What exactly is the free dining plan?

[metsfan11]

Hey everyone! I know that there have been advertisements for this "free dining plan" during August and September. I've been trying to convince my family to come to Disney and since they just found this out, they are considering going. So could someone please give me the basic info on this deal? Thanks! My hopeful trip to Disney depends on it!

 

[annie1995]

I can sum it up in one word......Wonderful!

You get one snack Per person per night of your package(popcorn, ice cream, water, pop)
one counter service Per person per night of your package( Includes a beverage, your entree, and dessert)
one Table Service Per person per night of your package ( includes a beverage, an appetizer, your entree and dessert, or a buffet meal)

You can use them in any order, you can table service at at character meal breakfast, and use a counter meal for lunch or dinner, and the amount of food you get is unreal. We only needed what they gave us each day, we never bought any meals out of pocket because we were so stuffed from the plan.

The counter service locations are at your hotels food court, and many, many places throughout the parks. And the table services are the sit down places, including character meals, and buffets. Some resturants require you to use two of your credits for table service, but that is at the much more fancier places, or dinner shows. You can get a list of all the places on the disney website that participate with the dining plan. We really enjoyed the dining plan, we ate at places we never would have spent the money on otherwise. I can't think of anything I have forgotten to mention, I'm sure someone will add anything if I did. Good Luck!!

 

[Disney_Freak56]

The FREE dining plan is available for Disney resort stays beginning August 13 and ending September 29 (or is it the 30th?). Anyhow, you will pay full rack rate for your resort room -- no discounts -- but you will get the Dining Plan for each member of your party. It is a package deal which requires each person in the room to purchase the same type of admission ticket. You can get by with purchasing a single day, one park, expire in 14 day ticket and still get the dining plan for your entire visit.

The amount of "days" you will receive are tied to the amount of nights you are staying -- staying 5 nights and 6 days -- each member of your party will get 5 snacks, 5 counter service meals, and 5 table service meals. The value of this is normally $37.99 per adult (anyone over the age of 9) and $10.99 for kids (ages 3-9).

Hope this helps.

 

[metsfan11]

Bumping to see if anyone else has some more info!

Please, Thanks!

 

[metsfan11]

Bump!

 

[mainewmn]

It’s a way I was able to squeeze another trip in this way that otherwise would have never happened!

Seriously it’s the best, you basically get all your food paid for ahead of time and you don’t have to worry about anything else other they your plane tickets. Since we all just went in January and DH and younger DS thought it was too “soon” to go back in September DS (15) and I are taking the trip ourselves. For $850 we have booked room, tickets, and food for our trip add to that a $400 fare and we are good to go! So now we are basically saving another $500 for spending money and we are off to see the big M!

 

[Ardenne]

It really is a fantastic deal. It tended to be more food than we needed, so we never once purchased any other food on the entire trip, other than what we had brought along with us for breakfasts in our room -- and at the end of the trip, we bought food for a few complete strangers just to be nice and used the rest of our credits for lots of snacks and drinks for the trip and Disney lunchboxes for the kids and their friends. Our 2-year-old didn't get his own credits since he was under 3, but we used some of his sister's credits for him to get his own kid's meal occasionally, since we had more than we needed anyway.

For our family, staying in a value resort, the cost of the meal plan (purchased ordinarily) would cost more than what we're paying for the room -- so that makes it an extra-exceptional deal for us.

I had thought it'd be a nice bonus -- but as it turned out, it really was even better than I had anticipated. We had a lot of memorable meals that we wouldn't have had otherwise, and it was so very convenient. The only downside was that I scheduled ADRs for different parks than we were spending the day in most days, so we wasted a lot of time in transit -- but that could have been avoided with better planning, and I don't expect it to be a problem for us now that I know how long it takes to get from one place to another.

Caveats: you do have to stay on site (but we wanted to anyway), you have to pay full rack-rate for the room (no discounts), you need to purchase the same tickets for each member of your party, as part of a Magic Your Way package (but 1-day base tickets for each person will do, and then you can upgrade them to whatever you want after you arrive, if you don't want everyone to have the same tickets for some reason), and you have to check in between Aug. 13 and Sept. 30 to qualify. If that's not a problem for you, then I'd say to go for it

 

[kaytieeldr]

And (I skimmed but don't see this mentioned) you have to get the Dining Plan for the full length of your stay and everyone on your reservation has to get it. This is obviously not an issue when the plan is free, but the other 45 or so weeks of the year when Guests have to pay for it, this restriction matters. (This question always reminds me of one of the Geico ads, where the gekko is saying "...asking if they want free pie and chips. Of course they want it - it's pie... and chips... for free!")