Gr8t Fan
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Jul 7, 2009
You have to keep in mind that Free Dining is limited to stays of 10 days or less.
I thought it was changed to 14 days last year?
You have to keep in mind that Free Dining is limited to stays of 10 days or less.
You have to keep in mind that Free Dining is limited to stays of 10 days or less.
We just came back from 14 days of free dining.
We are 100% agreement there!You make valid points. Both onsite and offsite have their advantages and each has to be considered for their strengths and weaknesses.
$100 per day will not even cover a SINGLE QS meal for a family of 15!If you were to take into consideration what it would cost to dine onsite, 3 meals per day for 2 weeks, then I would agree that you cannot beat the free dining vs. a room discount and paying OOP for food. But I'm sure that even with eating QS meals and buying convenience groceries, the OP can spend less than $100/day on average to feed the family while staying offsite. Naturally some days will be more than others but the non-park days would be considerably less.
The Value resorts have QS DDP only, so no I did not factor in tips for TS meals .And you have not factored in the gratuity that is automatically added to TS bills when a party of this size is involved. That comes right out of pocket and is an expense that free dining does not cover.
But then you need to add the price of an AP into the equation. It's more than DOUBLE a 10-day non park hopper at $520. Even when you subtract the free parking benefit they are spending nearly $200 MORE for each AP. The other benefits don't make up that difference, IMO.Another consideration, parking fees do not become a factor if the OP has one adult AP for every vehicle that they are driving to the parks. AP holders park for free (as of right now). So it might be worth the cost of APs vs the price of 10-day passes to get at least one to save on the parking costs and other benefits.
Yes, you can picnic. I almost always pack a PB&J for my fussy DD to eat. BUT ... as someone who pays for my CS meals I would request that if they do picnic they not sit at the CS tables if it's busy.I'll be the first to agree with you that packing picnic lunches for the park and cooking dinner for a crowd while on vacation is not fun. But the OP wanted to know how cheaply this trip can be done and I'm just offering an alternative idea. I thought that perhap she was not aware that it is possible to bring outside food into the parks.
I thought it was changed to 14 days last year?
We just came back from 14 days of free dining.
That's what I thought. Thanks for clearing that up.
Just a note on the give a day get a day, while I think that the idea of the promotion is wonderful I don't really see it's value for a family like yours that wants to stay for a long trip. The cost to add one more day onto a longer theme park ticket is peanuts. So instead of buying 10 day one park expiring passes you could buy 9 day one park expiring passes. I don't have the exact number in front of me but I beleive the difference is cost between the 9 and 10 day is about $2 even times 15 I don't even think it's worth the paperwork to get the free days in the give a day get a day.
The "give a day" promotion is great, if you aren't booking a package. The birthday passes were upgradable, so hopefully these will be as well. If they are, you could upgrade those tickets to longer tickets and get credit for the price of a one day ticket towards your new, longer ticket. If you are staying on site and booked a package, you won't be able to do that as you can't combine two tickets (your free one and the one-day base you had to buy for free dining) into one.
Even if the tickets are not upgradable or they want the free dining package, they could still use it to get a day 11 for the older ones and have it be a pool day for the little ones and a parent if they are doing the free dining package.
Grand total comes to 11,271.00 plus transportation there and back and gas for your vehicle while you are there. Thats it, thats the cheapest I could do it!
I agree with the other posters who recommend staying at a value during free dining as the best option.
We purchased the quick service dining plan last year and we loved it. We like having the flexibility to eat where ever we liked, and we also liked not having to pay a tip.
Also the logistics of making table service ADRs for such a big group during free dining and making sure everyone is there for the meal (with the ages of some of your kids, I see them wanting to do their own thing), would be overwhelming.
Having access to Disney transportation would be a great advantage.
You wouldn't be able to take advantage of the "Give a day promotion," but 14 days of food would be a much bigger savings than having one park day free.
Since most of the OPs kids are in school(with several in high school), the timing of traditional free dining would probably not work. It usually starts right when school starts, at least where we live.
Marsha