Last Post on Free Dining vs Paying for Dining vs. No Dining

[Jon81uk]

Only at Disney would someone have to do math to figure out whether something free is “worth it”

That's true with everything.

For example Amazon offer delivery free if you spend £20. I'm buying an item worth £10 so delivery will be £3, in this case it is not worth me spending an additional £10 to get free dining.

Or a restaurant might have an offer of 50% off main adult meals, but also an offer of kids eat free and you can only use one offer. If you have children you may need to do the maths to work out if the 50% off is better or the free kids meal is the better value.


My thing with the dining plan is to take into account that we wouldn't normally eat like the plan offers, we don't always want dessert, we won't always get two expensive snacks per day etc. But I think that over a two week trip the UK free dining offer saves me over £1000 ($1300) as I think we would spend on average close to $50 per person per day on food, drink and snacks even if we did a lot of counter service.
For the UK guests there are generally a lot fewer offers for WDW that are this good, so saving £1000 on the trip is worthwhile. But Disney resort prices have gone up and the $-£ exchange rate has sunk recently so staying on site has got more expensive so I will be looking at other off-site options in the future.

 

[Hockey89]

What always gets missed is it changes your eating habits.... You have to eat like a pig and get the most expensive thing on the menu every single night... Do you really want the boring Filet everyday? Would you do that if there was no DDP..... I'm sure it works people but seriously Disney would not offer it if it wasn't a huge money maker... Great cash flow as well..

 

[Weather_Lady]

Only at Disney would someone have to do math to figure out whether something free is “worth it”

I saw the title and thought it was a joke! I didn't even know this question was up for debate. Have we so exhausted the question of whether paying for the DDP is "worth it" for the average guest, that we now have to pose silly ones just to have something to talk about?

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

What always gets missed is it changes your eating habits.... You have to eat like a pig and get the most expensive thing on the menu every single night... Do you really want the boring Filet everyday? Would you do that if there was no DDP..... I'm sure it works people but seriously Disney would not offer it if it wasn't a huge money maker... Great cash flow as well..

Going to Disney in general changes my eating habits.
And I do not order the most expensive thing and I do not stuff myself.
I do not get the best value out of the dining plan but if I'm getting it EITHER WAY then free dining is the better deal than the room rate discount.
The point is that its usually the anti dining plan folks that say free dining is not as good of a deal as the room rate discount.
But you're then comparing apples to oranges because you're comparing the price of free dining to the price of not getting a dining plan at all which of course is going to be cheaper on the surface but if you do end up doing a character meal etc its going to start adding up quickly. And could easily become a wash.
When I go without the dining plan its because I'm doing a quick and dirty trip and am eating minimally and sticking to QS only.
In that case like my second trip of this year I will use a room rate discount over a free dining discount.
But the anti dining plan people need to look at the math for the people that are going to get the dining plan whether they pay full price or get it free.
Then you will see the savings.

 

[Ted Daggett]

Some other things to consider in order to be sure you are comparing apples to apples:
1. When you get free dining, everyone in the room gets free dining, so if you have 5 people, you get more benefit then if you have 2, but the room discount is only applied once and is the same no matter how many people are in the room.
2. When you get "free dining" you are typically required to purchase a park hopper. My family rarely pays the extra for the park hopper, so that is a hidden increase in the cost of the "free dining" room, when compared to the discounted room rate. For 5 people to get a 5 day ticket, it is $532 more to purchase the park hopper option.
3. Like others have said, your eating habits are typically altered when you are on the dining plan. When on dining plan, you may eat at the $59 per person crystal palace, but if not on the plan, maybe you will go to Splitsville and get a $14 hamburger, but both take 1 credit on the dining plan.
4. Tips are not included in the "free dining plan". (Unless you go to Royal Table, or the dinner shows) You obviously would also tip when not on the dining plan, but if you had less expensive meals, the tips would be less.
5. My children are over 9, but not huge eaters, so we may go to Wolfgang Puck Express and buy a pizza, and the two girls will share it, but if we were on the dining plan, they would buy 2 pizzas, and each throw out half.

If you have 5 people in your room, and you know you need park hopper, and you know you are going to go to all character meals, and drink out of the refillable mug, and eat tons of snacks all day long, then the free dining plan has got to be better every time. I didn't do the math, but it probably would also save you money to purchase the dining plan. However, as people always say, each person has to do the math them selves based on their intentions for their trip to see if it will actually save them $.

 

[Jon81uk]

What always gets missed is it changes your eating habits.... You have to eat like a pig and get the most expensive thing on the menu every single night... Do you really want the boring Filet everyday? Would you do that if there was no DDP..... I'm sure it works people but seriously Disney would not offer it if it wasn't a huge money maker... Great cash flow as well..

If you are getting "free" dining, you don't need to get the most expensive thing on the menu as the saving works out differently.

A quick service meal (inc drink) is $15-20, so for two quick service and some snacks its about $40-50 a day. So over a 10 night trip two people could spend $1000 on food, even ordering only QS and not really ordering anything too expensive. If you have a family of four then the cost of food will be even higher and if you love doing character meals then costs shoot up even more.

If there are no other special offers or discount codes then "free" dining is still saving you $1000 even not ordering expensive meals. If you can find a discount code that saves you more than that then that is the better deal.

Now if you are thinking of paying for the dining plan, (ie not "free" dining offers which is the topic of this thread) then I completely agree with you, its not worth it as you do need to order more expensive dishes to get the value.

 

[Chi84]

I saw the title and thought it was a joke! I didn't even know this question was up for debate. Have we so exhausted the question of whether paying for the DDP is "worth it" for the average guest, that we now have to pose silly ones just to have something to talk about?

Apparently, yes. But look on the bright side - it's the "last post" on the subject.

 

[Jon81uk]

Like others have said, your eating habits are typically altered when you are on the dining plan. When on dining plan, you may eat at the $59 per person crystal palace, but if not on the plan, maybe you will go to Splitsville and get a $14 hamburger, but both take 1 credit on the dining plan.

When thinking about the "free" dining plan offer this is irrelevant. As long as the free dining offer is the best discount off you can get. If you get free dining offer then that Splitsville meal is still free. and as long as the value of the free meals is better than any other room discount available then you are good.

5. My children are over 9, but not huge eaters, so we may go to Wolfgang Puck Express and buy a pizza, and the two girls will share it, but if we were on the dining plan, they would buy 2 pizzas, and each throw out half.

They can still share a pizza on the dining plan and then you use the credit another day, or get a breakfast or something.