Only 2 in the hotel room

[married2mm]

is a room discount better value than free dining ?


How do you decide?

 

[Shanti]

is a room discount better value than free dining ?


How do you decide?

It absolutely is for us, but that's because we stay at deluxe resorts. The deluxe resort discounts typically save us between $125 and $175 per night, and that is a better deal than we'd get via free dining for two people. And that's the cheaper end of the deluxe resorts because we only book standard rooms. If you book higher room categories at a deluxe resort, you'll save more than that. Even in a moderate or value, you can often do better with the room discount than with the free dining offer, because the dining offer might require you to buy a certain type of ticket package that is more expensive than what you'd get otherwise, or it might only offer you a quick service dining plan, when you prefer table service meals...

 

[Dis703]

It depends on which resort and even what and where you would generally eat. You'd really have to do the math to determine that but in general free dining is more beneficial when there are more people on the plan and/or in a lower cost room. Two people in a $600 a night deluxe room it isn't much of a savings compared to a 30% room only discount. But at a mod and value resort you only get a quick service plan so you have to factor that in as well. In general we usually find the room discounts work best for us. Even with 5 of us.

 

[Babsy]

is a room discount better value than free dining ?


How do you decide?

As PP's said, with only two in a deluxe it is almost always better to have a RO discount. In our case it is even when staying in a moderate. We have done the math in advance as well as kept the receipts to check out our actual spending and have never yet spent more OOP than the dining plan would have cost nor do we spend as much as we save with the RO discount.

You can look at all the menus online and choose what and where you will eat - then just add it all up to decide what works best for you.

It's a bit of a PITA, but worth it to us to know for sure.

 

[IrishNYC]

It probably depends on your plans. We always do the DDP, but we'll be going next year and it'll be just DH and I, and we only plan on doing Epcot, and snacking our way around the world, so a room discount would be better for us then.

 

[Jadyreen1282]

Free regular dining was a good deal at mods. Now it's just the QS dining so not so much.

 

[IrishNYC]

Free regular dining was a good deal at mods. Now it's just the QS dining so not so much.

We still saved money upgrading from QS to DDP. We were booked at rack rate for everything, then when discounts came out room only discount plus tickets and DDP were more than the free QS upgraded to DDP.

 

[maramarrie]

For our travel, we would much rather have a room discount than free dining. We did trips with both free dining, paid dining plan, and no dining plan; each time adding up our totals for food and comparing how many QS, TS, and snacks we did/would have used. We found that the dining plan doesn't really fit our needs. Free dining just isn't enticing for us. Of course, if it was the only discount out there, we would take it.

 

[Sue M]

Free dining is never free. Have to pay rack rate for room. For us, it's just usually the 2 of us, me and 1 adult daughter. Room discount has always been better when at deluxe. At moderate it was a wash, but now with downgraded DDP it wouldn't be a good deal.
If you have a family of 4 with all being Disney Adults it may be a good deal, depending on resort. If staying at a value or mod you'd also have to figure in extra cost of upgrading to regular DDP unless you just want QS. You'd have to do the Disney Math to see if it's worth it.

We haven't had the DDP for a few years, since cost kept going up. It keeps on being less of a deal. Now with moderates free dining downgrade it's even less of a "deal".

What we did is put the cost of the DDP on a Disney gift card and used that for dining only. We found we ate exactly what we wanted, and ate well, and at end of the trip still had cash leftover on card. Quite a bit actually.