Free Dining Question

[pjweaver]

So we are running numbers on rumors. The rumor I heard was deluxe dining plan for anyone willing to stay at All Star Sports while they are holding a Brazilian soccer tournament at WWS. Since I have taken the time to learn five phrases in Portuguese (none of which I can post here) I figured I'm in.

 

[DVC_Dad_Canada]

Getting back to the original question, people get the "free" dining plan for several reasons. The way it worsks best for anyone is if you were already planning on staying at a deluxe resort, with the maximum number of people allowed in your room.

Lets say you're a family of four, two adults and two kids under 10, booked for a week at the end of August at the Polynesian.

The rack rate for a theme park view is $679.57/night. For a week, that would be $4756.99. With free dining, that would include the dining plan for everyone.
The discounted rate for the room is $577.64 per night, or $4043.48 for the week. Now add the dining plan at $67.33/night per adult and $24.22/night per child, and there's an additional $183.10 per day, or $1281.70 for the week.

So the total for the week WITH free dining is $4756.99, and the total WITHOUT free dining is $5325.18. You would save even more with free dining if your children were over the age of 9. With that scenario, your dining plan cost would be $269.32 per day, or $1885 in total. Your total package would cost $5928.72. In this scenario free dining saves you over $2100.

The THIRD option is to pay the $4043.48 for the room and pay cash for your food. As annual pass owners, we get 10% to 20% off some restaurants, and as DVC owners, we have the option of purchasing Tables in Wonderland. On our last few trips my three teenagers and I have spent an average of $175/day on food. If you were to do that with your room discount, you would pay a total of $5268.48, but your food choices would be different.

The savings go down the less people you have in the room, since the room is a fixed price regardless of occupancy.

 

[rotlex]

I hate these threads but I'll respond anyway.

Free dining, for our family of four, is the best discount\deal period at WDW. Lets say we get a deluxe room that's normally $400 a night. (A moderate deluxe). Let's say we get really lucky and get a 40% off per night discount. We save $160 per night with a room discount. For us, we do a sit down meal each night, one TS credit saves us at least that not counting the counter service and snack that are included. Drop down to a moderate and it's an even better deal. Unless you vacation by living on hot dogs and snow cones, free dining wins every time.

As we don't normally eat out, and we visit WDW at least once a year, the dining\food is a very enjoyable part of the trip for us. We had a free dining bounce back last year, and our food slips added up to over $2400. No way in hell we are ever saving that on a room.

 

[DVC_Dad_Canada]

Unless you vacation by living on hot dogs and snow cones, free dining wins every time.

Not even close to being true. Everyone has to do the math and see if it works for them.

"Free" dining works best for a family of four in a single room who doesn't mind eating the regimented way that Disney forces you to eat on the dining plan. As mentioned above, I feed my family of four for about what you are saving per day using the room discount, and we eat much more than "hot dogs and snow cones". We ate when we wanted, where we wanted. No overpriced buffets, but we enjoy quality food over quantity. Sometimes we ordered six appetizers and shared. Sometimes we ate quick service meals for lunch and dinner. Using TiW and AP discounts is cheaper and more flexible for us.

Not everyone has four people they are putting in a room. Not everyone wants to be forced to eat the way the Dining plan is designed. The discount isn't a slam dunk savings, you need to work out the numbers for you and see what works best.

 

[rotlex]

Not even close to being true. Everyone has to do the math and see if it works for them.

"Free" dining works best for a family of four in a single room who doesn't mind eating the regimented way that Disney forces you to eat on the dining plan. As mentioned above, I feed my family of four for about what you are saving per day using the room discount, and we eat much more than "hot dogs and snow cones". We ate when we wanted, where we wanted. No overpriced buffets, but we enjoy quality food over quantity. Sometimes we ordered six appetizers and shared. Sometimes we ate quick service meals for lunch and dinner. Using TiW and AP discounts is cheaper and more flexible for us.

Not everyone has four people they are putting in a room. Not everyone wants to be forced to eat the way the Dining plan is designed. The discount isn't a slam dunk savings, you need to work out the numbers for you and see what works best.

You did notice I said it works for "our family of four" right? Didn't say it works for everyone, but our meal receipts don't lie. We always win out with the free dining, which we have been lucky enough to get on a bounce back at least 12 of our past 12-15 trips.

Not quite sure what you mean by regimented way Disney forces you to eat either. One counter service, one sit down, and a few snacks a day is pretty much how we eat on any vacation. Best part is when it's free, if we miss a meal or two, who cares?

I will admit though, we had a super discount two years back, not direct from Disney, which put us in the Poly for 12 nights@ $200 per night. We paid for food that trip, lol.

 

[DVC_Dad_Canada]

The dining plan forces you to have one table service meal (entree and dessert), one quick service and two snacks per day. We hardly ever eat that way when we pay cash.

For quick service meals, we hardly ever get sodas or desserts, and sometimes have larger snacks as meals, depending on how hungry we are. Sometimes we share, like buy 3 flatbread pizzas for the four of us.

For table service, it forces you to have an entree and dessert. Again, depending on the restaurant and how we feel, sometimes we order six appetizers and share, or I might have an entree and one of my kids might be happy just having an appetizer themselves. Or share an entree, or someone wants dessert and someone else doesn't. And do you REALLY need a table service meal EVERY day? Last trip we did 12 table service meals for 17 nights. We made 8 ADRs and just winged the rest, depending on how we felt that day.

AP and TiW discounts are far more flexible, as they include ALL food and alcohol, not just what Disney includes on their plan.

As for snacks, we MAY get one per day. How many families end up with a dozen snack credits left over and 6 quick service desserts in their room fridge on the last day? Waste of food and money.

 

[Tonyz]

I think it's telling that moderates are only getting quick-services this year. It will probably start including less and less each year.

 

[klacey1]

Unless you vacation by living on hot dogs and snow cones, free dining wins every time.

You did notice I said it works for "our family of four" right?

You said FD works for your family, but then you also made the (false) quantitative statement that "unless you vacation by living on hot dogs and snow cones, free dining wins every time." That simply isn't true. I enjoy lots of good food during my WDW vacations that don't include hot dogs or snow cones. I'd rather have two apps for my meal than an entree and a dessert--the DDP doesn't work for me, yet i'm not eating just "hot dogs and snow cones"

 

[Lesverts]

I did the math for my next trip. It was honestly about the same price doing it FD, Package with DDP and expected 10% room discount and Room only, CDN ticket plus OOP.

The big advantage for me was with FD it allowed me to get more 'value' out of the ticket for upgrading to AP.

 

[rotlex]

You said FD works for your family, but then you also made the (false) quantitative statement that "unless you vacation by living on hot dogs and snow cones, free dining wins every time." That simply isn't true. I enjoy lots of good food during my WDW vacations that don't include hot dogs or snow cones. I'd rather have two apps for my meal than an entree and a dessert--the DDP doesn't work for me, yet i'm not eating just "hot dogs and snow cones"

Sheesh, didn't mean to get anyone upset over some friendly comments. You realize the hot dogs and snow cone comment was kind of exaggerated right? Lighten up a little.

Also, please note that while I love the dining plan when it is free, I feel the increased price over recent years makes it not worth it when actually paying out of pocket for it.

I probably should have listened to myself when I posted "I hate these threads" in my first post.

 

[KingLlama]

I'm hungry.

 

[MaryKatesMom]

I think it's telling that moderates are only getting quick-services this year. It will probably start including less and less each year.

Every year the dining plan becomes less of a discount and more restrictive.

My tween then teenage daughters never ate enough to make the DDP worthwhile. Although I love character meals and buffets once I started to pay the adult price we had to stop. The last one we went to was Biergarten for lunch and it was over $90 for lunch and all they ate was a plate of mac and cheese each. Killed me.

 

[klacey1]

Sheesh, didn't mean to get anyone upset over some friendly comments. You realize the hot dogs and snow cone comment was kind of exaggerated right? Lighten up a little.

Also, please note that while I love the dining plan when it is free, I feel the increased price over recent years makes it not worth it when actually paying out of pocket for it.

I probably should have listened to myself when I posted "I hate these threads" in my first post.

I don't need to be told to lighten up--I'm not worked up here. I was just simply disagreeing that FD is the best discount out there, and why I didn't agree with the reasoning you put out there.

Every year the dining plan becomes less of a discount and more restrictive.

My tween then teenage daughters never ate enough to make the DDP worthwhile. Although I love character meals and buffets once I started to pay the adult price we had to stop. The last one we went to was Biergarten for lunch and it was over $90 for lunch and all they ate was a plate of mac and cheese each. Killed me.

Yep! I used FD as my discount in 2009/11/13, even though it didn't quite fit how I wanted to eat. (So many wasted desserts!) It was much easier to get back then!
Ouch! At least the mac and cheese at Biergarten is delicious! (Not $90 delicious but still excellent!)

 

[DVC_Dad_Canada]

Every year the dining plan becomes less of a discount and more restrictive.

My tween then teenage daughters never ate enough to make the DDP worthwhile. Although I love character meals and buffets once I started to pay the adult price we had to stop. The last one we went to was Biergarten for lunch and it was over $90 for lunch and all they ate was a plate of mac and cheese each. Killed me.

As a DVC member I always have to pay for food. When my kids were under 10, I went with the dining plan for the first few trips. When my son was 9, there wasn't enough food for him. Now it's much better for us to use all the discounts available.

i truly believe the only reason that buffets are so expensive is to make the dining plan look like a good deal. I'd love to see what percentage of buffet patrons pay cash.

 

[MaryKatesMom]

As a DVC member I always have to pay for food. When my kids were under 10, I went with the dining plan for the first few trips. When my son was 9, there wasn't enough food for him. Now it's much better for us to use all the discounts available.

i truly believe the only reason that buffets are so expensive is to make the dining plan look like a good deal. I'd love to see what percentage of buffet patrons pay cash.

I think they jacked up the price of the filet at Le Cellier for that reason. Make it seem like it is worth the 2 TS.

We never eat dessert and I honestly think they have dessert to keep the crowds in the TS restaurants and not on attractions as a way to minimize crowds. It seriously adds to the amount of time in the restaurant.

 

[DisneyLover1217]

The other thing you have to consider are the tickets. In order to get the free dining you have to purchase park hoppers. If you usually do non-park hoppers you then will have to add the cost to upgrade to park hoppers in order to get the free dining.