Free Dining/AP/Ticket question

[loriandmatt]

Ok, i understand all of this is hypothetical, because as of now there are not summer AP rates or Free dining offered...but i want to be prepared with my info incase anything hits, i will know the option that is best for me.

We are AP holders. they are to expire late July of this year. we are thinking of visiting WDW from July 19-27.

I have two questions:

i understand that Free Dining is a package deal and in order to get it, you must pay rack rate for your room and also purchase tickets - my 1st question can i book the package for the 8 nights at rack rate, get the free dining and just get 1 day one park tickets for each person in my party? or does your "free dining allotment" have to equal the number of days you are purchsing park tickets for? (in the past i remember booking a 7 night trip, getting 1 day one park tickets for each member in my party, and getting free dining for the entire 7 nights. i had them issue the park tickets on seperate cards - not our room cards) and because they were never used...they never expired. we used our APs for park admission for that trip and saved the 1 park/1day tickets until the following year when we credited them towards new APs.

my 2nd question, if an AP room only rate does come out, can i take advantage of that discount, and then purchase the Dining Plan to go along with that reservation and use my AP for park entry? i thought i recalled a CM telling me no, (that the DP was only able to be purchased with a disounted room when it is in combination with ticket media.) but we all know they can be wrong. generally the folks here know better than they do on most topics.

 

[onejellyshelly]

For Free Dining. I think you have to purchase at least 2 day tickets. This changed a few years ago, before you only had to have 1 day ticket.

If you get an AP Discount you can add the dning plan without having to purchase tickets. Passholders are the only ones that can do this.

I am a passholder and this is what I am doing. If you have any questions plese feel free to PM me.

 

[SnDMommy]

1. Yes, you can. That's exactly what we did on our week stay in January. We have FL Resident Weekday Season Passes and were arriving on a Sunday. We purchased a one day ticket for each of us (so we could go to the parks on that first day), but were able to have the free dining for all nights of our stay.

2. Yes, that is possible. When you go to Disney's site under the Passholder section to reserve a room, when the first part comes up where you select your dates, there are two section headings. The first one says "Book Room only". If you look under all of those options in that section, there is a second section heading bar that says "Room and Dining Packages". Under *that* section you can choose your dates and people in your party, click continue and you will be able to add on a dining package to your resort stay.

I think the confusion for the second question is that you can have either a discounted room rate OR *free* dining offer. You can't use both. However, in the second option, you would be paying for the dining plan so yes, it's totally doable.