Free Dining Savings!

[wshupnastar]

So, the restaurant board is abuzz with those getting free dining...but on a budget note, I thought it might be fun for everyone to post how much they are saving.

My family just saved a little over $1600 with the Disney Visa Free Dining package!

 

[BridgetBordeaux]

It is good to hear that this is being offered. Thanks for the update.

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

Well, that a tricky question for me. If it were the cost of adding the dining plan for us, it would save us around $1100. But...if weren't doing the FD, we would be looking at room only discounts, which might save us $400 on our $1700 trip. Plus we have APs, so we don't need the required $250 worth of park tickets we have to buy with the package, although we can use them in the future.

But if you look at the total we are paying now-$1700 for FD and 3 park tickets, it's like it's only around $350 for 9 nights at CBR!

I like those numbers!

 

[ncmickeyluvr]

We had already booked with a 30% off pin, so the fd saved us an additional $400 or so. Thanks to a free dining bounceback last year, DH HAS to have the dining plan now and refuses to go without it.

 

[LisaNJ25]

We saved $1300. If I would of used my 30% pin we would of only saved $50 a day. I know would would spend more than that in food.,

 

[lucigo]

I decided to wait and see what comes out for Nov/Dec. The military 40% discount was a better deal than free dining as we don't need tickets, so to get the dining plan was still going to cost more than enough to make it a "must do" trip. So I saved $800, the cost of a 4 night value resort stay with dining using the military rate and our own tickets. LOL

 

[tzolkin]

We had no intention of going in the fall, but then I priced it out and realized we would save $2340 on the trip if we took advantage of the free dining.


We usually go in May, but I'm in the process of getting a job that May will be impossible to take a vacation. I ran an estimate for getting 30% off if we could go in May and the 30% would only save us $1168. So the free dining is double the savings ($1172 more).


There will be 7 of us: DH & I, one teen, two kids, and my parents. We will be staying at CBR for 10 nights. I still can't really believe I just booked it.

 

[dclfun]

We skipped FD last year and are skipping it this year. I'm no longer a fan since they took away the appy's and prepaid grats anyway, plus we are DVC members and have booked two weeks ( May/Dec) this year at AKL concierge with our points and a week during F & W at BCV's so I have enough time with Mickey ( gasp...did I actually say that?). I'm glad though that others are getting to take a vacation that is affordable and enjoyable too. It's always nice to get a good savings!---Kathy

 

[marshallandcartersmo]

would those of you that got the savings mind posting your total cost.

I'm just not getting the deal........

We're a family that has never got the dining plan before, and really hadn't planned on it in the future. We're not huge "foodys", when we're there we like to comando style tour and go, go, go!!

Did you book w/the dining plan originally, and now just don't have to pay for it?

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

We had already booked with a 30% off pin, so the fd saved us an additional $400 or so. Thanks to a free dining bounceback last year, DH HAS to have the dining plan now and refuses to go without it.

How did you get both of them? You have to pay rack rate in order to get free dining, and you can't combine room discounts with promotions.

maybe I read this wrong.

 

[MommyJack]

For us it depends on how you look at it. We were originally booked for Oct 3 for $3800. When kids stay & play got extended, we added Oct 2 to qualify for $4050.00. Not bad $250 for five people for an extra day. Then with free dining we got $3500.00. So that's a savings of $550 off, or about $300 less than our original price with an extra day.

 

[hrh_disney_queen]

would those of you that got the savings mind posting your total cost.

I'm just not getting the deal........

We're a family that has never got the dining plan before, and really hadn't planned on it in the future. We're not huge "foodys", when we're there we like to comando style tour and go, go, go!!

Did you book w/the dining plan originally, and now just don't have to pay for it?

Quick service is around $30 per person per day. The Dining Plan is around $40 per person per day. So if you were paying outright for it for a family of four, it would run you $120/$160 respectively. This doesn't even take into account how much you can save on out of pocket dining verses a purchased dining plan.

You have to purchase a package in order to get free dining. That involves a room at rack rate (no other discounts allowed), and at least a one day park ticket for each person in the room.

One secret (not really) is that you can ask that your child be upgrade to adult status for the package. (I have heard of kids as young as 4.) This would involve paying adult prices for their park tickets, but for that you get them upgraded to being able to order from the adult menu, which is more than just chicken nuggets and mac n cheese.

 

[MommyJack]

would those of you that got the savings mind posting your total cost.

I'm just not getting the deal........

We're a family that has never got the dining plan before, and really hadn't planned on it in the future. We're not huge "foodys", when we're there we like to comando style tour and go, go, go!!

Did you book w/the dining plan originally, and now just don't have to pay for it?

OK, everyone is different. The best way to compare is to go to the disney website and price what you want with and without the dining plan. Keep in mind that if you choose a value and want the regular dining plan you need to add $10 per day per person.

Here's why I like the dining plan: we went in 2007 with the dining plan. We attended 2 character meals and the hoop de do revue. All with the dining plan. The hoop de doo alone would have set us back about $300.00.

Now usually when we go on vacation we're like you go go go and eat on the fly. Maybe once we have a nice sit down meal. This allowed us to have the extras we normally won't spring for and not feel like we're paying through the nose for them. Also, with the new quick service dining, you don't have to have the sit down meals.

 

[hsmamato2]

I don't know....seems like buying a 2 day ticket pp and upgrading 10 pp per day for regular dining is so expensive, it would be cheaper for us to stay offsite,and buy our own meals...... getting the 2 day tix for 4 'adults' is almost 700.00,and we have older ones we'd use otherwise,so I don't think we'd save a ton here....

 

[robinb]

Savings? You mean that spending $2000 is actually a savings ?!?

My savings is not really all that much since I would not actually purchase the DDP for my DD. So, I would guess it's really only about $80 per night.

 

[KELLY]

I'm not sure how much we saved because my original offer was a bounceback with free dining. But dh and I choose to change it to the disney visa offer the QSDP. We are there for 10 days so we just can't see having all those adr's. It was dh idea and at first I was like no way. But the more I thought about it he was right. We will save around 250.00 in mugs and tips.
We are taking that money and buying a gc to rainforest cafe. And also doing Norway Princess breakfest and garden grill.

So here is the breakdown
2 adults 1 child and 1 infant.
Pop Century
10 myw base ticket we have tons of water park passes we need to start using. We never park hop.
Free QSDP for 9 nights. 1675.00

 

[tink&stitchmom]

You have to purchase a package in order to get free dining. That involves a room at rack rate (no other discounts allowed), and at least a one day park ticket for each person in the room.

This year you need at least a two day park ticket.

 

[tzolkin]

would those of you that got the savings mind posting your total cost.

I'm just not getting the deal........

We're a family that has never got the dining plan before, and really hadn't planned on it in the future. We're not huge "foodys", when we're there we like to comando style tour and go, go, go!!

Did you book w/the dining plan originally, and now just don't have to pay for it?

We normally don't do the dining plan either, but this trip were planning to go with my parents (who "need" the dining plan) so we were going to purchase it.

We are 5 "adults" and two children, so the savings is about $234/night. That is well over the cost of one room (I booked 2 rooms at a moderate). Our total savings over the 10 nights is $2340. (I'm paying around $3000 for one res and $2800 for the other one, so we're spending about $5800 and saving $2340. So we're saving about 30% of our total trip cost: room, tickets, and food vs just a % off the room price)

I wouldn't book a trip without some sort of discount, but for our family size this was definitely cheaper than any other deals I've seen. For example a 30% off room code would save us about $1100 for the two rooms for 10 nights. The free dining saves us twice that.

 

[tonyRmoran]

There are only 2 of us adults going so we'll saving approx. $550-$650 depending on where we would have chosen to eat.

 

[Carl Fredricksen]

I will have to give up a $300 Gift Card we were due at check in, but even paying to upgrade to DDP we still will save about $500.