anyone else not care about free dining?

[YodasMom]

AP room discounts and Tables in Wonderland discounts are a better deal for me. I have never used any of the Disney Dining plans or free dining. Too much food anyway.

I also don't like what's happened with the menu choices at most of the WDW restaurants since the DDP and free dining have started but that's a totally different issue.

 

[MissJanice]

It doesn't make sense for us because we are annual passholders and I am not going to buy tix for the parks, too! But even if we weren't; it still doesn't make sense for us. We like deluxe/mod hotels, but always get QS dining plan. Then we choose 1 or 2 TS meals and pay out of pocket. It makes our whole vacation so much less stress, not dealing with ADRs!

I'll stick with my AP discount and pay for QS dining.

 

[victory-rc]

what are the other options for eating ? your on disney and will pay anyway so may as well save if you can. (...with a dinning plan package)

 

[aurian]

I am also not a fan of the free dining. I am a Annual Passholder with Tables in Wonderland. At this point in life it's just me and my wife so free dining does not work for us...that and the fact we only eat like one big meal a day at Disney.

 

[Eliza32]

We had free dining in 2007 (the REAL plan with appetiser and tip included!) and it was great because it was free, but we missed out on so much else because we were determined to get our money's worth!!!( even though we didn't pay....go figure!) In 6 weeks time, we don't have the plan, but have used our previous experience to decide which 6 sit-down meals to pay for whilst still having time to visit our other faves like Golden Corral and Bahama Breeze. Sure it saved us money in 2007, but I do feel we missed out and the holiday lost some of it's fun focus because of all of the booking and planning we had to do.

 

[Doc Goofy]

Well, the best deal I've been able to get is 10% off the room with AAA (WL) so that saves me about $35. per day. FD for the two of us would probably save more than that since we eat a nice TS meal every night anyway! But I'm afraid that any day now 40% off will be offered to the general public. (I never get a PIN even though I've been a Disney regular.) I guess even if I change to FD, I can always change again if a better deal comes out?

 

[PrincessTiffany]

Well, the best deal I've been able to get is 10% off the room with AAA (WL) so that saves me about $35. per day. FD for the two of us would probably save more than that since we eat a nice TS meal every night anyway! But I'm afraid that any day now 40% off will be offered to the general public. (I never get a PIN even though I've been a Disney regular.) I guess even if I change to FD, I can always change again if a better deal comes out?

I would change to the FD discount. If a general public 40% off code codes out, you can call and change it again.

 

[Mamu]

what are the other options for eating ? your on disney and will pay anyway so may as well save if you can. (...with a dinning plan package)

For some of us who have AP's we've already paid for our tickets, and we get 42% off deluxes. Some of us have also purchased a TiW Card, where we get 20% off our meals including beverages and alcohol. We also get 10% of our purchased at some Disney Stores, plus AP's holders can save $10 on each special ticket event. In my family I'm figuring a savings of over $2700.

If I wanted FD even though we have AP we would have to purchase 1 base ticket for each person and pay rake rate. I think I'll take the savings.

Disney offers a lot of different deals and the FD is not always the best deal.

 

[lawyergirl22]

I also wasn't all that excited about the FD deal we had booked for our upcoming trip. With just me and two kids (ages 4 & 6), a room discount would be much better for us (staying deluxe and really wanted the space of a 1 bedroom villa while the kids nap/rest each day). I have never gotten a pin or code, but on the advice of others on these boards, have been randomly calling every couple days and just asking if there were any room only discounts that I could use for our travel dates instead of FD.

Finally, today, got a great CM who must have stumbled upon some great deal for me, because we are now booked for 7 nights in a 1 bedroom villa at BWV! The total is a bit over $2200, which near as I can tell for our trip dates on the website, is about a 45% discount!!!!! Even factoring in the cost of our tickets, I am still saving almost $1000.00 over our free dining package, which was a standard view room at the Beach Club. I know we have to pay OOP for our meals now, but we are no longer tied down to ADR's, Counter Service meals, etc to take full advantage of FD. This freedom alone is priceless when travelling with the littles.

I hope everyone gets some great pixie dust and definately say to not give up hope. I am so relieved that the right deal became available that works best for my family.

 

[MissJanice]

whilst still having time to visit our other faves like Golden Corral and Bahama Breeze.

Yummy! Bahama Breeze!

 

[Erin_Akey]

Would NEVER do dining plan anymore. With Tables in Wonderland, we get 20% off and just order what we want. Most of the dining plans are too much food. Been there done that. I LOVE TIW. Also, hubby and i like to have wine with dinner or sometimes a cocktail and we get 20% off that too.

It is a much better savings than the dining plans and we do not have to order two appetizers, two entrees etc. Some meals we may share one app and one entree and it is PLENTY.

There is so much wasting and gorging with the DDP especially. No one likes to be wasteful. I feel like we eat way less with TIW and are not walking around full all day. LOVE IT!

 

[mg10rb13]

I don't know how it ends up being that much cheaper for everyone else, but maybe there are discounts and things you may be getting that others are not. When I put in the dates with the up to 40% off room rates for where we are staying (ASMo), and add on the park hopper pass for the time we will be there it only saves us aprrox. 170$.

So for my mom and I, it just makes sense to do the QSDP for free because it's not that much more and we are happy to not pull out our wallets for meals all the time....(not having to tip is nice too =P). Even though we do not always eat our entire meal, it's worth it. We often will use snack credits to buy some candy items to bring back for my brother and/or other family.

I will say that last year we did the table service dining and found we were much more wasteful with the table service meals than we were with the quick service. We also liked the fact that we can eat at our leisure and not have to go by a ADR time. So we are much more happier with a QSDP than the reg. dining plan this year.

 

[lilclerk]

I don't know how it ends up being that much cheaper for everyone else, but maybe there are discounts and things you may be getting that others are not. When I put in the dates with the up to 40% off room rates for where we are staying (ASMo), and add on the park hopper pass for the time we will be there it only saves us aprrox. 170$.

Room discounts will save more depending on your resort and the number of people in your party. With two adults in a value resort, it seems like a toss up of which discount would save... with 3 or 4 people free dining would save more.
But say two adults in a deluxe? The 40% off code is going to save a lot more than free dining.

 

[raven69david]

Are we the only ones who don't give a rip about free dining?

I LOATHE Free Dining! To me, it does nothing but guarantee no availability at restaurants. The ones that cant get to use their credits for table service, due to being booked solid, will then spill over to counter service which then leaves me to deal with large crowds at Cosmic Rays, Caseys, etc. Plus the crowds this type of offer generates makes it chaotic for ride queues, using Disney transportation (monorail, ferryboat, buses) etc.

My wife and I split all of our meals as we're not big eaters. We can afford to buy our own plate, but do not want to waste food. DD5 usually eats snacks or something light as she normally eats from other places outside of the restaurants we dine at. 40% off a Deluxe will save you more than paying for food. This is how much we saved last year: (copy & paste from older post)

my trip at AKL for 7 days:

With AP rate: $938.00 including tax
With FD: $1863.00 including tax - also includes 1 day base ticket for each of us (3) - It would be $2634.00 with 6 day base tickets

room #2 ASMo (for in-laws) LOL

With AP rate: $338.00 including tax
With FD: $786.27 including tax w/1 day base tickets - It would be $1241.02 w/tax with 6 day base tickets

Room #1 savings: $1696 w/6 day tickets or $925.00 w/1 day tickets
Room #2 savings: $903.02 w/6 day tickets or $448.27 w/1 day tickets (these are only QS meals; can't eat $450.00 in QS meals - unless I eat for 2 weeks at Flame Tree BBQ YUMMY)

Please note that all of these figures are for MY family (Me, DW and DD5) and YMMV. DW and I always split our plates because we just can't eat that much food.

Using the AP rates, the cost for all 3 of us per day is $100.00 ($33.33 each). We can't eat $100.00 of food per day....it's simply impossible for us to do that. We do all the signature restaurants, splitting meals, and we spend way less than that each day. Remember that this is only for 2 adults and one child so that's why for MY FAMILY it's not worth it to do FD or even deal with the hassle of FD crowds.

 

[lawyergirl22]

I don't know how it ends up being that much cheaper for everyone else, but maybe there are discounts and things you may be getting that others are not.

Nope-no extras, just the room discount.

Free Dining: 1 adult 2 kids (ages 3&6) 7 nights at Beach Club Standard view room with 8 day base tickets and free dining. Total $3761.63

Discount room only: 7 nights BWV in 1 bedroom villa $2273.95. 8 day base tickets $686.93 (which will be less as I have two 1 day base tickets unused from our last visit to apply towards the new 8 day tickets--so about $140.00 towards the purchase). Total $2960.88 Difference of $800.75, plus the $140 towards the tickets, too! And we have so much more space in a 1 bedroom villa. If we were in just a regular room at the Beach Club, the savings would be even more substantial.

More importantly, for me, with the little kids, I don't have to worry about making use of all our ADR's, QS, and snack credits to get the full value. We can eat what we want, where we want, when we want--alot less stress since I am travelling on my own this trip. This flexibility is key! As everyone has said, run the numbers and make the choice based upon what works for your family!

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Add me to the list, I hate free dining. I hate the dining plan in general though, so I guess I'm the wrong person to ask. I just want a room discount for December, room-only or AP. Looks like we might just rent DVC points, I don't want to wait much longer to book things.

 

[nurtz]

I am also on the "don't care about free dining list". Give me a room discount any day. We don't use the dining plan...free or not.

 

[KELLY]

I LOATHE Free Dining! To me, it does nothing but guarantee no availability at restaurants. The ones that cant get to use their credits for table service, due to being booked solid, will then spill over to counter service which then leaves me to deal with large crowds at Cosmic Rays, Caseys, etc. Plus the crowds this type of offer generates makes it chaotic for ride queues, using Disney transportation (monorail, ferryboat, buses) etc.

My wife and I split all of our meals as we're not big eaters. We can afford to buy our own plate, but do not want to waste food. DD5 usually eats snacks or something light as she normally eats from other places outside of the restaurants we dine at. 40% off a Deluxe will save you more than paying for food. This is how much we saved last year: (copy & paste from older post)



Using the AP rates, the cost for all 3 of us per day is $100.00 ($33.33 each). We can't eat $100.00 of food per day....it's simply impossible for us to do that. We do all the signature restaurants, splitting meals, and we spend way less than that each day. Remember that this is only for 2 adults and one child so that's why for MY FAMILY it's not worth it to do FD or even deal with the hassle of FD crowds.

Since we are at pop with the QSDp free. Just for the heck of it ran figure pay op for food. We are me, dh ,dd 5 and dd2. My 2 year old share the kid don't eat much at all. Even if we ate 2 cs meal a day with no desert since we dont eat desert most of the time. Even if we ate 2 cs meals a day our average bill would be around 70.00 a day.

 

[Orleanslady]

Honestly, it's all about getting the best deal for us. We enjoy a good meal as much as we do the vacation itself. We cook a lot and getting to sit down and eat a nice meal that we haven't prepared is a real treat for DH and me. That said I would go with the pin that would save me the most. I would do the Disney Dining Plan whether we had to pay for it or not. We have never gotten it for free.