Disneyworld free QS meal per day offer - free dining?

I wonder if might have the side benefit of a test market. Might be worth seeing if there is a market for one QS meal per day. Almost everyone does one quick service a day, but dinner is all over the board. Even when you know you are doing Table Service, there is enough variety there that the TS plans aren't worth it.
I know we often prefer the relaxed pace of a table service meal, including an adult beverage....but we'd be perfectly happy with several apps instead of a big entree. Since apps aren't part of the TS program, we either over eat, or leave food on the table, which I hate. It's not like a doggie bag is practical in that situation.

That is the main reason we never do the dining plan and would take a room discout over free dining - we don't eat (at least not all the time) the way the dining plan is set up. We split meals or just do appetizers and desserts. Plus we don't drink soda (which is included) but do drink wine/beer (which is not) - so it just isn't for us

Also, we did do it once years ago and I found myself ordering the most expensive item on the menu just to get the most value whether it was the item that appealed to me the most or not

Some people love it as they like to pre-pay and not have to worry about it and feel like they can order the most expensive item on the menu .... but for us it just doesn't work

This is mostly us too. Also, I have some diet restrictions and I can usually only consume a kids meal, if that. A child portion is more than enough for me and if there's nothing that I want on the kids menu then hubby has to share or I'll just get my own app and then a dessert. He drinks beer and wine and I can't drink anything carbonated so I usually just get water (Pomegranate Light Lemonade tastes like dishwater so icky and I am a southern gal, I hate unsweet tea)

Between our AP and TiW, we come out far better than any dining plan, but that wasn't always true. When the dining plans first came out around 2005 they were AMAZING and now it's too hard to save money on them unless, like you said, you order the most expensive items on the menu every time and the "expense" is subjective. If you had gone to a local restaurant near your home there's no way you'd pay the fees you're paying at Disney.

I feel the dining plans as they are priced and structured now is really more a commitment to overpaying and overeating.
 

Interesting. We always jumped on free dining but it may be worth it to book say Boardwalk under a discount code and pay out of pocket for food. We always felt as though we ate too much when we had the dining plan as we felt we had to.

My daughter and I did free dining on a mother/daughter trip last year and stayed in a moderate. Next time we do a trip like that we will take advantage of a room discount at a deluxe and pay for food out of pocket. We just didn't eat enough to justify the meal plan. I'd rather save money on the room and eat what we want.
 
For us, a Free Dining is WAY better than a room only discount and paying out of pocket for food.

We're a family of four with two teenage boys. If we took a room only discount on a moderate resort, we figure we'd save about $57 a day. That's assuming $230 room rate x 25% discount (which is being generous for mods!). We'd be buying tickets with hoppers either way, so that doesn't matter.

For that $57 savings per day, there's no way I could feed my family of four! No matter whether we just did apps and desserts or full sit downs or just QS. Just ain't happening at Disney--no way, no how! So even if I don't use every single dining credit or order the most expensive meal every time, I'm still coming out way ahead with the free dining.

Of course, that's assuming a full free dining package and not just this one QS deal.
 
This is the same deal they offered last year, and it's actually a decent deal by today's standards. We just booked a Mod in May at 15% off. There were no Value resorts available the week we are going, even before the discounts were released. 15% off a Value would be about $25-$35 per night. One QS meal per nt for us (2 adult, 12 yo and 8 yo) would save about $50-$60 per day. We would never eat all the food on a full dining plan, but 4 QS per day could go a long way for us since we usually share meals and never get soda, so we could swap out snacks, etc. Actually, looking at the real numbers, 1 QS per day would have been a better deal than the 15%=$35 we got off our Mod, but I'd rather have May weather! :umbrella:
 
I'm in almost the same position as VillainFavs. Free dining is HUGE for us and we wait until it's offered before booking.

All depends on your situation.
 
I'm in almost the same position as VillainFavs. Free dining is HUGE for us and we wait until it's offered before booking.

All depends on your situation.

That's the problem. You may be waiting on something that won't be offered and if it is, may be so limited that you can't get it or it doesn't fit with your time frames.
 
Yeah that was a plan, this is just one meal.

And that's so predictable...

We see here that it seems attendance is down...this has been developing for really a couple years now. That's the product of price increases, your honor, the prosecution rests.

But they don't believe it because they are selling a story to Goldman Sachs and Moody's that the business is goin up, up, up!

They see the "trump bump" playing out and are convinced that the money is coming - so they put out smoke screen incentives like the ones we've seen this week.

But stock gains don't affect their audience...those that invested heavily can afford to go at will already...the middle class and overseas markets
That feed 50,000,000 plus into wdw each year aren't in that game with skin.

They are squeezed...they are looking for value...and bob iger doesn't get it. Or the awful shill board (that is a big difference between the 90's management and now...iger is more effective than late Eisner...but there are no wise members of the Jedi council to regulate the CEO now).

How the hell do they honestly expect to sell $125 tickets in greater numbers to EPCOT and mgm right now? They are beyond lucky to sustain just what they have. The parks are embarrassments and have been rotting for a long time. Six flags movie world and six flags world tour.
 
That's the problem. You may be waiting on something that won't be offered and if it is, may be so limited that you can't get it or it doesn't fit with your time frames.

True - Hasn't happened yet, but would take advantage of other offers. I'm pretty flexible with dates for our typical fall visits.

I'm in "The Cult". Saves us the most money from every set of numbers I run yearly from all offers. Plus it adds an element of all-inclusive feeling.

Would love to save even more if someone could show me.
 
True - Hasn't happened yet, but would take advantage of other offers. I'm pretty flexible with dates for our typical fall visits.

I'm in "The Cult". Saves us the most money from every set of numbers I run yearly from all offers. Plus it adds an element of all-inclusive feeling.

Would love to save even more if someone could show me.

Ok...so then I can ask you:

First, I'm all about you saving money...no dispute there.

But I have to ask: over the 6 or so years of that promotion, have you not seen the bill steadily climb? Has the benefits of the plan not been restricted? Have the out of pocket/additional costs outside of the food plan not become much more expensive (i.e. Tips based on bloated prices)?

I just wonder what the promo has saved?
 
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Sure - I actually hope I'm wrong with this but just looking at the numbers.

Family is me, wife and 2 kids over 10.

Was there the first week in December. Didn't track anything outside of table service meals. Table service themselves would have cost about $1400. Not including tips/alcohol/extras.

Staying at the Boardwalk, one room for 8 nights, 30% off would be around $1200.

That's not including counter service and snacks.

I do agree that the prices are outrageous, but for me, even more reason to take advantage of free meals.

Honestly looking forward to the help here from you guys. Would love to save more if possible.
 
We took advantage of this promo this past summer! We stayed 4 nights at All Star Sports before moving to the Yacht Club for the remainder of our trip. It was myself, DH, DD age 10, and DS age 6. ASSports was just fine for our needs, our kids loved the theme, and we focused on the parks during that time so we could just relax when we got to the YC and swim all day at Stormalong Bay.

We paid around $130 per night for a preferred room in the Surfs Up section. We were given 16 QS credits. Since the system does not differentiate adult and child QS meals, we were really able to get a bang for our buck. We ended up splitting two adult meals each time we ate. We are big eaters but this plan still worked wonderfully. It helped that it was 100 degrees outside and we did also eat TS meals. But we saved our receipts and typically each time we ate our bill was around $50. It included a meal, drink, and dessert. We ate at Flame Tree, Wolfgang Puck, BOG breakfast, Restaurantasaurus, Columbia Harbour House x2, a few places in EPCOT, and spent our remaining credits at Hurricane Hanna's on the day we switched resorts. We even had a final credit leftover that we used for late night mickey bars. If you use your credits wisely and spend them on the more expensive options (like BOG breakfast), you really make this promo work. Getting into MK first thing for BOG breakfast, eating a yummy meal, chatting up with the CM outside and getting free bonus fastpasses, and then being first on Mine Train was pretty darn awesome, especially because it was "free".

All in all, it felt like our savings with our QS meals plus free parking made our room dirt cheap. We would totally do this deal again because it was perfect for our family. We just aren't planning to return until Dec 2017. But if we switch to summer, we will definitely do this promo.

If anyone has any questions about it, ask away!
 
Funny, posts 35 and 36 are both great arguments and fit my family perfectly. This is a toss up for me.
 
Sure - I actually hope I'm wrong with this but just looking at the numbers.

Family is me, wife and 2 kids over 10.

Was there the first week in December. Didn't track anything outside of table service meals. Table service themselves would have cost about $1400. Not including tips/alcohol/extras.

Staying at the Boardwalk, one room for 8 nights, 30% off would be around $1200.

That's not including counter service and snacks.

I do agree that the prices are outrageous, but for me, even more reason to take advantage of free meals.

Honestly looking forward to the help here from you guys. Would love to save more if possible.

Wow, $4K for the room (or $500/night)? And you only are getting a single, non-preferred room for 4? If it were me, with early December having such short park hours, I'd stay at an Embassy Suites Lake Buena Vista South for 8 nights, get a full 1 bedroom suite with 2 queen beds and a sofa bed (so you can have privacy from the kids if you want), an amazing breakfast to start the day, and have free drinks on the days I didn't feel like being in the park for a max price of $1251.32 total, including 8 days of hotel parking at $10/day, all taxes, and no resort fee (assuming you have no way to discount this, like AAA, pre-purchase, Hilton Honors member, etc - then it will be cheaper). I'd get a car rental for $200/week and pay the $200 for all the park parking fees (knowing Disney, they won't go down), and still have $2.4K to buy all my lunch and dinners...if you even need lunches after their breakfast...

I can do this a lot cheaper, but Embassy Suites are my person equivalent to deluxes:)...actually, having stayed Beach Club, I like ES better:)...

It's the only hotel chain I've gone where they will make me 2 fried eggs over easy with a fresh veg saute on the side every morning to order with a smile (and without an extra bill:)...add on bacon from their buffet and fresh coffee and it's breakfast bliss on vacation:)...
 












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