Why do MYW (even w. freee dining) if you're paying rack room rates?

[TigerLaw]

Can someone help me out here - what is the thrill of doing a magic you way package w. free dining if you're paying rack rates for rooms? I was looking into a late sept stay at the beach club (2 adults, no kids, and it seems to me (assumming the std. sept. AP room discount rates come out) its better to buy APs, get the BCR room discount (which would save $100 a night) than save the $100 a night for the dining plan b/c you would have other discounts using the AP, plus you could come back free (free tickets anyway) for a year

I just feel like I am missing something on this.

thanks for the help

(p.s. I posted this twice as I figured out my first post was in the wrong place-sorry)

 

[jjan]

I don't think that with Deluxes it would be such a great deal, but for Values and Moderates- the rooms are actually cheaper for the first couple weeks of the free dining then even booking with no package at rack rate since Disney is pricing them as Value season and not Regular season. That is itself is a nice little discount. An AP discount at a value would only be $25 and $40 off Moderate resorts. I would bet that it would nearly be impossible to eat for $25 a day or even $40 a day at Disney so it is a great deal. As far as a Deluxe goes, price out your meals at allearsnet.com and see what it would really cost to eat the way you are planning, some people would spend a lot more than $100 a day eating and some wouldn't.

 

[Amyrlin]

It depends on the deal you are looking at. if you are 4 adults and have renewals for AP's coming up then it may be marginally better to have free dining, using the tickets to upgrade for the annual pass renewal.

If you are comparing an AP discounts and a value resort for 2 days then it is a better deal, for the moderates it depends on how many adults in a room and for deluxes it is often better to use AP and DDE.

I lot of people do not have AP's.

We are doing a split stay at the end of Sept, we have never stayed at a value before, so throiugh this was a good time to try it for the first half, and then move to the deluxe for the second half. The first half is booked with the free dining. The second half we have not booked as we are waiting to see if there are AP discounts.

We worked it out by looking at what we would eat (not what we could eat with the DDP), we allowed for the DDE card and then compared the two options. With the value the free DDP came out way ahead. It was a little easier as AP’s are due for renewal when we are there so we will use the tickets to upgrade to the renewal.

 

[mrsg00fy]

Also keep in mind, the more people in the room (and specifically kids aged 10 or so who are counted as "adult" under the plan), the better the savings. In our case, we are paying rack rate of $79 Per night, but the dining alone, before tax, would be $125. For us, it is a terrific deal.(2 adults 1 DS 10, 1 DS 8).
While all cases differ, generally the best deal is to buy the cheapest room. I think that for the deluxe resorts, especially with only two adults, it may not be a good deal.

 

[mommykds]

We are a family of 5 but our oldest DD is 10 so she's an adult. If we paid for the dining plan it would have cost $38 a day for her to eat. She eats 1/2 a bagel & a salad at best..no way I'd want to pay $38 for her.

We are staying at the Beach Club & for us there is a savings. We don't have the AP but did have AAA rate booked. We saved $900 more than the AAA package with free dining.

Depends on how many stay in your party.

 

[aka-mad4themouse]

I had a AAA room reserved at a deluxe resort at a savings of $91/night. I laready have passes for the 4 nights that we'll be there. The dining plan for us would have cost $152/night (2 adults & 2 juniors). Considering the 4 1-day base passes I had to buy and the rack rate I had to pay for the room, by my calculations, the cost was even. But for the same price, I get to eat and I'll have 4 tickets that can be upgraded later, so, I look at them like "$67 off coupons" for future tickets.

 

[kizmac]

I can see what your saying and since it sounds that there is only two adults in you travel party and you want to do deluxe that there may be better deals than free dining for you. If you were doing value or mod that savings would be more and the more in your party the more it saves.

We were already booked at POR for 9/22-10/1 paying for dining and our package with 1 day base tickets was $5159.28 with a AAA rate for 2 rooms and 10 of us. 4 adults and kids 15,12,8,6,4,2. After free dining was applied our rate dropped to $3369.09...so I saved $1790 off of even a AAA rate....off of rack rate that savings is more like $2320, so as you can see HUGE savings! It's just a better deal for some than it is for others, even paying rack rate.

 

[PrincessTrisha]

You also didn't factor in the higher cost of the annual pass to the MYW ticket. A 6 day base ticket is just over $200 but an annual pass is twice that.