need advice on dining plan or room discount

[prophet300]

Hi all,

This is my first post and will be our first visit to Disney World. We are planning to go to CSR in Aug.

I was wondering if you could help me out. I have a family of 4 that wants to stay at the CSR and we have 2 options. I can get a military discount using a code for 40% off rack rate. The total for 6 nights/7 day including MYW premium tickets is $1737. Apparently the dining plan cannot be added with the military "room only" discount.

Or, I can take advantage of the new special "free dining plan" with the MYW package. With this option, I end up paying full rack rate for the room, but get free dining, and the same price on the MYW premium tickets, total price for this option is $2042.88.

So, if I pay an extra $305 I can take advantage of the Free Dining option. I was wondering, which option do you think is better. The military discount gives me a great discount on the room, but there is no dining plan. With the second option, I have to pay an extra $305 to get the Free Dining plan. Do you think the free dining plan is worth it (the extra $305), and is a good option for a family of 4 (2 adults, 2 kids (14,10)). Is the dining plan a good idea, is it convenient, do you still end up spending a whole lot of money on food outside of the dining plan since it doesn't cover all meals. How much do you think I need to budget for food.

Also, are there any room discounts available (using codes, AAA, etc) on the free dining MWY package. I hate the thought of paying full rack rate for that package even though the dining is free. Is there any way to get a discount on the room in addition to getting the free dining plan.

thanks for your thoughts and input

 

[lovewdwdvc]

I called tonight and was told that you cannot combine anything with the Free Dining. four of you can easily spend more that $50 per day on food. I would go with the free food. you will however "have" to go to a sit down restaurant every night. the restaurants are wonderful but one sit down every day it tooooooooo much for us.

 

[eeyore45]

Yes, this is my dilema also!! It truly depends, you need to spend time on the Dining thread here at the DIs, where several threads have started asking about the advantages of the Dining Plan, then you need to look thru the allearsnet.com website and look thru the menus, and decide... where is it we will eat.... (with or without the plan!)

For us *I* think... (and that's almost dangerous) because we are going specifically for Food and Wine Fest in October, we'll spend our money at Epcot for this food.. and the dining plan we'd 'waste' too much...

http://www.touringplans.com/MYWDining.html

This is a good website to start with planning on the dining... for the sit down meals, this is something that we wouldnt use but for the dining plan, some of the Princess Breakfasts you can use your sit down credits... but for snacks, and counter service, eh, its ok...

but for us, I decided to take the room only discount and not look back (now if I could just stop people from posting what a great deal this is, I wouldnt harbor any doubts!!

 

[rileyroosmom]

Just my two cents....
Just returned tonight from a 9 day/8night stay at the Poly with a postcard rate so I didn't get the dinning plan. We spent right around the $1000 (haven't fully looked at the charge list for exact amount yet). This included 6 sit down meals and getting kids all the ice cream/popcorn/soda they wanted and the counter service meals at the hotel or park and a few drinks at the pool. In the end I was happy we didn't get the plan. It is too hectic for us to run around to the sit down meals (and the planning that must be done ahead of time). Many nights we were exhausted and just crawled back to the resort. The weather was very hot and humid and we didn't feel like eating so we just grabbed some ice cream. Keep the hot weather in mind when traveling in August, the heat zaps your appetite. By the way there are 5 of us me, dh, ds11, ds8, dd4.

 

[Marla Hellwig]

Normally the dining plan addon is 35.00 per adult and 10.00 per child (3 - 9) per night of stay. If you figure one sit down meal (usully dinner would be the best as you would get more "bang" out of your dollar) and counter service for breakfast or lunch. Plus you would receive 1 snack (ice cream, bottle of water, popcorn, bottle of pop) per night of stay.

You would have to figure "would you spend at least 35.00 a day for food per adult?

If the FREE dining is offered during your stay, you would basically be eating for free for your stay.

You also should look at you and your children's normal eating habits. Do you like at least one "big" meal a day.

With a little pre planning the dining plan could work very nice, as there are resturants in each of the theme parks, and in most of the resorts (especially for sit dow meals) that are in the dining plan. I also would recommend also making Advance Dining arrangements.

My daughter and I were in WDW last August (arriving the morning of Charlie and leaving right before the next one), and we did eat. We at least had one sit down meal a day and some type of counter service meal - even with some breakfast items that we had in our room.

Hope this helps

 

[milmore104]

I would say you'd have to ask yourself if you plan on eating at least one sit down meal a day? It's a great value if you plan on eating at character dining places or your more expensive places daily. If you are more of the QS family than I'd say go w/ the room discount instead. But if you'd like to eat at more Table service places than surely go for the dining plan! Hope this helps.