msdaisy
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jan 31, 2012
We were fortunate enough to stay at Coronado Springs in 2011 with free dining. It was that weird year that they offered it with a check in date at the end of May. We were traveling with my mom, sister, and brother in law. I had never heard of free dining, but by gosh I checked my kids out of school two days early and off we were!
It was a great trip. My mom worried the entire trip that Disney was going to stick a food bill under our doors one night. Rack rate on the two rooms must have been around $175 or $180 per night, and of course tickets were much less even in 2011.
So, we lived it up. Well other than my mom who was super suspicious of the whole thing. Well let me tell you, free dining became the holy grail. This is very difficult to do with two kids in school. We continued to return to Disney, but we were always chasing that pie in the sky free dining!
Never. Happened. Again.
I spent some time early this morning just pricing out some things before the website became wonky. This is hard to compare apples to apples, because we usually travel in June. But, here is what my apples to oranges comparison is -
Coronado Springs rack rate is about $200 a night now. Plus, people now need park hoppers. So, it looks like we would spend around $6500 for 9 nights for the free dining deal. Now enter Bonnet Creek. I can book it with regular tickets for around $3500 for the same length of time. Sorry Disney, but you just can't have $3000 of my money. I'm fairly certain we could eat like kings for that much money.
So, I declare I give up on my free dining dream!
And, I am happy about it!!
It was a great trip. My mom worried the entire trip that Disney was going to stick a food bill under our doors one night. Rack rate on the two rooms must have been around $175 or $180 per night, and of course tickets were much less even in 2011.
So, we lived it up. Well other than my mom who was super suspicious of the whole thing. Well let me tell you, free dining became the holy grail. This is very difficult to do with two kids in school. We continued to return to Disney, but we were always chasing that pie in the sky free dining!
Never. Happened. Again.
I spent some time early this morning just pricing out some things before the website became wonky. This is hard to compare apples to apples, because we usually travel in June. But, here is what my apples to oranges comparison is -
Coronado Springs rack rate is about $200 a night now. Plus, people now need park hoppers. So, it looks like we would spend around $6500 for 9 nights for the free dining deal. Now enter Bonnet Creek. I can book it with regular tickets for around $3500 for the same length of time. Sorry Disney, but you just can't have $3000 of my money. I'm fairly certain we could eat like kings for that much money.
So, I declare I give up on my free dining dream!
And, I am happy about it!!