Free dining VS AP discount - Long

[bjkj]

Okay, please help, I have been batting this back and forth long enough that think I'll go crazy! I'm sorry that this is long and rambling but I have to get it all out!

My family (me, DH, DD9, DS6) will be going to the world in September and staying at the cabins at Fort Wilderness. They were a little pricey for me, but, I was hoping that we would eventually get a lower room rate as September rates have traditionally been lower. My plan was to eat a great breakfast at the cabin, arrive at opening (we're early risers) snack at the park. Come back late afternoon to early evening, take a break, swim, grill some burgers and park hop to wherever for some evening fireworks or Downtown or Hoop Dee Doo type things.......

Along comes free dining. Yea!

And then I got to thinking....

If we have the free dining, then we will be eating our big meals at the parks. My family really doesn't ever eat that big with appetizers and deserts at all of the meals. We will really be happy with a burger and chips.

Won't the restraunts be PACKED with everyone having FREE DINING?!? Will we have to have priority seating for every big meal? Will we have to wait forever for a table? Will this fit into our Fort Wilderness Low Key vacation or will we have to plan everything to get a quick table???? I have no idea when the family will be hungry and ready for a break on September 25!

So, I check out other options. The best discount would be AP room rates.

Regular room rates, park tickets and Free Dining is $2434.

The AP pass, (which I will use to visit my best bud in FL in January) room, and park tickets would be $2135.

So, there is a $300 difference. The free dining is worth $538. So basically we would have $238 less in food. If you count the fact that I'll use the AP twice it leaves about $100 or so difference all and all. And maybe, just maybe, they will come out with room only discounts for September like I originally hope for...

So here are the questions.

1. Do you think that there will be room only discounts offered in September or not because of free dining?

2. Do you think that the free dining will be nuts and a hassle with everyone using it? Long waits... priority seating...

3. Which option do you think is better? Free dining with a little more money for food? AP discounts with more freedom?

4. Is there another angle that I don't see or haven't thought of?

Thanks so much for reading this! Any help is greatly appreciated!

 

[CarolMN]

Do you already have a reservation that includes free dining? If not, before you make yourself crazy, LOL - call CRO and see if the free dining is still available for your dates /resort choice. Many dates are already sold out and if yours are, all this agony is for nothing!

If it were me, I'd go with the AP option, even if an additonal room discount didn't materialize. I do believe you will need PS for all the TS meals (sounds like most others are doing that) if you want to eat at a "normal" time. That doesn't seem to fit with your vacation style. Do you really want to schedule a big meal every day & hurry your kids along to get there?

Also, IMHO, if you are going to be there several days, you are going to get tired of eating the MYW after a few days - it's a lot of food if you aren't used to eating a lot at any one time. It sounds like many eat a lot more than they normally would if the food is free and the weather in late September is likely to still be hot and humid. Not good for most. I wouldn't enjoy walking around the parks or swimming if I'm stuffed and it's hot!

It's hard to let go of the "free", but won't you feel better with a more relaxed vacation - especially since you are staying in one of the cabins at Ft. Wilderness. Which option will the kids like best?

Best wishes-

 

[Carrie Ellis]

Just a thought....Do you feel like cooking? I have 4 kids and the free dining allows me to relax more than anything. It gives my brain a break from worrying about cooking and the price. It is soooo worth it for me.

 

[eeyore45]

BTDT... so I can commeserate! Only not with an AP discount, my game was what will the FL Resident Rate be for a moderate? I read everything possible, and began to imagine what life will be at POFQ - dd loves dragons, they have a dragon slide, the smallness of FQ, the bus stop first... yes, all pluses to help me convince my parents I am a "good dd"!! *sigh... (my best guess for a price on a mod was $99 vs $134 rack rate)

darn that free dining!!

I agree with what was posted against the free dining, plus we're going to eat at the Food and Wine fest!! Dont want to waste time plotting where we'll be with PS... yep, I convinced me that the wait for Res Rate will offset free dining...

Now I sit down and try and figure out our dining plans (almost time to make them) I found we had 5 Buffets... I thought about it, and yep its just right for our family then I thought about the PRICE $27 adults $12 child... that was almost $300 in only FIVE MEALS - no way could I convince my dad to go along with THIS plan!! ugggg..... back to free dining...

I made the call, POFQ is sold out... but they did have 2 mods available and she put them on 24 hour hold while I debated!

Now I"m hoping I can call every day to find someone who can switch me back to POFQ!!

 

[Letsbgoofy]

I would go with the free dining, if it's available for your dates.

I don't want to cook on vacation! That's part of vacation for me, a break from cooking.

I don't think the restaurants will be packed. It's only 1 TS per day. Many people already ate at one TS everyday anyway. We are eating some of our meals at lunch, and some at dinner. I know it doesn't make the most of the program to eat lunch, but it's free right?

Do you have the AP rate already?

 

[frannn]

You can call right now and find out if you can get a discount, as well as check if free dining is available at your resort. I have heard of people booking with free dining and using APs. All this pkg requires is a one day ticket per person. So, you would be losing the cost of the one day ticket from your savings, but you would still be able to get the advantage of having/using an AP over 2 trips. I love the parks, and also question whether I would like to be rushing to dining ressies every day instead of to the rides. For my family (at least the 4 of us who go), though, dining has costed 750-1000 for our 11 day trips. This year it will be more because I will have to pay for DD2 (turning 3), and DD12 will be charged as an adult. So, it would be worth it to me, even with having to buy the 1 day ticket pp. I also think if you have been to WDW several times in the past, you may enjoy the many breaks dining TS gives you. We have been (mostly) once annually since 1999, and I would love to try some TS that I have avoided like the plague because of the cost. HTH- just giving you another (or three) more points of view!

 

[EthansMom]

I don't mean to be a spoiler, but AP rates for September have been out for a while. Likewise with the Free Dining Package. You may have a difficult time getting either discount applied the the resort you want for the dates you want. Your best bet would be to call CRO and find out what they have available (in either Free Dining Package or AP) for your dates. (I agree with the other posters that POFQ at with the Free Dining Package would be nice -- and a lower cost option that the FW cabins.)

Best of Luck,

 

[Bete]

Best vacation is one in which you don't have to cook! There's preparation time with cooking such as grocery shopping and cleaning veggies, etc. Finally, there's clean-up. Free dining is the way to go. I think it will save time overall and relaxation.

Next, the savings may be more than the actual dollar costs for the plan. Many posts have stated how they have exceeded the $35 allocated for the plan. Also, supposedly, you can pool your child credits, as adult credits; so, that can be bigger savings, too. The best part is tax and tip is included in the plan. Now, we may tip a little more but that will depend on our service. Also, I will enjoy more options at the restaurants and experiment with choices more because I don't have to rob a bank to do it. Finally, there are so many selections at the restaurants that you can appeal to everyone and everyone can have something different without you doing individual choices for everyone yourself.

I find it very enjoyable to have a meal at the park because it's a rest and supplies energy to continue and have a longer day at the parks. I will say for TS, I will probably make Advanced Ressies. Probably, the way to beat the waiting game at the restaurants is to go at more off times from peak times to the restaurants like early or late. All TS are air-conditioned; so, that's cool, too. I don't think resort restaurants on the plan will be as busy as park restaurants; so, you beat the waiting game that way, too.

Remember, the free dining package is limited; so, I don't feel the restaurants will be flooded. The times for the free dining plan are not the busiest at Disney. I say go for free dining all the way.

 

[BostonTink85]

We ended up in a similiar situation. We had booked with an AP rate and then the free dining option came out. Originally my parents thought it would be a great idea since it is myself (19), brother (17) and sister (15). Once we got to thinking though we didn't want to have to sit down and eat somewhere every single day. Also, we didn't really want to be rushing around trying to get to a restaurant in another park than the one we would be in. It just got very complicated and when I did the math it wasn't that great of a deal for us. We decided that we would ultimately be better off going with the AP rates for the rooms. But that's just us

 

[Dory41]

You can call right now and find out if you can get a discount, as well as check if free dining is available at your resort. I have heard of people booking with free dining and using APs. All this pkg requires is a one day ticket per person. So, you would be losing the cost of the one day ticket from your savings, but you would still be able to get the advantage of having/using an AP over 2 trips. I love the parks, and also question whether I would like to be rushing to dining ressies every day instead of to the rides. For my family (at least the 4 of us who go), though, dining has costed 750-1000 for our 11 day trips. This year it will be more because I will have to pay for DD2 (turning 3), and DD12 will be charged as an adult. So, it would be worth it to me, even with having to buy the 1 day ticket pp. I also think if you have been to WDW several times in the past, you may enjoy the many breaks dining TS gives you. We have been (mostly) once annually since 1999, and I would love to try some TS that I have avoided like the plague because of the cost. HTH- just giving you another (or three) more points of view!

We switched our ressies from the AP discount to the MYW free dining but our TA told us that we could save the one day ticket for future use (as it has no expiration date) and apply it towards the purchase of an AP. Does this sound right?

 

[CarolMN]

We switched our ressies from the AP discount to the MYW free dining but our TA told us that we could save the one day ticket for future use (as it has no expiration date) and apply it towards the purchase of an AP. Does this sound right?

Yes, you are allowed to do that.

Best wishes -

 

[Gillian]

Just a few of my thoughts on this, in case you want more opinions.

I like cooking breakfast at WDW. I feel it is much healthier than what we would get out and gives us a great start to the day! We take turns so it's not like mom is stuck cooking the whole trip.

FW is the only resort (I think) with grills & an outdoor table, so it really is easy/relaxing to cook there. If you'll have a car you can always go offsite for a cheap meal if you tire of cooking.

FW also has the least expensive buffet onsite, trails end, so that's another good alternative that might make the meal plan not worth it. You can also get pizza (not delivered though).

Since you have a need for an AP, I'd probably stick with that plus discounted tickets for the rest of the family. Do you get the Mousesavers newsletter?

 

[bjkj]

Hi everyone. Thank you so much for your opinions and insights. It has helped so much to hear from both schools of thought.

We currently are signed up for the FREE dining and also have AP rates available for our dates.

I'd love to hear from someone who has used the free dining and hear what they thought.

Happy planning!

 

[DeirdreTours]

We stayed at the cabins for a week (2 kids at the time) and loved being able to prepare breakfast/snacks/meals. BUT, I will say that I did not end up cooking dinner as often as I thought AND it was more of a pain that I had planned.
This year we will be there at about your time (but at AKL) with the free dining. A long, air conditioned table service meal each day sounds heavenly to me! Also, keep in mind that you can share food (except at buffets, of course). Meaning, you can use 2 table service credits to serve 4 people a reasonable sized lunch instead of 2 people eating themselves sick.

 

[bjkj]

Thanks everyone! I'm getting it sorted out in my confused little brain!

 

[Liz]

If you get an AP you can get the DDE card and save 20% on your table service meals. That's what we did and it worked great. We did have PS for the places we knew we wanted to eat but we didn't feel like we had to eat a ton of food every day to get our moneys worth. The DDE is also good at the counter service places at AK. Good luck and have fun, whatever you decide!

Edited to add the DDE card is $50 for AP holders. There's a lot of info about it on the restaurant board.

 

[HookdonWDW]

We had a somewhat similar situation, and decided NOT to go for the free dining. What we did was this: We basically took tickets out of the equation, because we have APs. Then we figured out what we actually spend on meals during a trip to WDW. We decided that we average $100/day. I don't have any desire to eat a whole bunch of extra food that we wouldn't usually eat (I'm still working off years of extra food ). We also already have DDE cards, which provide 20% off all TS foods. Since we usually eat TS, this means that we'll spend an average of $80/day. Add in an extra $5/day to count for mickey bars and such not being discounted, and we figured out that we would have to save $85/day for the meal plan to not be worthwhile.

Our room discount comes out to more than that (Military, concierge), so we're better off not using the dining package. Good luck figuring out what works for you!

Lisa

 

[rae662000]

I would also like to way in here. My DH and our DD (5,2) went last year in Sept and we did not go a package then, but did breakfast in the room with cereal bars and fruit and milk/juice and such. We ate mostly counter service and only enjoyed one TS, CRT. And of course you know it was unbelievable. Here's my take on take, I often had meals were ever we were at the time because whenever we slowed down to eat we were starving. And if you wanted something else, usually it was half way around the park. But all in all it was good.

However, this time I did not want to have to do that, so DH and I decided to take free dining We usually eat dinner by a certain time (with young kids) so the preplanning for that was no big deal and DH wanted to experience a variety of TS that we did not do last time. We are staying 7 nights and I have already PS for 5 days and had no problem getting my dates and times-we are going Sept 11-18. The other 2 nights we will wing it because they are our free days. I hope this helps