*Free* Dining is available - but it might not be what you want to hear!

[JohnDaleswife]

I think Free Dining has had such a negative impact on so many peoples vacations that people just hate to hear it coming every year. The food has been dumbed down, ADRs harder to get, an uptick in attendance during what used to be slower times. I remember back about 6-8 years ago there were many DVC owners that would really get mad about it because they felt it lessened the deal the got with DVC. ( But I will say that there were other really great discounts back then on the rooms that go them upset to.)

But for me and my family, its the best discount we can get at a moderate and even at many deluxes. I haven't been lately during the Free Dining promos, but I have been during three of them. Today it would be a savings of $240 a night for us. No way could I get that type of discount with a % off my room, even stacking Orbitz discounts.

 

[amylevan]

Today it would be a savings of $240 a night for us. No way could I get that type of discount with a % off my room, even stacking Orbitz discounts.

That savings assumes you were already planning on buying a DDP.

I hardly ever see anyone do the calculation with what you would expect to actually spend on food compared to a room discount. That's where it can get sticky. We eat out at a mix of TS and CS, and we have always averaged less than the DDP per day (well, except for back in the day when the DDP was a better deal). You have to compare a room only discount (and ticket discount if you use UCT) to what you actually would spend on food.

 

[5kidsmommy]

That savings assumes you were already planning on buying a DDP.

I hardly ever see anyone do the calculation with what you would expect to actually spend on food compared to a room discount. That's where it can get sticky. We eat out at a mix of TS and CS, and we have always averaged less than the DDP per day (well, except for back in the day when the DDP was a better deal). You have to compare a room only discount (and ticket discount if you use UCT) to what you actually would spend on food.

A relaxed food budget for the two of us would be about $114 a day for our trip, that includes the partial days we are there and that includes mostly quick service but also two table service meals and tips. The RO discount if available for my package would be about $54 a night.

So the DDP would never be something I would pay for out of pocket but the RO discount just isn't enough to make sense when I was able to secure a standard room. Even buying tickets form UCT it wouldn't be as good as a deal. I agree though that lots of people aren't doing the right math but many are.

 

[monica9]

I think that it depends on your party size, which level resort, and length of stay. For us, free dining was a home run.

Forgive my lengthy voodoo math:

Family of three. Mod + Park Hopper, 8 day ticket/7 night. We were going with this plan anyway, so, granted, park hopper add doesn't affect us personally.

Below is the price within $100. The first is my free dining price. The second is my calculation of what it would be for a moderate room only discount of 25% with the same tickets. If it would only 20%, it would be $50 more.

Free Dining: ~$2700
RO +8/7PH: ~$2300

It's a $400 difference to eat out for a week. I'm sure it could be done, but $50 a day for two meals + snack for a family of three would be a bit difficult to do, especially if I didn't want to leave the parks during the day.

Imagine that we applied a 20% discount, and paid for the dining plan. It would be $3,193. Almost a $500 difference.

Again, it's a case by case basis.

Wait, so it was cheaper for you to get the room on discount?

 

[Misha72683]

A quick caliclation of picking 5 QS that I thnk it's likely we'll eat at (one we have an ADr adm 2 are on my 'want to try' list), we'd be looking at $300 (not including tax) for our meals. For our 5 TS it's another $620. Plus $72 for the mugs (or we can call it $36 as we would have bought 2 if we weren't on teh DDP, not 4) and then snacks and since we're going during F&W, we'll likely use them for more expensive snacks, but we'll still say each credit is worth $5, for anothet $100. So that's $1090 worth of food (or $1055 if you take away the 2 mugs). So much more than I would save with a RO discount, which would be between $250-$350 depending on if it was 20 or 25%.

Now that doesn't include the food we'll buy out of pocket (some snacks, alochol and at least one nreakfast) or gratuities, I'll budget for those seperately. But just for the food covered by the DDP I'm saving $700 over the RO discount and not not changing a thing about my trip. For me, it's definitely a win and it wqs wroth spending 2 hours on hold.

 

[ELSA711]

A quick caliclation of picking 5 QS that I thnk it's likely we'll eat at (one we have an ADr adm 2 are on my 'want to try' list), we'd be looking at $300 (not including tax) for our meals. For our 5 TS it's another $620. Plus $72 for the mugs (or we can call it $36 as we would have bought 2 if we weren't on teh DDP, not 4) and then snacks and since we're going during F&W, we'll likely use them for more expensive snacks, but we'll still say each credit is worth $5, for anothet $100. So that's $1090 worth of food (or $1055 if you take away the 2 mugs). So much more than I would save with a RO discount, which would be between $250-$350 depending on if it was 20 or 25%.

Now that doesn't include the food we'll buy out of pocket (some snacks, alochol and at least one nreakfast) or gratuities, I'll budget for those seperately. But just for the food covered by the DDP I'm saving $700 over the RO discount and not not changing a thing about my trip. For me, it's definitely a win and it wqs wroth spending 2 hours on hold.

That savings assumes you were already planning on buying a DDP.

I hardly ever see anyone do the calculation with what you would expect to actually spend on food compared to a room discount. That's where it can get sticky. We eat out at a mix of TS and CS, and we have always averaged less than the DDP per day (well, except for back in the day when the DDP was a better deal). You have to compare a room only discount (and ticket discount if you use UCT) to what you actually would spend on food.

I priced our vacation out with OOP vs Dining plan and even if we bought dining plan we break even without the snacks and resort mugs.
We have fam of 5 with a TS/Character Meal every day....that alone covers the dining plan for the most part, add in QS meals and snacks we could never find a room discount for that.
I was about to remove the dining plan from my package this year and the CM said it would reduce my package by about 1800. That is huge for us.
I know we utilize every penny of it based on our character meals.

 

[Kbee]

I have a question for the *free* dining enthusiasts:

Would you pay the OOP cost for any of the dining plans? IOW, do you feel that they are worth the price tag that Disney puts on them?

I wouldn't pay for it, because we can do better paying for meals OOP.

 

[ELSA711]

I have a question for the *free* dining enthusiasts:

Would you pay the OOP cost for any of the dining plans? IOW, do you feel that they are worth the price tag that Disney puts on them?

We payed out of pocket last year and 2009.
2012 we got it for free and again this year. I like it. Crunch the #s when we return each year based on our receipts and always worth it for us. We typically break even on the meals so the snacks and resort mugs are bonus

 

[Kbee]

That savings assumes you were already planning on buying a DDP.

I hardly ever see anyone do the calculation with what you would expect to actually spend on food compared to a room discount. That's where it can get sticky. We eat out at a mix of TS and CS, and we have always averaged less than the DDP per day (well, except for back in the day when the DDP was a better deal). You have to compare a room only discount (and ticket discount if you use UCT) to what you actually would spend on food.

We spent $1200 on food for the 5 of us on our last trip, and that didn't include a TS every day, some days we only ate CS, and one night we ordered a pizza and 2 liter of soda. It included all snacks and alcoholic drinks. This time around I did the math when booking, and with a RO discount plus that $1200 we still come up around a savings of $900 if we go with FD. We will probably buy extra snacks and have some drinks, but we will still come out saving.

 

[Tarheel girl 1975]

A relaxed food budget for the two of us would be about $114 a day for our trip, that includes the partial days we are there and that includes mostly quick service but also two table service meals and tips. The RO discount if available for my package would be about $54 a night.

So the DDP would never be something I would pay for out of pocket but the RO discount just isn't enough to make sense when I was able to secure a standard room. Even buying tickets form UCT it wouldn't be as good as a deal. I agree though that lots of people aren't doing the right math but many are.

We compare it to how much we would spend on food too. I think a lot of people actually do look at it this way. The RO discount for Values and Mods are not usually that high, especially for standard rooms. I understand that free dining is not always the best deal, but I get tired of people assuming that people who like free dining don't understand it or haven't done the math.

 

[dpswift]

Personally I wouldn't go during FD. It is so hard to get good ADRS when everyone is fighting it out over a small period of days.

I have had no problem getting what I wanted the last 2 years. Including BOG and the dessert party.

 

[jburd]

I have a question for the *free* dining enthusiasts:

Would you pay the OOP cost for any of the dining plans? IOW, do you feel that they are worth the price tag that Disney puts on them?

I do. I feel better knowing I can eat whatever I like and it's already paid for. It's just easier on me mentally that way. And we love table service meals. This time, we were already booked with the dining plan, so when free dining came out, we were able to get that deal, and shave $1100 off of our final cost. Made me very happy!!

 

[Misha72683]

I have had no problem getting what I wanted the last 2 years. Including BOG and the dessert party.

This. I was terrified about my ADRs, convinced it would be impossible but I got everything I wanted including my choice of times at Ohana, BOG (lunch, didn't try for dinner) and pre-park Crystal Palace. The only thing I wanted and didn't get was pre-park H&V.

 

[disneyjunkie]

even with them making you pay for Park hoppers? I feel really bad for the people today that didnt get it...looks like there were alot of dissapointed people, hope it works out for you

We always purchase hoppers, so this isn't a big deal to us.

We were just there during Easter. I was able to get a 30% room discount and paid for the dining plan.

If we return at the end of August, I 'll pay full price for the room (which is still less than the discounted rate I paid this month) and have free dining (actually it will cost me $261.10 to upgrade to the regular plan).

This month I paid $2884.00 for our room, tickets and dining. The same room, same tickets and same dining plan will cost me $2003.68 in August.

Going with base tickets and not using the dining plan isn't an option for us.

 

[Jaime4004]

I'm quite happy with my "free" dining! I doubt anyone is booking because they think it's really totally free (especially people who hang out on the budget board ), it's just the name of a special offer/discount. I had CBR booked for Nov because we were going regardless of discounts. I rebooked to a preferred room and water parks & more for an extra $600. I'm good with that. I know that I cannot feed my family of 5 for less than $600 for 7 days. I'm on the fence about keeping a preferred room, if a standard opens I might go back to that to save more. While I'd rather not pay for WP&M tix (or park hoppers), I am okay with trying out DisneyQuest (2 big fans of video games) and I suspect we will now be there a few times, along with mini golf. I originally priced out OOP dining plan and I believe it would have added about $1800 to the price. That is totally not worth it to us. I have 2 kids that are disney "adults" but don't each much. $600 for dining for a week makes me do the happy dance! If it didn't make sense for us, I wouldn't have spent 2 hrs of my life on hold.

 

[McGreezy]

*Shrug*

I have free dining from a bounce back for this upcoming October at POFQ. In my case it is WELL worth it as POFQ rarely ends up discounted in any way for the dates I travel. I would NEVER buy the dining plan, but in this case having it for free does save me a ton of money.

Does it work for all people? No. But it does work for some. TO act like it doesn't is just pushing your own view on things onto others without taking into account their specific situation.

Can I inquire as to what a "bounce back" is?

Disney first-timer here

 

[mickeyfan9194]

So we'll just call it "The Discount That Shall Not Be Named" since some people are so disturbed by calling it Free Dining. Call it what you will, when it saves me $1000 over the room discount, I'll take it! I think most people are smart enough to do the math (room+tickets+food-any discounts) before they book anything.

 

[Kbee]

So we'll just call it "The Discount That Shall Not Be Named" since some people are so disturbed by calling it Free Dining. Call it what you will, when it saves me $1000 over the room discount, I'll take it! I think most people are smart enough to do the math (room+tickets+food-any discounts) before they book anything.

Very true, the only reason I did book is because I did the math. I didn't have a trip planned because I'm a little disenchanted with WDW lately but when I priced a package with the discount that shall not be named, I thought, for that price I'll give it another shot

 

[amylevan]

Can I inquire as to what a "bounce back" is?

Disney first-timer here

A bounce back offer is an offer that you receive while actually at Disney if you make a new reservation to return.

 

[McGreezy]

A bounce back offer is an offer that you receive while actually at Disney if you make a new reservation to return.

Thanks a bunch!