Sorry but wot is Free Dining all about?

[Julia Ann]

Keep seeing threads talking about "free dining" can somebody please enlighten me - am i missing out on something?

 

[princess jackson]

When staying onsite at a Disney hotel, they offer Disney Dinning Plan, which consists of 1 table service meal, 1 snack and 1 quick service (lunch) for example for approx £20 per adult per day.

And for a certain time next year you can have the DDP for free when you book the hotel, tickets and DDP together.

You have to book the DDP for the enitre length of you stay for everyone in the party.

Next Year that dates are Aug 12th till 29th Sept and have to book by a date not sure what date though

 

[carolfoy]

I think the final booking date is 4th november and UK tour ops offering it are: travelcity direct, My travel, Virgin, first choice amongst others

 

[AndRu]

An alterative view is that "free dining" (there is no such thing as a free lunch!) will have to be in very busy Disney restaurants / food courts for the length of your stay. Disney wants you to think they're offering you something for nothing, almost as if Mickey himself is handing you a bag of candy. Awww. However, the real reason is likely to be that the Disney Corporation want to keep the hotels and parks as busy as possible to maximize their revenue. The more people they get in, the better.

I guess the prospect of staying inside Disney walls for the duration of your holiday and eating at a packed food courts or restaurants must appeal to some though.

 

[fizz13]

To be fair, the restaurants are busy most of the time and if you book your reservations for restaurants far enough in advance you can avoid the anxiety about not knowing if you will get in somewhere as you will already have your table. The panic associated with free dining is that there will not be enough tables to go around but this is only true if you like to decide on the day where to eat and then can't get in. some forward planning and the free dining is very beneficial,

 

[Goofyish]

An alterative view is that "free dining" (there is no such thing as a free lunch!) will have to be in very busy Disney restaurants / food courts for the length of your stay. Disney wants you to think they're offering you something for nothing, almost as if Mickey himself is handing you a bag of candy. Awww. However, the real reason is likely to be that the Disney Corporation want to keep the hotels and parks as busy as possible to maximize their revenue. The more people they get in, the better.

I guess the prospect of staying inside Disney walls for the duration of your holiday and eating at a packed food courts or restaurants must appeal to some though.

Whatever Disney's motives are it's still free dining! As recently detailed in another post, a family saved $3000 using the free dining plan.
Have you ever eaten in a Disney restaurant? Most are quite full at busy times, but this has never spoilt the experience for us
We are also quite happy to stay in WDW for the duration of our holiday. We enjoy the total 'on-site' experience; the atmosphere, the variety, the theming, the service, the friendly cast members and the security - but I guess everyone is different

 

[Cyrano]

Whatever Disney's motives are it's still free dining! As recently detailed in another post, a family saved $3000 using the free dining plan.
Have you ever eaten in a Disney restaurant? Most are quite full at busy times, but this has never spoilt the experience for us
We are also quite happy to stay in WDW for the duration of our holiday. We enjoy the total 'on-site' experience; the atmosphere, the variety, the theming, the service, the friendly cast members and the security - but I guess everyone is different

Sounds good to me

 

[SimonV]

The 'free' DDP (available for all bookings made before Nov 6 this year and good for holidays up to and including Sept 29, 2007) is indeed a valuable extra being offered at the moment for all Disney resort guests, but it is dependent upon buying either the Ultimate or Premium ticket (if you book with an operator in the UK) or a length-of-stay Magic Your Way pass if you book direct with Disney in the US.

How can Disney afford to do this?

Well, simply put, they are counting on selling a lot more Ultimate, Premium and MYW tickets than they would otherwise have done without the 'free' incentive, so some people will end up buying more ticket than they actually need (and Disney will get more overall revenue as a result). That will also mean more people in the parks, more people spending money in the parks on gifts, souvenirs, etc, and, again, increased revenue for Disney.

It also means people will be less inclined to go elsewhere (i.e. Universal, SeaWorld, etc) as they become a 'captive' audience; if they have already paid for a length-of-stay Disney ticket, they will want to get full use out of it, hence they are more likely to stay on site. So, Disney's overall revenue goes up, and the others' go down.

DDP is also a slightly complicated daily points system that people need to add up and co-ordinate themselves, and there are sure to be instances when people don't get full value from it because they don't understand it. Disney's restaurants are also getting more and more crowded for the duration of this offer (for both counter service and sit-down dining; we noticed it quite markedly already last month), which means people need to book dining in advance to be sure of getting their table service meals in. If people don't do this, they simply won't get in to some restaurants, and they may opt to eat elsewhere, thus also losing value from the dining plan.

Overall, it is a pretty shrewd marketing plan, as there are no actual price increases (apart from the one-day ticket prices last month and the jump from $9 to $10 for parking this month, neither of which should affect on-site guests) to claw back the 'free' element of the dining. But Disney ARE counting on more people spending more money (and fewer going to Universal, etc) so, if you are equally shrewd about using the plan and just doing what you want, we think you CAN benefit from this in the short term.

However, and purely as an aside to all this, we found Epcot, Animal Kingdom and the Magic Kingdom all much more frenetic than usual in the latter half of August, notably in and around the restaurants. Consequently, both Universal and SeaWorld felt much calmer and more enjoyable by comparison, and the quality of attractions is just as good. If Disney DO ever succeed in forcing the other players out of the market (and Universal's big drop in attendance last year is certainly a warning sign), it would be a very sad day for Orlando and, ultimately, very bad news for those of us who enjoy going there.

 

[wideeyes]

We have free dining and will definitely still be going to universal and sea world. My dd loves the look of Sea World and my sister will want to do more thrill rides than disney has to offer. We will eat of site on these days and save our credits for the TS that require 2 credits. I doubt we will use all the CS credits though as we are not paying it does not matter.