Hi! Hoping someone can help me: Looking at Fort Wilderness Cabins August 2013 Have a family of 4 with two young kids. I was counting on free dining during the last two weeks of August but now I am not so hopeful. I thought I read at some point that FD makes more sense for a family of 4 then 35% off your resort. I have a PIN for "save up to 35% off your stay". What do you think? I don't even know how to figure out the numbers. We only plan to eat breakfast at the cabins and plan to eat ALL the rest of our meals out. So what is a better deal? THANKS!
I'm not sure which would be better, but I don't think the cabins typically get 35%. It says 'up to' because the different levels/resorts get different amounts. I think 25% is closer to what the cabins typically get. You can figure it out by pricing your vacation at rack rate (no discount) without the DP since it would be free versus the resort and taking off the discount yourself, dp and tickets... it gives you a rough idea.
There has been a lot of talk about free dining lately and how much it is actually worth getting. If you don't eat a whole lot then I have seen people take advantage of the 35% off a room and then buy tickets from a third party such as Undercover Tourist. Like she said, the resort makes all the difference on whether you would even get 35% off. Usually the Deluxe resorts get the larger discounts.
We actually had the extact same dilema! Booked the cabins at FW with a 30% off then found out I had a PIN with a % off or a free dining plan. I figured out what the difference was (our discounted room rate plus what we would have paid for tickets at undercover tourist) and it ended up being around $500. We decided to switch to the free dining. However, we have 4 adults and 1 child (age 1) so this worked out to about $25/person per day to eat. Since my parents have never been to Disney and it has been 5 years since DH and I went we decided mind as well take advantage and try some cool places (we were planning to do dinner at Jiko and pay while we were there anyway so factored that in). Plus this way we don't have to plan meals in our cabin for lunch/dinner. It's really personal choice and how much it would save you with adults/kids and how much you would probably spend in food anyway.... Good luck!
Look at a few restaurants whre you might eat. Calculate the cost of an average breakfast/lunch/dinner. Add about 10% for extra's and unexpected snack-attacks and you have a rough figure of what you might spend on dining. Then see what you would save with room-discount. If that is significantly more than go with the discount pin. If it is roughly the same the question is is the FD better since it might be convenient for you, many here feel that they like the convenience of not having to worry about money for meals. Or it might be better not to take it because it might feel too contricting for you. For us the math pointed out that the roomdiscount was best. We are not big eaters and share many meals anyway.
