Free Dining January 2017

[Koz]

Good morning. Having just been let down by a major non-event for November discounts, I'm curious to see if whether any of you in the know are familiar with whether January, specifically mid to late, has been a period where they've offered free dining recently. I can't find any information either way, and we're considering switching from November to late January where the crowd calculators right now, are quite low, anywhere between 1's and 3's. Thank you!

 

[Disneylover99]

I don't think I've ever seen fd offered during this time period.

 

[Koz]

The most recent I could see was January 2012, but didn't know if I missed anything past that.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

The most recent I could see was January 2012, but didn't know if I missed anything past that.

This is correct.

They sometimes offer something called Stay, Play, Dine. It discounts the package, but it's not free dining.

 

[Koz]

That's what I'm hoping for at this point, an entire package discount would also be great. Not as significant as free dining but still better than what I have now!

 

[stobaugh6]

I think I read that the Play Stay and Dine works out to around 60% of the cost of dining. Not sure how accurate that is though. We are also going late January, so I'm hoping for a good package deal as well!

 

[MakiraMarlena]

hasn't been free dining offered in January in four years. Looks like it's Stay Play and Dine now.

 

[Donald - my hero]

we're considering switching from November to late January where the crowd calculators right now, are quite low, anywhere between 1's and 3's. Thank you!

I think I read that the Play Stay and Dine works out to around 60% of the cost of dining. Not sure how accurate that is though. We are also going late January, so I'm hoping for a good package deal as well!

We're also going the end of January and our kids & spouses are hoping the Play Stay and Dine offer comes out again this year so they can join us. Just a heads up that the Pro-Football game will be hosted by Disney this year. All bet as to what this will do to crowds is complete speculation right now other than i would recommend avoiding MK on the Saturday Jan 28th since there will be a players parade. I would expect that the AllStar resorts will be busy since they have mentioned offering events for teams??

 

[SonicGuy]

I sure hope not. We go every January and moved because of free dining. Cant stand it! Hope you can get an even better discount offer!

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I think I read that the Play Stay and Dine works out to around 60% of the cost of dining. Not sure how accurate that is though. We are also going late January, so I'm hoping for a good package deal as well!

Stay Play Dine began in 2013 and was offered again in '14, '15, and '16.

The last couple years there has been an effort to dissect how this deal works:
2015: http://www.disboards.com/threads/stay-play-dine-calculation.3339097/
2016: http://www.disboards.com/threads/stay-play-dine-2016-calculation-thread.3451389/
EDIT: Like most Disney "package" deals it's much more complicated than it should be and makes very little sense but it's essentially a discount on dining and is definitely WAY worse than free dining.

Unfortunately, as with many discounts it got worse in 2016 than it was in 2015. Who knows what will happen for 2017 but if history repeats itself we could be 6-8 weeks away from this discount being released.