630.94. If I click on the free dinig offer, everything the same, my rate becomes 1879.00.. What gives?

As others have mentioned, the current offer really isn't "free dining" but a discounted dining/tickets for adults. That said, anytime you are comparing packages/rates/etc. make sure that ALL parts are really the same. Did one version put you in a preferred room? Same # of nights? Same # of days on the tickets? Same tickets (base MYW) or did one version add hoppers and/or WPF&M option? Same dining plan (DDP or QSDP or DxDP)? I know that I often have to re-set various options to make sure I'm truly comparing apples-to-apples and not oranges.

[nigel-bigel]

As everyone has said, check the discounted room rates and figure if it work for your family. I did want to add that it worked great for us, we are one room with two adults and two teens. Others have commented that we are the type of group that can benefit most from s/p/d.

Nicole

[davedmaine]

Originally Posted by manateesmom

Definitely price out S/P/D versus room-only discount plus tickets and food. For us, it was cheaper to do room-only plus discount tickets from UT plus food OOP. Some people want the dining plan for psychological reasons, but it's rarely a good financial deal over paying OOP, and particularly with the S/P/D you're probably not going to save money.

Exactly. Especially if you're in a deluxe, it's a no-brainer. The room discount will always work out better.

[mommyrosa2]

Originally Posted by davedmaine

Exactly. Especially if you're in a deluxe, it's a no-brainer. The room discount will always work out better.

Not always and it really does depend on a lot of factors. We have found that paying regular rack rate and getting Free Dining has always come out cheaper for our family of 4 (2 adults/2 teens - Disney adults). While the savings isn't as high as it used to be, we would still save using FD. Here's an example: I priced out a 9 day trip for next August at the BC, GV room. Regular rack rate with 9 day PH passes, total with FD if it was offered: 5249.96. Now I price out the same room using a 35% room only discount and add the 9 day PH passes, total = $3953.42, now if I add the dining price (1778.88) my total = 5732.30... Free dining would save me $482.34 - not a huge savings, but a savings nonetheless. Now, some folks would argue that a family of 4 could eat for less than the price of the dining plan and while that may be true for some families, ours is not the case. Once I started looking at the places we wanted to eat and looking at the menu's, we realized real quick that we'd be spending a lot more $$ without the plan so it really does just depend.

[mickeynut1]

Originally Posted by davedmaine

Exactly. Especially if you're in a deluxe, it's a no-brainer. The room discount will always work out better.

Not in all situations. Alot of people think this way because rack rate is high at the deluxe resorts, but it's not as cut and dry as many seem to think. Some discounts work out better than others and depends on many factors (i.e., number of people, their ages, time of year, resort, room type, etc). We stay deluxe with 2 adults/2 teens and free dining has come out to be the better savings on a few occasions, so to say a room discount will always come out better at a deluxe over free dining is not an accurate statement.

Originally Posted by mommyrosa2

Not always and it really does depend on a lot of factors. We have found that paying regular rack rate and getting Free Dining has always come out cheaper for our family of 4 (2 adults/2 teens - Disney adults). While the savings isn't as high as it used to be, we would still save using FD. Here's an example: I priced out a 9 day trip for next August at the BC, GV room. Regular rack rate with 9 day PH passes, total with FD if it was offered: 5249.96. Now I price out the same room using a 35% room only discount and add the 9 day PH passes, total = $3953.42, now if I add the dining price (1778.88) my total = 5732.30... Free dining would save me $482.34 - not a huge savings, but a savings nonetheless. Now, some folks would argue that a family of 4 could eat for less than the price of the dining plan and while that may be true for some families, ours is not the case. Once I started looking at the places we wanted to eat and looking at the menu's, we realized real quick that we'd be spending a lot more $$ without the plan so it really does just depend.

I agree completely .