Splitting stay to take advantage of Free Dining?

[DonnaDavid]

In the past I have loved FD for my family, but my kids are older now and we don't eat at the character meals. We are going in August and probably will have FD for the latter part of our trip only - we're checking in on August 17th and checking out on August 27th. Initially our travel party was myself and my two kids (15 and 19 yo) and I was planning on staying at CSR. However, we are inviting my DD's friend to go along. Based on the friend's going with us I booked a 2 bedroom at Wyndham Bonnet Creek for $185/nt. I wasn't expecting FD during any part of our stay, but now I'm thinking how much I enjoyed DD in the past. I'm fairly certain that I'm better off staying at WBC and paying OOP if the friend goes with us, but I"m wondering what I should do if the friend doesn't go with us. I like staying on-site and was wondering if I anyone has suggestions for making it work. Would I have to book a room only/package for the first part of our stay and then the FD package for the latter part of the stay? It seems like it may not be cost-effective if I have to buy two separate tickets for our stay. Any thoughts? Thanks!

 

[MakiraMarlena]

The issue with the free dining package is that you are required to buy tickets with it. So if you book a room only for the first part of the stay and a package with tickets for the second part, you won't have tickets for that first part.

I believe that you are allowed to "pick up" package tickets up to 10 days early. However, you have to go to Guest Relations, at a park or Disney Springs, to have your ticket separated from the rest of your package; until you do that, you will have tickets only past the date when your package starts. This means that for your first stay, you would not have tickets available until you are actually at WDW. You wont be able to make fastpasses ahead of time for those pre-package days, because the system won't recognize that you have tickets to cover those days.

 

[loves to dive]

I would not plan around free dining, there is no guarantee it will happen or if it does that it will be in any of the previous configurations. Book what you want now and if you need to change it later, do that. Personally, I've always found the room only discounts and paying for food a better option, both money wise and convenience wise for us but that is something only you can decide.