Free dining?

[mark smith]

For those who have taken advantage of recent free dining promotions: If you were paying would've you eaten at the same level restaurants(ie. cost)?

 

[calgarygary]

In the past when we have gone to WDW, he have stayed off site and usually done 1 or 2 ts at Disney restaurants. The free dining, first brought us on site and we have ADR's at restaurants we would not normally go to with a family of 6 such as CG and Teppanyaki's.

 

[StephMK]

We have free dining & would not be eating at WCC, Concourse or Kona's probably without the promotion. I'm really happy not to have to cook as we would have been in a timeshare rental. Although I will miss the space of a timeshare. We are also going to CP & CM & would have gone to those anyway for the kids.

 

[MomofKatie]

We didn't pick restaurants based on price. The big difference is that for a week-long trip, we probably would have only eaten 3 or 4 TS meals- but with the Free Dining, we will eat TS 8 times.

 

[gigi1313]

yes, we went to the same restaurants we had chosen before we were offered the free dining plan... the only difference was that we would not order appetizers and/or desserts as frequently as we did...

 

[i like stitch]

No, we wouldn't have eaten at the wdw restaurants.

Last year, we ate off-site dinners, took advantage of concierge upgrade, and brought snacks to the parks. We had one counter service lunch at MK (and ate a few mickey bars along the way!).

 

[Hodder]

I was purchasing the plan anyway but when the first promotion came out (book by July) I had TA get package for me. Still eating at the same resteraunts.

 

[kaytieeldr]

Truth? Without the free dining, I wouldn't have gone on vacation!

 

[indigoxtreme]

We would have only done1 character meal and eaten counter service or off site the rest of the time. I had originally had the paid dining plan and then the free one came up.

 

[miller123]

Thanks for all the info on the dining package. I was wondering where can I buy the disney dining online. Can someone let me know? Thanks alot

 

[calgarygary]

You can not book the dining package by itself. It is available as an option on the Magic My Way. You book a room, either with TA or direct with Disney, park tickets for a minimum of 1 day, and can then add the dining package.

 

[Samantha]

No. In past trips we always eat at counter service restaurants and we might have one, maybe two, table service meals during a week long stay. This is due partly to save money but also to time. In fact, I'm a little concerned about how much time we're going to waste eating in TS restaurants.

 

[Steffy]

The free dining is going to introduce me to cs meals at WDW. I usually have 2 ts meals a day at Disney. We usually have a character breakfast or go to the Kona Cafe (gotta have my tonga toast or eggs and wonderful grits) and then a ts dinner.

Every trip I have made to Disney, we've spent a TON of money on meals. Thousands$$$$$$$

But this trip will be all adults and we have the free dining package!!! Look out Disney, here we come!!!!

 

[msmayor]

We've always done either counter-service or gone offsite to eat for $$ reasons. We'd do just one character meal.

The free dining was our best chance to (a) try restaurants at Disney we've always wanted to try and (b) see if the dining plan was 'worth it'.

I kept track of what we would have spent out of pocket and on the plan; the plan would have saved us nearly $300 in food costs.

That savings, coupled with the fact that my kids are now eating a LOT more (dinner at a place like TGIFriday's can run us nearly $110!) means that on future trips, we most likely will pay for Disney's plan as it does give us good value.

For Disney, their promotion worked on us...we'll buy the plan now.

 

[BethR]

We will be eating much differently than we usually do at Disney since we will have Free Dining. Usually we have some kind of breakfast in our room - muffins, pop-tarts, cereals. Then we each pack a bag with some kind of snack for the day - chex mix, cheese crackers, pringles. Then we usually have one meal thoughout the day - more often than not, it would be counter service. Except for our AK day, there we like to eat at the RFC. We would do sit down meals on our "days off" - usually a character buffet and Planet Hollywood on our shopping day. We do usually buy a snack in the parks - Mickey bars, Dole Whips, etc. Only occasionally do we ever have 2 "real" meals - TS and/or CS in a day.

But this will be a lot different than how we usually do things.

 

[zookeeper]

Before this promotion came along our vacation plans were drastically different. We were planning on staying off-site in a condo, doing our own cooking,cleaning,laundry,etc. While we won't have nearly the same amount of "living space" we don't plan on spending that much time in our rooms. We would have never considered more than 1 TS restaurant before the free dining. With 2 adults and 4 kids to pay for it would just add up to way too much. Luckily for us, we will get the opportunity to try many different restaurants,both CS and TS, all without having to say even once "No, that's too much money." I'm anticipating that we will LOVE the dining plan and will probably purchase it for any future trips. Only 3 more days!!!!!!

 

[dyna]

Without the free food we would not have gotten to go at all this year.

In the past I was lucky to get 1 or 2 CS meals during my visit usually 5-7 days almost always ate peanut butter sandwiches in the room.