Future Planning involving Free Dinning

[Feberin]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this please move it to a more appropriate place if necessary. We're tentatively planning a trip in either 2017 or 2018. However I'm not sure what time of the year we should be considering. We went in May last time and got a discount on the hotel room (All Star Sports for $80 per night). We packed lunches and ate breakfast in the room, which saved us quite a bit of money. We also got our tickets through my husband's work at a discount that essentially gave us Park Hopper for free.
However I'm curious if when the run a Free Dining deal would be a better choice? We enjoyed going to table service restaurants so we'd either need to pay for the meal plan upgrade or stay at a Moderate resort if we did the Free Dinning. Also those of you who decide you want to do Free Dinning before dates have been announced do you wait to book dates until they're announced or book dates when it's typically been free dinning and try to change them if necessary? Also we'd like to have a third so how does free dinning work if you have a child that's under three? Do you just have them eat off your plates at all meals? Can you skip a meal at one point and then use that meal for the toddler? Both of my kids have been really big eaters especially around a year. And my husband and I both have big appetites especially for me while I'm nursing so I'm not sure if we'd have enough food to share with a smaller child.
Also we'd have to go when the kids have a day off school because they can't have more than 5 absences in a period. If we go in the fall I was thinking it would be around a Jewish holiday since they always have those off. Does Free Dinning always require 6 days of tickets to the parks? We would probably drive again, which means we'd be looking at only 5 days in the parks unless we could catch two days off school because we would want to give ourselves plenty of time to drive there and back.

 

[Marionnette]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this please move it to a more appropriate place if necessary. We're tentatively planning a trip in either 2017 or 2018. However I'm not sure what time of the year we should be considering. We went in May last time and got a discount on the hotel room (All Star Sports for $80 per night). We packed lunches and ate breakfast in the room, which saved us quite a bit of money. We also got our tickets through my husband's work at a discount that essentially gave us Park Hopper for free.

However I'm curious if when the run a Free Dining deal would be a better choice? We enjoyed going to table service restaurants so we'd either need to pay for the meal plan upgrade or stay at a Moderate resort if we did the Free Dinning. Also those of you who decide you want to do Free Dinning before dates have been announced do you wait to book dates until they're announced or book dates when it's typically been free dinning and try to change them if necessary?

Also we'd like to have a third so how does free dinning work if you have a child that's under three? Do you just have them eat off your plates at all meals? Can you skip a meal at one point and then use that meal for the toddler? Both of my kids have been really big eaters especially around a year. And my husband and I both have big appetites especially for me while I'm nursing so I'm not sure if we'd have enough food to share with a smaller child.

Also we'd have to go when the kids have a day off school because they can't have more than 5 absences in a period. If we go in the fall I was thinking it would be around a Jewish holiday since they always have those off. Does Free Dinning always require 6 days of tickets to the parks? We would probably drive again, which means we'd be looking at only 5 days in the parks unless we could catch two days off school because we would want to give ourselves plenty of time to drive there and back.

So many questions!

*Free* dining typically occurs in September and can extend into October and has gone as late as as early December in some years. There are no guarantees that it will continue to be offered or even what dates will be included when/if it is offered. For the past few years, the tickets have needed to have a minimum of 2 days, regardless of how long your reservation is for. But it would still be cheaper to get a 6-day ticket from Disney than it would be to pay for 2-day tickets from Disney and then purchase 4-day tickets from your husband's workplace.

If it is offered at a time when the Jewish holidays occur, you can bet that a lot of other parents will have the same idea. Even if *Free* Dining isn't offered during that time frame, a lot of parents like to take advantage of the slightly cooler weather and lighter crowds and they will plan trips for that time anyway.

*Free* Dining may or may not be a better deal for your family than a straight room discount. There really is no concrete answer to this question and you really have to do the math on your own when the time rolls around to make your reservation.

There's no advantage to booking a package ahead of time if you're really planning to do *Free* Dining. In fact, it could work to your disadvantage. Anyone who books ahead of time needs to make a phone call to Disney in order to change their reservation over to the *Free* Dining package. People who have no existing reservation can do their booking online. The phone lines to CRO have horrible wait times if you are trying to reach them on the day that *Free* Dining is announced. OTOH, if you have a specific resort, room type (such as a suite) and definite dates that you want and don't care about getting a discount, then book as early as you can in order to guarantee your choices.

Children under the age of 3 are not added to the dining plans. They can eat for free from their parent's plate in TS locations. Some parents will "age up" their children during *Free* Dining so that they can get full meals for their toddlers or so that their "under-10" child can order from the adult menu. The obvious disadvantage is that the child is forever listed in Disney's database as being that age. You don't need to "age up" your child. You can pay out of pocket for a child's meal for him/her when you are too hungry to share with them.

You might also be interested in room-only rates that tend to run concurrently with *Free* Dining package offers. Sometimes they are a better deal for a family.

 

[RitaE]

Disney promotions are constantly changing and evolving.

Nobody can really accurately tell you if Free Dining will or won't be offered 3 to 4 years from now and if it is, whether or not it would be the best option for you at that time.

If you go to the Mousesavers dot com website there is a section there which details historical discount packages that have been offered in the past. Generally you will find the best offers in the Fall after school starts, but before the Holiday rush (excluding heavily attended Food and Wine Festival days) and then again in January after the Holiday rush and before Spring Break. There is another slower season then after most Spring Break crowds have dispersed but before most US Schools let out for the summer.

I believe the best course of action is to pick the vacation time that fits your family best and then search for the best rates you can find for that time. Then if some sort of better alternate discount becomes available and you can change your plans to fit THAT, simply move your reservations to the new offer.