How does Disney afford free dining???

[crelange]

I am just thinking back to my trip to Disney and trying to figure out how they can offer the free dining.

8 nights at ASMo
7 day park hopper tickets
$1500

Free dining plan total
$1361.25

I know there is a huge profit in food and many people are going because of free dining, but how can Disney afford to do this?

We did spend money on gifts/refillable mugs etc but only around $300

Will they be able to offer this again?

Chris

 

[jann1033]

last time we stayed at pop it was a promo for $50 a night so while the free dining is a good deal, they are able to still make money...i hope the prices don't go up a ton before we go due to the oil prices now though. i would guess it was to kick off the dining program plus encourage travel due to the bad hurricane season last yr so i would guess not. i hope they have something good for our next trip!

 

[Tara]

Well, number one is that people are paying rack rate for their rooms and most are buying admission for the same number of nights as their stay. (I know you don't have to, but the majority of people do not know that.)

Also, they are keeping people on property more and more, and the more time you spend on property, the more likely you are to also spend your money.

Food for free loosens the purse strings in other areas, and I'm betting people with free dining (and even those paying for the dining) spend more on souvenirs and extras than they might otherwise.

And, it's a lot of food, so I'm also guessing that many people don't use all their credits.

 

[tjmouse]

Yes, definately a combination of things. Most people that did free dining upgraded to another resort because they were going to save money on dining. Plus paying rack rates made a difference as most usually use at least AAA discount. Not to mention last hurricane season, they lost some money. So, I am sure it all evened out in the end.

 

[CarolMN]

The free dining was to attract visitors during a slow period - made even slower by memories of last year's hurricanes.

Disney has quite a bit of overhead costs - those costs have to be paid no matter how many poeple visit. The free dining may not actually cost as much as we think, plus Disney now has guests paying rack rate and spending money on tickets and souvenirs. Even if they don't make money on the dining component, they'll probably still be making $$ overall - or at at least not losing as much.

Best wishes -

 

[Aimeedyan]

I bet they're making money People are paying rack rate, which is often 2x what you would be paying with a discount code. Then, people feel more free to spend $ in other areas since they're saving money. Add to that the park tickets people are buying that wouldn't always buy (esp those with annual passes that are buying tickets on top of that to get the deal) and you're coming out pretty good.

 

[jenga1030]

I think after this free dining deal Disney knows that they'll have quite a few people addicted to the dining plan who will pay for it on their next trip! I have read quite a few posts here like that, people who say they will never go without a dining plan again.

I haven't even used my free dining yet (less than 4 weeks ) and I already feel this way. We have always just done counter service in the past but I have had so much fun researching the menus and making my ADRs and dreaming of the food we will eat that next year when we go I know we will pay for the dining plan. And since we don't have to budget much (if any) for food, we'll be buying extra souvenirs and those light up drinks and all that so they'll be getting extra money from us there.

Also, even the people who may not buy the dining plan again are trying table service restaurants they may love and will pay for on their future trips. So I think Disney saw this as a way to bring people in during a slow time and as investment in the future with people buying the dining plan and using more table service restaurants next time they visit. That's just my take on it!

Jennifer

 

[dyna]

We used the free dining last week. The only add on we had to our stay was park hopper passes. We bought a water a day in the parks. That was IT. We spent no extra money in the parks.

The last day we had not done no shopping for surprises for the DD's at home and was in a hurry to get on the road so we went to the gift shop at Pop and bought them each a 20.00 gift.

Budget very tight here and was afraid the trip home would cost us more not sure there would be gas along the way or what price it would be.

We ate in resturants we had never ate in but other than maybe 1 or 2 counter service meals during past stays we'd only ate in a resturant at disney 1 time and that was a free breakfast in the castle years ago.

Always ate mostly peanut butter sandwiches in the room during our stay.

WE won't be returning to disney to eat in the resturants either. That just isn't in our budget as a rule. DD does have a breakfast coming next visit at the castle but other than that I doubt we ever dine again at the fancy resturants.

I don't think this visit cost me more than when I went in Dec and Jan and only paided 49.00 for room cause each dinner DH and I had cost at least 100.00 and it was FREE
We got to eat food we'd never have eaten otherwise. But then not everyone does disney as cheap as DH does and not spend money on food and extras.

 

[Samantha]

We have always just done counter service in the past but I have had so much fun researching the menus and making my ADRs and dreaming of the food we will eat

I have also really enjoyed planning for the free dining. It's been lots of fun to pour over the menus and look at the food pictures. I'm not sure that I can afford to pay for the dining plan next time but I really appreciate having the opportunity to try all these restaurants during the free dining.

 

[crelange]

I agree with the theory of paying rack rates for the deluxe and perhaps not making out on the dining plan. But if you are staying at a value for $99 per night, I don't see how for a family of 4, even paying $50 for the room, would not come out ahead with the dining plan.

We also did not go wild on gifts, spent very little on food (maybe $30 for alcholic drinks) and did not upgrade to a better resort.

In our case, I think we probably were not that profitable for Disney.

 

[Aimeedyan]

I agree with the theory of paying rack rates for the deluxe and perhaps not making out on the dining plan. But if you are staying at a value for $99 per night, I don't see how for a family of 4, even paying $50 for the room, would not come out ahead with the dining plan.

We also did not go wild on gifts, spent very little on food (maybe $30 for alcholic drinks) and did not upgrade to a better resort.

In our case, I think we probably were not that profitable for Disney.

You have to also remember that Disney dining prices are grossly inflated and they don't cost NEAR that for them to feed you. Their CMs are paid little, the food is bought in mass bulk at heavy discounts, and it just doesn't cost them much of anything to feed someone. So the cost for them is very little.

 

[Amyg]

I just bought a WDW trivia book and this is one of the facts:

"More than 500,000 character watches are sold in the WDW gift shops each year"

"By 1978, guests visiting WDW spent more money on merchandise than on food."

 

[Lucille1963]

I'm sure there are many reasons for this, quite a few are already listed above. In our case, we only booked our trip because of the free dining. So we went from spending $0 to a whole lot more! Thank you Disney!!

 

[candmforever]

I agree that the free dining allows for you to spend more in the parks. We had XXXX amount of $ saved for the trip. When we found out we could do free dining, we thought, "Do we upgrade to a Deluxe resort", or "do we spend more on souveniers". So we decided that we'd enjoy our souveniers for a longer time than the resort room....all that being said to point out that we are spending more $ other places, not pocketing it b/c we saved it. This is our vacation and since we already have the $ saved, we don't mind spending the extra that would have gone into food..on other things. We always used to BUDGET heavily to be able to enjoy a WDW vacation, but the free dining allows us to be looser other ways and enjoy the trip a different way, since b4, the food was such a major expense.

Just remember, any business, especially Disney would not be offering something they'd LOOSE money on..they're making it other way, I can assure you. They will be on us...we'll be spending 10 and 20.00 on souveniers they spend a dime on! But we'll have fun doing it b/c our dinner is on THE MOUSE.

 

[jann1033]

I just bought a WDW trivia book and this is one of the facts:

"More than 500,000 character watches are sold in the WDW gift shops each year"

"By 1978, guests visiting WDW spent more money on merchandise than on food."

hey then maybe they should try afree sovie credit

 

[StephMK]

They made money on us because we had planned to stay offsite, eat several meals offsite & take at least one of our days for SW. Instead, we shortened our trip a little, gave up Sea World and will stay onsite the whole trip. It has been a lot of fun to check out restaurants and plan nicer meals.

Oh yeah, they got even more money because we also fell for the MYW additional days and bought extra days for some future trip. So I'm guessing they were hoping to nab people to spend more $ on Disney. It worked but I'm still happy!

 

[bigmac5]

We just got back, and my husband and I were wondering the same thing. We booked our stay through CAA before free dining came out. When it came out I talked to our agent and because we already had a discounted rate we had to pay $240 extra. That was for 5 adults for 6 nights. That worked out to about $8 per person per day. That would only be a couple snacks per person. Our total "free dining bill" came to $1668. I feel we came out ahead since we were going to go anyway

 

[aubriee]

In our case they did not make as much as they would have. I had an AP rate at POP, but was contemplating upgrading to POFQ. When the free dining came out and we had to pay rack rate, it sealed our decision to stay at POP. I also have the DDE card to use for any extra food/drinks we might want in addition to the free dining. We are eating at the same places we would have eaten at without the free dining. I'll also be using my AP to get the same discounts at the Basin and the Disney store at DTD. I had already planned to surprise my son and D-I-L with $400.00 in Disney dollars the night before we leave (plus they would have whatever they took on their own). Hey, my D-I-L loves to shop!

As an AP holder I could have bought all three of us just a single day base ticket, then upgraded my son and D-I-L's tickets to 7 day MYW with pluses when we got there, but since I don't plan on renewing my AP for next year, I decided to go ahead and buy us all 7 day MYW with pluses and then just save mine for a trip next spring (using my AP during the Sept trip). I'll have a 7 day MYW with pluses ticket left over to use for a future trip, plus free dining for not much more than I would have paid if we had went with my AP discounted room at POP and for quite a bit cheaper than an AP discounted room would have been at POFQ. We'll be spending alot less than I had originally planned for and I wll have a 7 day MYW ticket left over to boot.

 

[candmforever]

One more thing...
Even though free dining is allowing us to spend more $ in other places this time, just to compare, we had 3000.00 saved for our Disney trip, but only had to spend 1782.00 on an 8 night stay in a value, tickets for six and free food. We are taking about 500 to spend and we put the rest back into savings, so alltogether, we spending about 800 less.

 

[shondad]

While we just came back home yesterday, I'd say Disney made money, because as it appears you pay full price for the room (Value season), and park tickets. Then I agree that even though the prices for food are high, the actual cost to them is low. Then there is a strong chance that you will make other purchases. At the counter service meals I usually bought my DS2 a meal, as he was not included in the dining plan (even though there was more than enough food to share, just some of the choices we made would not have appealed to him). And DH and I usually bought mixed drinks at each table service dinner. We are not much of drinkers but decided to 'live a little'. Considering Disney is so expensive (and I see why), we would not have purchased such extras had we had to pay OOP for our meals.

Also, we bought a twin pack of disposable cameras (because I forgot the film for our camera in the room) for an 'eye- bulging' $25.55, where as the same thing @ Wal-mart would have been $10-15. Not to mention the photos we bought that were taken @ Chef Mickey's and Donald's @ $26.00+ a pop, I'd say Disney is making up for it elsewhere.