How Free is Free Dining?

[Cdn Friends of Pooh]

The park hopping is the difference. You pay for the park hopping.. Works out to about 50$ each or so.. Not exactly obviously. Since these are one day passes and you have AP's.. I'd drop that.

Knox

OK gotcha now ... quote I get then is $569.90 which is a difference of $146.86 - so yes that would be the 2 - 1 day passes.

The lightbulb goes on

Thanks for all your help!!

 

[CanadianGuy]

To paraphrase the Genie from Aladdin.....

"Yes! She can be taught!" -

Big smile!

Knox

 

[Philagoofy]

Ok, I didn't follow all that. Is it really free dining or not?

We were thinking of going Sept 1-15 with the 10 day park hopper tickets. I choose both ways, with the free dining & without & the price was the same, so it sounded like a good deal to me.

 

[disney_family_1247]

We used the free dining last September and were very pleased with it. We were going to be visiting in the fall anyway, so it wasn't like we spent money on a vacation just to get the free dining. The cheapest room we've ever had at Disney using a room discount was $55. Our room last year was $79. That's a difference of $168 over the 7 nights we stayed there. We bought six day tickets without any options or add-ons. Every time we used a food credit, the bill came totalled with what we would be paying if we didn't have the free dining. For two adults, a five year old, and a three year old, the week's total was $1000. Even if we'd gone without the plan and only eaten fast food to save money, we would have spent more than $168!

I would call that pretty free .

 

[CanadianGuy]

Ok, I didn't follow all that. Is it really free dining or not?

We were thinking of going Sept 1-15 with the 10 day park hopper tickets. I choose both ways, with the free dining & without & the price was the same, so it sounded like a good deal to me.

Yes. The price is exactly the same as if you didn't have free dining.

There's no cost differential for "free dining" -- The user had checked "Park Hopping" on their one day base tickets and that's what we discovered was confusing up the price.


Knox

 

[silverarrowknits]

When booking your package make sure that you are aware of the travel insurance that is automatically checked! I couldn't figure out why I was being charged so much and then I realized that I needed to uncheck the travel insurance. If you want Disney's travel insurance, that's cool, but if you don't, make sure that you uncheck it before you make your MYW package.

 

[Joan1]

Maybe insurance was added?

 

[momoftwodisneykids]

To clarify my early post, this year WDW is requiring a minimum 5 night/6 day stay.

Actually it is still only 3 nights/4 days stay, as we are booked for free dining from 8/31-9/3. We too are AP holders, so we just keep the ticket and apply the price toward our AP renewal. The free dining really ends up being worth it. We did the free dining for the same long weekend last year. I kept all my receipts and our free dining ended up totalling more than $500 of free food/gratuities. We did add some extra gratuity on the TS, as we were a large party. We didn't have to purchase any food out of pocket, as we split some CS meals--double cheeseburgers, chicken & ribs at Cosmic Rays (well, actually we did purchase an extra bun for the double cheeseburger for $1), plus we came home with 6 snacks for lunches, as we didn't use all our snack credits. I hope they keep this up for many years to come, as I love getting away for Labor Day weekend anyway, and this makes it cost effective for us.

Joanne

 

[huskies90]

Here is a very simple formula for how much you save if at all:

With Free Dining you have to pay full resort rack rates and full Disney ticket prices. So, subtract the savings you’d get from any other discounts from the rack rates and compare that to the cost of dining. It is that easy. It does not matter what add ons or how many days you get on your tickets because we’ll assume you’d buy the same tix in a package as you would ala carte. With free dining you will get a better value in a value resort and a better value if you have 4 people in your room especially if all four are over 10. 2 people staying at a deluxe will get less of a discount.

Here are two examples showing each end of the spectrum. ymmv:

2 adults and 2 children over 10 at Pop Century 5 nights with 5 day MYW plus hopping:

Free Dining Package:
$82 X 5 nights at Pop rack = $461.25 (includes tax)
Theme Park tix from Disney = $1069.28
Total = $1,530.53 and includes 5 nights of DDP ($779.80 value)

$82 X 5 nights at Pop with AAA discount = $369 (includes tax)
Theme Park tix from a discount broker = $991.80
Total = $1,360.80 and you pay for your own meals

The Free dining package costs you $169.73 more but you get 5 days of the DDP which you may or may not want. Assuming you do, you save $610.07.

Now, 2 adults no kids staying at The Beach Club 5 nights with 5 day MYW plus hopping:

Free Dining Package:
$315 X 5 nights at BC rack = $1,771.87 (includes tax)
Theme Park tix from Disney = $534.64
Total = $2,306.51 and includes 5 nights of DDP ($389.90 value)

$315 X 5 nights at BC with AAA discount = $1,506.09 (includes tax)
Theme Park tix from a discount broker = $495.90
Total = $2,001.99 and you pay for your own meals

The Free dining package costs you $304.52 more but you get 5 days of the DDP which you may or may not want. Assuming you do you save $85.27…not all that much...

 

[andromedaslove]

We are AP holders who have used the free dining for the past couple of years. It has really worked well for us. We save the money on the food we buy as a family of 4, and we use the one day park tickets toward our renewals for next years AP's.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

Except that if you are AP holders, there is usually an AP discount rate that you can book. Add to that - or rather subtract from that DDP savings, depending on where you would eat, and how you would eat (Are you really going to order an appetizer, entree and dessert pp if you are paying for it?) - and usually you will realize that:
AP room only rates + DDP = usually a better deal

It also matters if you have kids. There is a slight difference on the room rate if you have kids and book a package, though the difference is smaller than in the past. I'm also using Disney prices. You can do slightly better buying tickets through a third party vendor, and if you've got AP's you won't really need to buy the tickets. But just to show comparisons:

5 nights CSR reg Standard(July 1) = $984.40 rack
5 nights CSR standard(July 1) +AP = $781.88
5 nights CSR stndrd(July 1) + 2adlt 1-day tkts, non-hop ($142.72) = 1127.12
5 nght CSR stdrd(7/1) + 2adlt, 1day tkts, non-hop as a package = $1129.42
2adlt tickets + 2kids (1day non-hop +tx) = $262
2kids tickets 1day non-hop = $119.28

5nght POR stnd(7/1) + 2 adults + 2 kids (1-day non-hop) as a pkg =$1251.00
5nht st(7/1) + 2 adlt +2 kids (1day nonhop)not pkg = $984.4+ 246 =$1230.4
5nght st(7/1) +2adl+2kids (1day nonhop) AP discount, non-pkg= $1043.88

free dinig 6 night CSR (9/1), 2ad +2kids, 1-day non-hop = $1082.20
same thing non-pkg, but no dining , non-pkg = $815.70 +262 = $1077.70
free dining 6night (9/1), 2 adults ONLY, 1 day non-hop = $960.62
same as above but w/2kids tickets =$960.62 + 119.28 = $1079.90

The differences aren't huge, but they are there. Part of the problem here is also that the AP discount for the fall has not yet been released -so I'm comparing "summer season" (5/24 - 8/4) rates to value season rates.

To FURTHER add to the confusion. It matters which resort you stay at. During the summer, the mods are operating at "Summer rates" which are high. But at the Deluxe resorts, april 15 - July 7 is reg season and July 8 - October 3 is part of "value" season. So if you do the math for a Deluxe you get different numbers completely. The AP rate for value season Deluxes (BC, YC) is $194 - compared to $315 rack rates! That's a big savings. It would be a much better deal to go during those rates than it would be to hit free dining!
The free dining pgk above at BC is $2657.20 (9/1-9/6)
AP room rate 5 nights at BC (8/1-8/6), plus 2 adult 1days (which you wouldn't need) $1091.25 + 143 = $1234.25 So thats $1423 for food for two adults. That gives you $142.30 per person to spend on food each day, for the same price. About the max. "value" of DDP is about $90 per day, per person.

 

[dyna]

I don't have DH's figures here but I know when he added up our stayin at POP the same # of days and just eating CS meals 2 a day (we always eat breakfast in the room we take food for that) the park tickets regular tickets not hoppers like we will get with free dining. It came out to be a heck of a deal.

2 yrs ago when DH and I did the free dining just the 2 of us we saved big time on food. We at well and we ate at TS places we would have NEVER EVER otherwise at at. Usually we don't do TS meals at all.

We are doing the free dining again this year an already making plans to do it next year.