DINING VS DISCOUNT

Spikerdink

Spikerdink

Well-Known Member
I have a friend who is planning a small family excursion to WDW this summer but is waiting for Disney to release a free dining program.

I told him that Disney may not have a free dining offer this summer, and besides my feeling is that the room discount is more of a value than the free dining.

What do you think - should he wait for a free dining offer, or would he be better served to take the room discounts they are offering now.

Once he chooses the week he is going, I can book the following week and spend time in WDW and he can extend his stay - but I am DVC so I can book just about any time. But I want to make reservations soon!!

Any insight would be welcomed!!
 
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bow0303

bow0303

Active Member
Spikerdink said:
I have a friend who is planning a small family excursion to WDW this summer but is waiting for Disney to release a free dining program.

I told him that Disney may not have a free dining offer this summer, and besides my feeling is that the room discount is more of a value than the free dining.

What do you think - should he wait for a free dining offer, or would he be better served to take the room discounts they are offering now.

Once he chooses the week he is going, I can book the following week and spend time in WDW and he can extend his stay - but I am DVC so I can book just about any time. But I want to make reservations soon!!

Any insight would be welcomed!!
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I have always thought that the Free dining was a better value than room discount for my family. I may be in the minority here though. I think the dining plan would only make sense if you were going to eat a lot. If not, I would say the room discount would be better.

We booked with the 30% off spring special and saved $500. With the free dining plan we could have saved over $600.
 
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iluvMainStMagic

iluvMainStMagic

Active Member
I agree with you about room discount vs free dining, and about not knowing if they will offer free dining this year.

To be sure what the best value is for us, we always price each option out. We are light eaters, so for just the 2 of us, a room discount is usually a better value. But when we travel with the whole family (11 people), the DP works better (especially if we can travel during a Free DP offer!).
In general, the best value for each person/family can depend on a variety of things - how many people you have going, how/how much you/they eat, even how you each prefer to budget. For example, some like the DP so the majority of their food is "paid" for before they get there -vs- using the money saved on a room discount towards food/snacks.
Or, some people like to put money on a gift card before they go and use that to pay for their food/snacks...sort of like their own "flexible dining plan" - it's paid for before they travel if they need/want it to be (or just don't want to have to worry with paying as they go), they aren't limited to any meal or snack credit categories, and they can use any extra towards "souveniEars" if they want...or save it for the next trip. ;)

One other thing, if they book now and a different, better value, promotion becomes available, they can always change their reservation to the new promo. Plus, the further out they book, the more likely the dates, resort, & room category they want will be available. It's always possible that some resorts won't be included in a particular promotion --- if they chose not to change to a different promo, then they would still have their original reservation, and if they had to change resorts in order to take advantage of a different promotion, there are usually still some good options.

Sounds like you have a fun trip planned! Hope all works out for each of you!!
 
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Spikerdink

Spikerdink

Well-Known Member
Original Poster
Thanks for the replies.... it is for three adults.

My friend's mom and aunt are coming from out of the country and I know that their dining habits are a bit different. For instance, they want to have their big meal at lunch and then just snack later in the day. That is why I questioned him as to why he really wanted to dining plan option as it may not be the best value....
 
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KCheatle

KCheatle

Well-Known Member
It depends. For my family of 4 (2 adults, 2 children (ages 8 and 4), the free dining promo for us saves ~$100 more than the room promo. But, there are many factors to consider. We stay at WL, which gives us a 30% discount. If you stay at different places, the discount varies. So, your friend will simply have to do the math.

Have him price out a vacation plan and not add a dining package to it. That will give him the price if WDW releases a free dining promo. Then, have him price out just the room, and look at the current room discounts to see what the discount is for the hotel he's pricing. Have him apply the 15%, 20%, or 30% to the total room price to see what amount he would save. Then he should go through as if booking the trip, with a dining plan, and at the end subtract the amount he calculated he would save with the room discount to see what the difference is. Then he can compare which discount is better.
 
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PrincessNelly_NJ

PrincessNelly_NJ

Well-Known Member
We always choose free dining over the room discount because we stay at Moderate resorts. We always have a set list of places we like to eat and they include 1 or 2 signatures, character meals, and regular table service meals. We saved 1100 last year with free dining vs 400 with the room discount.

But if they aren't going to actually use the 1 TS, 1 QS, and snakc per day, then the room discount might save them more.
 
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disneygirl1

disneygirl1

Well-Known Member
Think it all depends on what resort you plan to stay at. For us we found that FD at the value resorts is a better deal, but if we want to stay at a MOD or Deluxe, % of the room cost is a much better value.
 
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HouCuseChickie

HouCuseChickie

Well-Known Member
Resort and dining habits really play into it. For us, free dining (and just the DDP in general) is not as good of a deal to us. Our dining habits do not align with DDP, so we end up spending quite a bit OOP to eat the way we like to eat and wasting a lot of credits that were useless for our preferences/habits. We also stay in a deluxe, so a room discount goes farther.
 
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