Has anyone upgraded because of free dining?

[melissa5583]

We recently got the free dining with our Sept. trip. We had already booked the MYW dining, so when the free dining promotion came out, we saved about $800.00. We were planning on staying at POR, which will be our first moderate resort. We were thinking about upgrading to either AKL or WL. Has anyone upgraded because of the discount from the free dining???

 

[MomofKatie]

We didn't upgrade, but we did add extra days.

You stated that POR would be your first Mod- have you stayed Value before, or Deluxe? If you've only done Value, then POR will be a nice upgrade in itself! If you've done all Deluxes before, you might be happier staying at another one. POR is nice, but the lack of balconies, indoor hallways, impressive lobbies, and general atmosphere might be disappointing.

We have only stayed at Mods, and we are trying Pop this fall- I think we will still enjoy it. We tend to be of the "sleep and swim only" group when it comes to our hotel.

 

[Nik's Mom]

When they had the buy 4 days, get 3 days free deal a couple of years ago, we upgraded from WL standard view to Poly garden view. You have 2 options here. You can stay where you are currently booked, and look at the savings as more spending money for goodies while there, or you can take that savings and upgrade. If you have a particular resort that you'd love to stay at, but normally couldn't see paying that amount, then go ahead and use the savings for the upgrade!

 

[mello]

We decided that since we'd be saving so much on food that we'd go ahead and add 3 days at the Poly to our 10 day pkg at CBR. I'm SO excited about that! I never thought we'd get to stay in a luxury resort!

 

[MScott1851]

Yes, but not BECAUSE of the free dining. When I looked at it closely, my trip is actually more expensive than the previous years we've been. However, its now prepaid, and we're getting to eat table service on-site, so it's more convenient.

I'm paying rack rate of $199 per night (something I swore I'd NEVER do!!!) for Wilderness Lodge, full price for tickets, and get a value of $70 per day (even though we may eat MORE than that, that is the cost) for the "free dining." I can definitely see how it saves money for a family of four, five, or more though. Just us two? It doesn't save much money. Also, if you stay at a value, you are getting a MUCH better deal than at a deluxe.

What is scary is that this just shows how overpriced WDW food is. They are doing this promotion knowing full well people are going to live high on the hog and eat whatever they want, and you know WDW is not going to lose money.

I got off better with a discounted room ($109 for WL, I think. We stayed at CSR for $89) for September last year and discounted tickets from Ticketmania, eating one counter service meal and off-site sitdown dinner per day. No way did DH and I spend $70 per day on food, and we ate whenever and where ever we want, plus we went out downtown almost every night....

But NEVERTHELESS, I think the MYW with Dining is FABULOUS!!!!! I'm super excited to be going, no matter if I had to eat "beans and taters" all week!!

OT: Melissa...where are you from in AL? We will be at WDW while you are...if you upgrade to WL, maybe we'll bump into each other! AKL is gorgeous, too...we honeymooned there...

 

[Cindy B]

Yes, we are. We had originally booked at Pop and paid for dining with our reservation.

Then free dining came out, and we moved up to CSR. (our first mod) We still saved $500 with the free dining.

 

[Blueberry]

I guess you can say we upgraded to our first onsite stay. We have stayed in Downtown Disney Marketplace area once but never onsite. When the free dining plan came along, they made us an offer we could not refuse.....

Looking forward to our stay at POP in September....

 

[purplepixie]

When we decided to go my DH wouldn't even let me look at the values. This is our third family trip and we want to spend more time at the resort hanging out. He wanted at least a water slide. We had our reservation for 6 nights at POFQ. Since making that first reservation we've changed a few times and now have 8 nights for WL. Considering we aren't exactly small people we thought the queen size beds might be more comfortable. We've also been looking at WL for a while for a trip. DH gets a bonus the end of this month so between that and the free dining we decided to go for it.

 

[melissa5583]

This will be our first moderate. We've never stayed at a deluxe. We did stay at ASMo last year (I loved it).
MScott....I'm from Huntsville, AL. I would prob. pick WL over AKL. But, I'm still not sure...I may just stay at the moderate and be content over the money I saved!!!

 

[grimley1968]

We had already booked Poly garden view, with the MYW tix and the dining plan. I had budgeted for this for a long time, just so we could afford what we got. When the free dining plan came out, I simply had Magical Journeys apply the discount to our ressie, and was happy to save the $600. The rest of it remained the same.