Is Free Dining Really Free?

[MFLetou]

I'm struggling to figure out which is a better deal--the room only discount, or free dining. The traveling party I'm dealing with is 4 adults in 2 rooms plus 2 kids under 3 (so no free dining to them). For the purposes of the cost comparison, let's just take one set of adults.

The current offer room only offer is $96 (+12) tax (total $108 per night). For ten nights, you'd be paying $1080. If you added theme park tickets for 10 days with the park hopper option, it would cost you $590. So 10 days, 10 nights works out to $1670.

Now, it would stand to reason that adding free dining would only change the equation in that the room rate would increase. For a moderate, you'd be paying full price...$149 (+18 in taxes) for $167. For ten nights, $1670. Adding in the theme park tickets (fixed cost) gets you to $2260.

So that's what it should cost, right? Well, with the Magic Your Way package (+free dining), they tack on an extra $30 (perhaps the value they assign to the mini golf and the picture). So its $2290--pretty close.

So basically, difference in price is $620...so its costing $620 to add the dining plan. Works out to $62 a day, or $31 per adult.

So that becomes the magic number...will you spend more than that. The answer, if you do a table service every night, is most certainly yes. But, with 2 young kids in the traveling party...will that work. Yes, you can trade 2 for a show like Mickey's Backyard BBQ, and use or 2 other TS credits for character meals. And mom and dad would certainly appreciate a quiet meal together with grandma and grampa watch the kids.

But...which is really the better deal? Hmm.

 

[TillyMarigold]

I'd be very surprised if you could keep your meals to under $31 per day per adult even if you only ate QS. It's usually about $9-10 for a sandwich at a QS place plus $2-3 for a drink, isn't it? So after tax you're at almost $15 per meal. Maybe if you brought breakfast from home and maybe some lunches too, and *only* ate QS (no TS at all)

 

[vicki_c]

I didn't review your numbers - too late for that.

A good rule of thumb is that free dining is a better deal when you're booking a value resort, and a room discount is a better deal when you're staying in a deluxe.

But even that can change depending on how many people are in your party, what age they are, and the % discount you can get on the room.

Free dining is just a different way of packaging a discount.

 

[MFLetou]

Yes...of course, I'm staying in a moderate, just to complicate matters. And with essentially the "minimum" discount because its just 2 adults.

As far as keeping meals under $31, well, keep in mind that even on the DP, that won't be the case. We'll still be short a meal and we'll need to buy a meal for our son because he's under 3.

Strictly speaking, if us adults ate at one CS and one TS, most likely we'd be over $31 though, yes. But with 2 kids, we probably wouldn't do that.

 

[robinb]

No, free dining is not free. It is (roughly) a discount equal to the number of adults in the room times $40.00 per night which is the cost of the DDP. In your case, it's a discount of $80 per room per night. So, if rack rate is $149, your discounted rate would be about $70 per night (taxes make a small difference).

 

[MAYNARDS99]

Remember you probably don't need tickets for your first and last day at Disney. So figure 8 days worth.

In fact, with free dining, you only need to purchase one days ticket, regardless of the number of nights you are staying.

It's fun to spend a day or two at the resort pool, and don't forget Sea World and Universal! Golf and water sports too!

 

[P.I. Squirrel]

FD is really only a great value if you were going to eat that much anyway.

If you plan ahead, take some food, eat off site a few times, or eat only one big meal a day, then the room discount is the better bargain.

We don't look at whether it's a bargain or not. We look at it more as a prepaid all-inclusive trip. It helps us to plan for our budget.

 

[kim_d]

Every family (and child) is different. Personally, we didn't have any issues with eating TS at least once per day when our children were 3 and under (they are now 4 and 6). There are children who aren't content being confined for long periods of time in a resturant, though. I just think you have to make the decision based on your family and child. Do you eat out frequently at home? Is is an issue? Would your child(ren) enjoy character meals- that can be a good way to get in TS and have the children really "occupied"?

 

[TheRustyScupper]

Is Free Dining Really Free?

1) Nothing is free at WDW.
2) Certianly not "free dining".

 

[AngVT]

We have FD for our trip in Oct. Originally we had a split stay between POP (2 nights) and CSR (7 nights). Our CSR nights were a package 40% off room rates, but POP was before the discount began, so no discount, but AAA discount. When we switched to the FD, for our entire trip, we changed and are staying at CSR for the entire 9 nights, with FD, and 10d PH. We broke even (I had paid the trip off) AND added on 2 more days of dining to the package... so I figure we saved approx. $170 to $180 (which is worth way more to take away the hassle of switching resorts!!!)

 

[lustergirl]

I like the convenience of having my meals paid for. As a family we enjoy sitting down once a day for a nice meal. We are staying at POP so I think we are saving money with the free dining promo.

 

[skier_pete]

Your calculations are pretty spot-on. "Free" dining is of course not actually free...but I would argue that with 2 small children it is MORE than worth it to do the free dining.
(1) It gives you a break each day where you can just sit for a hour or so. Yes, the kids have to still be watched, but still easier than trudging around the parks.
(2) The character meals are great oppurtunities to ease your young ones into meeting characters. Rather than standing in long lines and having these giant characters towering over them, the kids see the characters walking around the restaurant, approaching them
(3) Character meals (buffets) are actually really good options to eat, because you don't have to wait for your order, and also you can get the kids what THEY like while still trying some tasty treats yourself. (You'll probably get some argument here, but in my view the buffet quality is miles above that of your standard hometown buffet restaurant.)
(4) Plus, your under 3 kids get their own food at the buffets...the sit-down restaurants and the CS restaurants, you will have to either share your meals, or spend money OOP to get them their own meal.
(5) You rightly point out "Free dining" costs you about $62 a day. However, I guarantee if you eat ONLY counter service meals all week, you will spend more than that for your family of 4, and you won't eat nearly as well.
(6) A few other good restaurant (non-buffet) to eat with kids - Coral Reef (big fish tank) Restaurant Marrakesh (belly-dancing show), Beirgarten (OK, it's a buffet, but NOT a character buffet, but they have a OOmpah Band that plays a show, make sure to schedule your ADR accordingly.)

If you do select the free dining, make sure to call for ADRs well in advance.

SkierPete

 

[rotlex]

I like the convenience of having my meals paid for. As a family we enjoy sitting down once a day for a nice meal. We are staying at POP so I think we are saving money with the free dining promo.

Ditto. We love free dining. I realize it's not "free" per say, but, for someone who does at least one character meal per day, plus QS, and uses all the snacks, I am going to spend far more than $40 per day per adult. In that case, those that say that is all you are saving, are off. Yeah, if you do QS, and basic TS, it's not much of a savings. However, when your average TS bill is $40 plus alone, it's great.

We also enjoy the whole pre-paid thing. Not having to worry about anything other than the tip. Yeah, the fact that they removed it annoys me, but still, we always wind up ahead in the end.

 

[WTP]

It really depends on what you want to eat. If you are interested in doing the TS meals, then go for it! Previous posters make a great point about the characters for your kids as well as nice long breaks in the air conditioning.

For the 8 days we go down we will not be doing free dining, or getting the dining plan at all. We've crunched the numbers and and we think we can do at least as well or better by doing our own thing. The dining plan as it is just doesn't suit us and here's why:

1) We don't drink soda at every meal. If we do get soda, DH and I share 1 soda. This isn't our "Save money at expensive disney" approach. It is how we always do it. We drink water with our meals (tap water w/ ice is free at all disney CS and TS) and if we want a coke, it is more of a dessert than a drink. (savings= ~$5 meal) We plan on getting refillable mugs at our resort the first night (not included with regular dining plan) and getting most of our soda that way.

2) We don't eat dessert at every meal. And, if we want dessert, we probably don't want it with our meal, but an hour later. A lot of the CS places have only 1 or 2 dessery options and sometimes we'd rather get a dole whip than the brownie that is offered at the CS where we had lunch. You have to get all of your food for 1 CS credit all at once with the DDP. Yes we could use a snack credit, but then you can't use it for a muffin or something for breakfast. And sometimes rather than something sweet, we'd prefer an appetizer or side.

3) We plan on doing only 3, possibly 4 TS on the whole trip. So neither dining plan really suits us. Yes, there are stories of people trading in extra TS credits for some extra CS and snack credits, but we don't want to count on that. Plus, my FIL and MIL are coming with us on this trip and they tend to open their wallets when on vacation--they've already said they are going to use their visa reward cards to treat us to 2 of the 3 above meals. They are funny like that--they love buying food for us more than anything else. So for us, it is a savings.

5) Flexibility. Here's an example: My IL's and DH have fond memories of eating the "kitchen sink" at Beaches n' cream every trip ever since DH was little. It's a tradition. We'll probably be going there and just getting this sundae. As far as I know this can't be bought with DDP credits, or at least it probably wouldn't be a very good use of them. And it will fill them up for an afternoon. Paying cash just seems to make more and more sense for us.

6) My IL's, mentioned above, have been on the DDP before and said it was too much TS for them and feel it takes away from the time in the parks. Whether or not this is true, it is how they feel so we are honoring that.

7) We got our tickets already at undercover tourist, before the price increase, at a $30 savings per ticket to what disney would charge for the tickets in the MYW package. So that is another $120 for the food budget. Yes we could buy the 1-day base tickets, but for us that would leave over $300 stored in tickets we won't be needing for at least a year (and we may find ourselves buying more 1-day MYW tickets for future packages)

I know this is a long post and most of it doesn't apply to you, OP, but it is our reasoning for not going with the DDP and instead getting the room-only discounts. The difference for the 2 rooms at POR for 6 nights at the room-only vs MYW free dining with 1-day base tickets is about $850. I think we can do better paying cash with what we know we will do for our meals. (And we're all disney veterans in my party). And I know that we will be more satisfied with our dining experience by having the flexibility of paying cash, even if we come out paying $100 more.

 

[minnie_michelle]

For us the room discount was the best option by far for several reasons:

1. We are driving and therefore can bring breakfast foods, bottles of water etc. and will not need dining credits or several snack credits for those things.

2. We are celebrating our anniversary and planning a very romantic dinner in Downtown Orlando and will also be eating another meal or two off site while we visit Universal Citywalk

3. DH and I love to have the flexibility to have an appetizer OR dessert, not just dessert all the time. We want to be able to buy food from anywhere in the park and not just the restaurants/counter service that are on the dining plan.

4. We also love to try new drinks (alcoholic of course) and would have to order a regular drink with the plan and then order whatever alchoholic drink in addition and pay OOP.

5. Finally the kicker that no one has mentioned : Gratituity is no longer included in the dining plan, so if you pay for all dining in advance you are more apt to order the more expensive dishes and then you will have to pay the 20% gratituty based on the actual cost of your meal. That is at least $20 per meal if not more. This really adds up and you end up spending 100's more just on tips. While, if we are paying for everything OOP we will chose the less expensive meals and enjoy them just as much and therefore save even more money on the tips. I can of course see us splurging a couple times, but if we paid in advance we would do it everytime.

6. Florida is HOT. when you are hot, your body isn't as hungry as when you are comfortable. We noticed when we went to the beach a few months ago, we weren't hungry for dinner, even after having only a small lunch several hours earlier. We bought very few big meals that trip and saved alot of money. If you pay for it all in advance, you will have to force yourself to eat the meals to use the credits or just waste the money if your not hungry. I would rather pay OOP for when I am hungry and just cancel any ADR's if I'm not and save the money.

 

[roliepolieoliefan]

Our family of 4 is staying at the GF in December on a 40% off code.

Then the free dining came out and I called to see the price difference. It was close to $1300.00 more for us to have "free" dining.

We will never eat 1300.00 worth of food in a week paying OOP so we are sticking with the 40% off code because for our family its the better deal.

 

[disneyfan55]

Our family of 4 is staying at the GF in December on a 40% off code.

Then the free dining came out and I called to see the price difference. It was close to $1300.00 more for us to have "free" dining.

We will never eat 1300.00 worth of food in a week paying OOP so we are sticking with the 40% off code because for our family its the better deal.

Room discounts are almost always a better deal at the Deluxe resorts. The Values are (or were) the best for the Free dining. But now that it's just the quick plan, I'm not sure. It's probably still the better deal especially if you like desserts and don't bring your own drinks.

 

[MFLetou]

Wow, what well reasoned and compelling arguments all the way around. (And btw--i was probably being a little too cute with my post title..I know it isn't really free, it was more of a rhetorical question!)

I'm still on the fence.

Let me throw a few more things out there. The DDP plan says it is in place for the number of nights that you are staying. So, if you are staying for 10 nights, and then buy a 10 day pass, how many credits to you get? You actually are going to BE there for 11 days, but you are only staying 10 nights. So do you get 10 TS, 10 CS, 10 Snacks, or 11 of everything?

It does make a difference in the math, and lowers the "magic number" by about 10 percent.

WTP's point about "what we will eat" is well taken. I share some of those same tendencies. 1) We routinely share drinks, at least when they are refillable, in order to save money no matter where we are. 2) I love dessert, but my wife doesn't. Even when I do want dessert, I also don't always want it right after a meal--I might want it a few hours later. 3). Sometimes I like to try appetizers, and my wife loves soup. Say you go to Le Cellier on the DDP...now I have to pay $6.99 for the cheese soup. But I had it once and I loved it...but I'm not sure if actually would bring myself to pay the money for it. 4) I totally get it when it comes to certain traditions, etc. One of ours is that we like to have some nice breakfasts, like at Kona. Well, that's a terrible use of a TS credit, so we'd probably be paying out of pocket.

Here's what doesn't apply. 1) Nobody in our party drinks alcohol. 2) We have no desire to eat off campus during our stay. 3) It will be December, so I'm not that worried about it being hot. We were there in January a few years ago and it was really pleasant, we never were too hot to eat!

Now, here's a wild card. My parents are the kind of people that don't spend a lot on food. If you go to a "nicer" restaurant, they may not say anything but they will politely order the least expensive thing on the menu. At Disney, they are going to want no part of most of the table service experiences, and when they do, I KNOW they'll be sticker shocked and end up ordering whatever is cheapest. We'll be doing a lot of hamburgers, a lot of pizza, etc. Over the course of 10 days, that's going to get old.

Regardless, we'll do Chef Mickey's because everyone wants to watch the kids interact with the characters. And my wife and I will have opportunities to go have some nice dinners on our own. But with the DDP, I know they'd probably actually eat something nice for once. My mom has already said, "if we don't have the dining plan, I'm not going there" a few times in our trip planning conversations about certain places I've brought up. (Not that they neccesarily are advocating for it, she was just being honest about her mentality).

However...the other concern I have is simply logistics. I HATE being locked into needing to be at a certain place at a certain time, and I wonder how much "pressure" we're going to end up feeling trying to herd the whole clan over to restaurant x at a certain time. How badly do you need ADRS? I'm planning on making them at my 90 day window, but since the park hours for my month won't even be out yet, I really have absolutely no idea when we're going to want to go to certain places.

It was tough even the last time, when it was just me and my wife in '07. We really wanted to eat at certain restaurants, so we made ADRs...but I remember it being a pain in the butt, because we'd want to go on "one more ride" at Hollywood Studios, but instead were stuck watching the clock because we had to be at Chefs de France in 30 minutes. (Thank God we had a car, and will win this time too). But you see my point.

So anyway...still undecided, and trying to figure out whether we'd be getting 10 or 11 days credits.

 

[Funky Chicken]

The more expensive your resort, the less value there is in "free" dining. Look at our upcoming trip 9-13 to 9-19, driving and staying at ASMu.
Rack rate on a value-$82 x 5 nights=$410 plus taxes
5 days of one day one park tix for 2 adults and one child-$651 plus taxes.
That's $1061 plus taxes. Our package including 5 days of DDP (we got an email pin) was $1138 including all taxes.
The tickets are what they are, and paying for 5 days of DDP would run over $90 per day plus taxes. That means they would have to pay me to stay in the room in order for a room discount to equal the cost of the DDP.
Works for me even if we don't max out the DP, but 3 of our 5 TS meals are character dining for DD4 that we might be reluctant to pay for out of pocket under normal circumstances.
This is a screamin' deal even with having to pay tips out of pocket.

 

[disneyfan55]

Wow, what well reasoned and compelling arguments all the way around. (And btw--i was probably being a little too cute with my post title..I know it isn't really free, it was more of a rhetorical question!)

I'm still on the fence.

Let me throw a few more things out there. The DDP plan says it is in place for the number of nights that you are staying. So, if you are staying for 10 nights, and then buy a 10 day pass, how many credits to you get? You actually are going to BE there for 11 days, but you are only staying 10 nights. So do you get 10 TS, 10 CS, 10 Snacks, or 11 of everything?

It does make a difference in the math, and lowers the "magic number" by about 10 percent.

WTP's point about "what we will eat" is well taken. I share some of those same tendencies. 1) We routinely share drinks, at least when they are refillable, in order to save money no matter where we are. 2) I love dessert, but my wife doesn't. Even when I do want dessert, I also don't always want it right after a meal--I might want it a few hours later. 3). Sometimes I like to try appetizers, and my wife loves soup. Say you go to Le Cellier on the DDP...now I have to pay $6.99 for the cheese soup. But I had it once and I loved it...but I'm not sure if actually would bring myself to pay the money for it. 4) I totally get it when it comes to certain traditions, etc. One of ours is that we like to have some nice breakfasts, like at Kona. Well, that's a terrible use of a TS credit, so we'd probably be paying out of pocket.

Here's what doesn't apply. 1) Nobody in our party drinks alcohol. 2) We have no desire to eat off campus during our stay. 3) It will be December, so I'm not that worried about it being hot. We were there in January a few years ago and it was really pleasant, we never were too hot to eat!

Now, here's a wild card. My parents are the kind of people that don't spend a lot on food. If you go to a "nicer" restaurant, they may not say anything but they will politely order the least expensive thing on the menu. At Disney, they are going to want no part of most of the table service experiences, and when they do, I KNOW they'll be sticker shocked and end up ordering whatever is cheapest. We'll be doing a lot of hamburgers, a lot of pizza, etc. Over the course of 10 days, that's going to get old.

Regardless, we'll do Chef Mickey's because everyone wants to watch the kids interact with the characters. And my wife and I will have opportunities to go have some nice dinners on our own. But with the DDP, I know they'd probably actually eat something nice for once. My mom has already said, "if we don't have the dining plan, I'm not going there" a few times in our trip planning conversations about certain places I've brought up. (Not that they neccesarily are advocating for it, she was just being honest about her mentality).

However...the other concern I have is simply logistics. I HATE being locked into needing to be at a certain place at a certain time, and I wonder how much "pressure" we're going to end up feeling trying to herd the whole clan over to restaurant x at a certain time. How badly do you need ADRS? I'm planning on making them at my 90 day window, but since the park hours for my month won't even be out yet, I really have absolutely no idea when we're going to want to go to certain places.

It was tough even the last time, when it was just me and my wife in '07. We really wanted to eat at certain restaurants, so we made ADRs...but I remember it being a pain in the butt, because we'd want to go on "one more ride" at Hollywood Studios, but instead were stuck watching the clock because we had to be at Chefs de France in 30 minutes. (Thank God we had a car, and will win this time too). But you see my point.

So anyway...still undecided, and trying to figure out whether we'd be getting 10 or 11 days credits.

10 nights = 10 TS, 10 CS and 10 Snacks each. We usually use either a TS on the first day and save a CS for the last lunch.