Is Free Dining Worth it?

[maryj11]

I know there is something on this board that discusses this but every time I search it comes up no matches and I have been reading for an hour and cant find my answers lol. Anyway is the free dining plan worth it ? We have the 1 service meal. 1 quick service and 1 snack a day for 2 adults and 1 child and will be at Disney Sept 6th to 10th. Will the restaurants be crowded ? Do they cut back on the amount of food the free diners get? Do you have any tips on which restaurants to use the free dining plan on to get the most out of DDP and our time ? Thanks for any information

 

[TDC Nala]

Will the restaurants be crowded ?

Yes.

Do they cut back on the amount of food the free diners get?

Not officially. There are a number of stories about menus being cut back (and it's usually offerings rather than portions) but WDW does menu changes so often I certainly couldn't find anything that would confirm it's just for free dining in any case.

As for whether the free dining plan is worth it, it can certainly be if your party wants to take the time out to eat at restaurants. If they don't, then it may not be.

In some cases (small party staying at a deluxe resort, usually) a good room discount can actually save a party more than free dining.

 

[nanalisa]

It's worth it for us because we always eat at least one meal a day at a table service. We also usually stay at one of the moderate Disney resorts. The free dining was a much bigger discount than the 40% off the resort.

 

[TDC Nala]

I'd have to know under what circumstances the OP would consider not doing free dining (if they don't normally eat at TS restaurants or whatever).

 

[disneyfan6301]

Worth it for us, too. We do one table service per day, and we do the main ones--O'Hana, Chef Mickey, Le Cellier. I actually looked at the menus on allears.net one year and calculated what we would spend to see if DDP was worth it when there was not free dining. Yes, it was for us!

 

[robinb]

I know there is something on this board that discusses this but every time I search it comes up no matches and I have been reading for an hour and cant find my answers lol. Anyway is the free dining plan worth it ? We have the 1 service meal. 1 quick service and 1 snack a day for 2 adults and 1 child and will be at Disney Sept 6th to 10th. Will the restaurants be crowded ? Do they cut back on the amount of food the free diners get? Do you have any tips on which restaurants to use the free dining plan on to get the most out of DDP and our time ? Thanks for any information

If you are staying at a Value resort you would receive the Quick Service Dining Plan valued at $74. At other resorts you would receive the regular Dining Plan valued at $96. That is your "discount".

If it's "worth it" depends on a number of factors. It depends on where you will be staying, if you would eat those meals anyway, and what kind of a discount you would otherwise have.

 

[tink0283]

its worth it...especially since its FREE! i mean you are goin to eat sometime during the day, so having the option to eat without paying is great!

the last 2 trips i have made to WDW have been on the dining plan and i love it. it just makes it so much easier when you only have to budget extra money for shopping stuff, etc...! i also love being able to visit some of the table service restaurants around WDW and some of my favs would be pretty expensive if i had to pay out of pocket...i think its def. worth it!

 

[SGMCO]

Fd saved us $1008.00 for the week--It was worth it for us.
Our DS is 14 and considered an adult (any kid 10 years or older is considered an adult) so he has to get Adult dining plan ($42.00 per night) so it adds up.
If your child is under 10 years FD is only worth $10.00 per night so look
into and compare other discount offers (like kids stay free or room % discounts) which may save you more. Even though it Free you still have to pay for tips for the Basic DP so take that into consideration-- you have to pay it also if you are paying for DP.

We've never had any problems with crowded restaurants (they may be full inside though but it can only hold so many people) Always get our ADRs 180 days in advance to no problems getting where we want to eat. It is very hard to get into the more popular restaurants unless you get ADRs 180 days in advance but you can continue checking for availablity. We usually eat at the park we will be at for the day (we don't get hoppers) or we leave the park eat at a Resort Restaurant.

 

[TinkerbellsMom0923]

We did quick service dining in January with our family of 4. We stayed at CBR. Yes, it was worth the price, we had more food than we knew what to do with. We are returning in September and will get the free dining. It's nice too with older kids-20 and 17. They just used their cards where they wanted to.We have been several tmes without the plan and would not go again without it.

 

[maryj11]

Great sounds like its a good deal ! We will be staying at CSR and our child is 8. We usually do not eat in the service restaurants but would love to try them out. I have already made reservations for Cyrstal Palace, 50's Prime Time, Tuskers House, and Coral Reef. Thanks for all your help Anyone else have any information please post

 

[VickieMouse]

It is worth it for us. In preparation for our upcoming trip I priced out a vacation so many different ways. Room only discount, the gift card deal, and then free dining. It was the best price we could get. Granted we are staying at a value (but priced out a moderate as well). I'm sure other discounts would be "more worth it" if you were staying deluxe. So free dining here we come!!!

 

[DCDisney]

If you can get another discount it is frequently better when you only have 2 adults getting free dining. When we go in Oct to get free dining I had to give up a 40% room discount at a deluxe or 30% at a mod. We decided to stay at a Mod this time and we did save money with free dining because both my kids are technically adults now so free ddp x 4 adults is good savings. Last year with just 3 adults in a deluxe it wasn't a good deal. For the value resorts you'd have to run the numbers because you have to add $10 to upgrade to the regular ddp. It's a decent discount if you plan to eat TS meals daily but it's by no means the best discount in every situation.

 

[disneysmyhappyplace]

It is worth it to us we are 2 adults, 2 "Disney adults" and one child. We are going for 14 nights and it is saving us well over 2400 dollars. I think that is a great deal

 

[summerlady]

I originally booked our five night trip to POFQ with a 35% room discount PIN which saved us approx. $340. I was going to pay for either the DDP or the QSDP and pay for two TS dinners OOP. With FD rather than the room discount, 3 adults and a 10 year old, I saved $840. So, yes, FD is a much better savings for us even factoring in TS tips and paying rack rate for the room.

Have you made ADRs yet? If not, I suggest you do that as soon as possible in order to get the restaurants that you want.

 

[The_Aviator]

On it's own, I can't see why it wouldn't be worth it, you are not paying a cent for it!

However, if you are comparing it to like a 40% off pin or something, it would be best for you to calculate how much the 40% would save you and make an estimate of how much the free dining would save you.

 

[leebee]

For our dates (9 nights), a "summer special" deal for a room at POP was $69 a night, rack rate (to qualify for free dining) was $89. "Cost" for free dining was therefore $89X9= $801. Cost for discounted room was $621. So here's the question: Can DD16 and I eat for 9 days for $180, or $20 a day for two? Clearly not! Then the question became, is it worth it to upgrade from QSDP (plan included for free at POP) to DDP ($10/person/day)? I looked at the minimum sit-downs we would want to do... Boma, CP, and Kona and figured that would cost about $170, so for $10 more we get to do a table service meal every day. This is a big deal for us, as we don't usually do a sit-down every day because of the cost. Granted, my figures here don't include things like taxes on the room or tip at the restaurants, but this was the reasoning I used to determine whether to pay rack rate with free dining or get the discounted room and pay for meals oop. We leave in 20 days!!

 

[Faldred]

Weighing in, and likely repeating a few points, but...

Note that "free dining" is a package discount, just like any other discount available. It's just a little more peculiar. From a financial standpoint, free dining tends to be a better deal as the grade of accommodation goes down and the number of guests, particularly adult guests, per unit goes up.

As noted upthread, a family of 4 staying in a value or moderate resort is likely going to see a greater package savings with free dining than a room-only discount, while 2 adults in a deluxe resort will make out better with a room discount.

Of course, the savings presumes you want the dining plan in the first place. The subjective value that you might assign to having the dining plan (especially "free dining") may not be the same as the list price of the plan. In that case, you may see your perceived savings benefit lower than your actual savings.

Furthermore, if you were originally planning on not having a dining plan at all, you will actually spend more money on your reservation than you otherwise would have, if you could apply any discount off of rack rate at all. Of course, then you have significantly less out-of-pocket costs for food and beverages while you're there.

So, to the original question, "is free dining worth it?", the answer is "it depends", for all of the reasons noted above.

 

[laceemouse]

On it's own, I can't see why it wouldn't be worth it, you are not paying a cent for it!

However, if you are comparing it to like a 40% off pin or something, it would be best for you to calculate how much the 40% would save you and make an estimate of how much the free dining would save you.

Agreed. It also depends on how many people you are talking about, we have 4 kids and they are all adults at Disney (over 10) so we saved a ton of money when we did free dining.

 

[amshowers]

We are a family of 5 that usually stays moderate, so free dining is so much better than 30% rate. Even better is that I got a pin code for free dining so I only had to buy 1 day tickets, so I was able to upgrade my 8 year old to adult for $12.00. So for our 5 night stay we will save 1,050.00 ( the cost of the ddp for 5 adults).

 

[Pirate4Ever]

We find the dining plan to be worth it for the simple fact that w/o it, we wouldn't eat at most (if any) of the TS restaurants. With free dining, the only thing you have to pay for is the tip when you eat at a TS.