Is Disney World’s Free Dining Deal Worth It?
With the 2024 Free Dining Plan at Walt Disney World Deal dropping soon for July through September 2024 travel dates, I thought it’d be a good time for a refresher on this. At first blush, it might seem like a silly question. After all, Free Dining is free, right?! Of course not. (Updated January 2, 2024.)
There’s no such thing as a free lunch, nor is there such a thing as a free Dining Plan. It’s “free,” with air-quotes. When booking Free Dining, you are paying rack rate for your resort hotel and required to purchase a vacation package with Park Hopper tickets. Everything else is full price, meaning there’s an opportunity cost involved.
This post essentially evaluates that opportunity cost of choosing the Free Dining promo in lieu of other discounts. The other discount you’re typically giving up is usually a room-only discount, which is frequently offered for the same dates as Free Dining. (Even if one isn’t offered, you’re giving up renting DVC points, staying off-site, etc.)
There is literally no scenario in which guests gain Free Dining without giving up anything. Hence, there’s no “free lunch” here. This trips up a lot of people, and there’s always anger and frustration from Disney Vacation Club members (or renters!) who are upset that they aren’t eligible for the discount.
Technically, DVC members are eligible for the discount…they just have to meet the special offer requirements just like everyone else. Which means paying rack rate for a room and buying tickets. That’s undesirable for obvious reasons, which is sorta the point. DVC members have already received their discount–that’s why the whole program exists in the first place! There is no double-dipping on any Walt Disney World discounts, and that includes DVC. But I digress.
(Please note that since full details for 2024 Free Dining have not yet been released, I’m not yet able to price out packages and fully update this post. As such, I’ve left the ~4 year old pricing and some other unknowns unchanged. Suffice to say, the prices are very, very wrong–but the general ideas are accurate. Since I’m already getting a lot of questions and there’s confusion, I thought it’d be better to refresh this now rather than waiting. I’ll update this in full once 2024 Free Dining is actually out.)
Let’s start with the general rule concerning Free Dining vs. room-only discounts. For parties of 3 or more in a single room, the Free Disney Dining Plan discount is usually the best discount at all resorts. For parties of two or less in a single room, the room-only discount is often the best discount at Deluxe and Villa Resorts. Basically, the more people in the room, the better value the Free Dining promotion offers.
As with the last several years, there’s once again the wrinkle to this that the Quick Service Disney Dining Plan is offered for Value and Moderate Resorts, and the regular Disney Dining Plan is only offered to Deluxe and Deluxe Villa Resorts. In many cases, Free Dining will still work out to be a better offer for parties of 3 or more in a Moderate Resort, but it’s not the sure thing it was back in the day when Moderates got the regular DDP.
Moreover, it’s also now a very close call for parties of 2. Those who are not big eaters might find the room-only discount more alluring. (Even though the Disney Dining Plan has a sticker price, what it’s “worth” to you could be lower than that amount if you’re party isn’t big eaters.)
With that said, you need to do the math. Parties of 3+ in a Deluxe Resort might be better off with either promotion, depending upon resort, ticket preferences, etc. Likewise, parties of 2 in Values or Moderates could go either way. You don’t even have to do the math in your head–price out your trip with different discounts on DisneyWorld.com.
To illustrate the point, let’s price out a few packages under the current Free Dining and room-only promotions. For all of these, we’ll use the example of 2 adults dates of September 11-17 with 7-day Park Hopper tickets.
It’s worth noting that we could have used our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post to save even more with the room-only packages, but to keep the math “clean,” we just bought the same 7-day Park Hopper tickets from Disney in both scenarios.
We are using a party of 2 for the sake of this comparison because that’s where the ‘close calls’ lie in this comparison. If you’re a family of 4, the Free Dining offer is a better deal than the room-only discount at every resort tier.
First, a standard room at All Star Music. With the Free Dining promotion, the total cost is $1,863.14. The same promotion, with the room-only discount, but without the Disney Dining Plan is $1,490.28.
That’s about $373 to spend on food over the course of 6 nights for 2 adults, or ~$31/night per person. Given that the Disney Dining Plan provided to Value Resort guests during Free Dining is the Quick Service one (so no table service meals), that comes down to $14 per meal plus a snack.
That could go either way, but given that this trip occurs during the 2024 EPCOT International Food & Wine Festival, I’d recommend taking the Free Dining offer, stockpiling snack credits, and using them there when they’re “worth” the most at the Food & Wine booths.
Next up, same dates and tickets, this time at Fort Wilderness Cabins. With the Free Dining promotion, the total cost is $3,051.84. Same details but without the Dining Plan: $2,523.30.
That’s a little over $500 to spend on food, so just over $40/night per person. This is another close call. I’d probably recommend most people take the Free Dining offer here, unless you’re really light eaters or don’t like doing table service meals. It’s easy to spend over $40/night on food per person at Walt Disney World.
Fort Wilderness might seem like an odd example for 2 adults given that it sleeps 6, but I used it as an extreme example because it has the best room-only discount of the Moderates for those dates, and is the most expensive, meaning that if the Free Dining promo is a better deal for you at Fort Wilderness Cabins, it’s going to be a better deal at all Moderates.
In years past, Moderate Resorts are where Free Dining has made the most sense. Getting the full Disney Dining Plan coupled with the lower (than Deluxes) price point was a winning recipe. However, that won’t be the scenario this year, and if the ‘difference’ amounts to pocketing ~$40/night on food per person or taking the Quick Service Disney Dining Plan, I’d be inclined to pocket the savings.
Finally, a standard studio at Saratoga Springs Resort. With the Free Dining promo, total cost is $3,145.16. With the room-only discount (and tickets), but without the Disney Dining Plan, the total is $2,483.00.
Note that at a more expensive Deluxe Resort, like the Epcot or Magic Kingdom resorts, the gap is larger as the room-only discount saves more. So, if you’re thinking of the Grand Floridian, Boardwalk Inn, or Beach Club, you’re most certainly better off with a room-only discount.
In our Saratoga Springs comparison, that’s a difference of $662, or ~$55/night per person for food. Reasonable minds may differ, but for me, choosing the room-only discount is an easy call. Even dining at table service restaurants, we can easily spend less than $55/person on food per day. This might be a puzzling choice, as $55 is less than the cost of the Disney Dining Plan.
It’s important to remember that there is a difference between cost and value. The cost of the Disney Dining Plan is ~$75/night for an adult. If the adults in your party will only eat ~$50 worth of food per day, or would just as soon eat off-property, or do grocery delivery to prepare meals at your Walt Disney World resort hotel, the Dining Plan does not have $75/night worth of value for you. A while back, we crunched the numbers on this in our Disney Dining Plan vs. Paying Out of Pocket post. For us, the value of the Disney Dining Plan is far less than $75/night.
Accordingly, you should not give it that value when doing the math for your own circumstances unless it’s worth that much to you (for most people–it isn’t). We tend to get caught up in the hype of Free Dining, because it’s such a popular promotion. However, for many people, it’s more food than they want or will be able to eat. Not everyone wants steak and dessert for every sit-down meal, and a cupcake for breakfast. Before buying into the hype, take a step back and consider whether you actually want that much food.
Because, at the end of the day, Free Dining is not actually free, and getting it just because it’s the ‘best deal’ even if you won’t use that much food is like buying something you won’t use on Black Friday because it’s “too good of a deal to resist.” Thinking more about Free Dining? Check out our other Free Dining posts! For where to eat (including food photos), read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews.
Planning other aspects of a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
Your Thoughts
Have you done the math? Do you save more money with Free Dining, or a room-only discount? Is the Disney Dining Plan too much food for you? Any other Free Dining tips or tricks? Share your thoughts or questions in the comments!
Hey Tom. Thanks so much for your blogs. They have been so helpful in planning our first trip this summer. I left a similar reply in the gigantic comments section of about 2016 free dining. We’re one scenario where we would have to spend a lot of money in order to get “free” dining. (We’re a family of 5; kids ages 4-8) 1) We would have to forfeit our 30% discount at POR and then 2) upgrade our tickets to hoppers/water park. That accounts for almost $750 USD (on top of our current booking total) for “free” dining. 3) Factoring in the additional 18% gratuity which is obviously not included in the dining plan, that’s an additional hidden cost.
For these reasons, even though we have to eat, spending nearly $1000 CD (our Canadian dollar isn’t awesome right now), it’s hardly free. We’ll be frugal, bring breakfast supplies, split lunch (and heed your blogs’ suggestions for best QS restaurants) and enjoy our first Disney vacation coming out financially ahead of “free dining”.
As a family of 3 we always did the free dinning promo during our week long stay at WL in late October, but last year 2015 in early April we went to Tokyo Disney Resort (TDR) where packages are not offered. At first I was freaked out, no better word to describe it, just freaked out. But once there at the parks it felt uplifting, chains were no longer dragging me down and the sense of freedom was such a welcoming pleasure. I wasn’t spending my time looking at my watch nor did we feel rushed to this or that and be done by the “X” factor of an ADR. I’m thankful for the experience. I will never purchase “Free Dinning” again.
I took Tom’s advice and purchased my base tickets as soon as he sent out his email regarding the ticket price increase then secured my WL room only. If a discount for this comes out, awesome but if not I’m good with that.
We purchased free dining several years ago, but it is no longer available during the spring, which is the only time we can visit because of job scheduling. That makes choosing the room discount, which seems to be available at most times of the year, an easy choice!
Having used the dining plan, we have come to the conclusion that while the food was great in some cases, we value schedule flexibility above all else, and don’t want to be tied to table-service reservations every night. We still make advance reservations at a few restaurants each trip, but are happy taking the room discount. As long as we have the extra Magic Hours and a place to crash in the heat of the day, we are happy.
We (party of 2) booked Wilderness Lodge Villas before the promo came out for (11/11-11/19). The promo came out looking like we’d have to do a split stay since it doesn’t start until 11/15. We “could” be flexible on dates but that would cause us to miss the last days of Food & Wine (trying to hit xmas party and F&W in one trip because we’re nuts, I guess). Our TA wasn’t able to find us any room discounts or free dining for our stay *at WLV*, even if we were to split it (hoping she’s right in her findings). Our quote for 8 nights @ WLV with 7 days of tickets, park hopper, & memory maker is $4800. I took a look at Port Orleans FQ and it looks like we can get the same “stuff” for $2,990. We’re pretty sure we’re going to switch hotels but was hoping for any advice before doing so. We know if we switch to PO we have no chance at a discount or promo for those dates, but perhaps there’s still hope at WLV? Do these prices seem legit? Is there a promo we may be overlooking if we were to stay in the WLV? All these headaches we put ourselves through for Disney! UGH!
Whenever anyone says they want to give me something for free I say, “I can’t afford free!”
Although I would most likely take a room only discount, I do like the Free Dining promotion. As a British citizen we’re lucky in that we can book 25% off the US room rate PLUS include free dining (MWAHAHA).
If I was to pay out of pocket there’s no way I’d book so many ADRs and usually the ADRs are the highlight of our trip. I’d end up being so concerned about how much to spend and we’d reign in the dining expense to cut costs. With Free Dining I don’t have to and I have the luxury of a table service meal each night. It’s still free though even if there are better alternative discounts available. Though I won’t ever eat the 800 gram Yachtsman steak again by myself to maximize a 2 credit value. Tummy hurt for days.
I booked a Pop Century standard from 9/25 for 5 days/nights. Park Hopper plus Quick Service Dining for $2440. Family of four, two early teens. Great deal from what I can tell. Discounted room w/o the plan still puts me around $2200, so it seems like a no-brainer. We did this 4 years ago for $2100 w/o park hopper, and loved not having to “pay” for our food when we were there. Its basically the same deal 4 yrs later but with park hopper. For us it works.
After having booked free dining last year at POP but NOT planning on it this year, I still cannot get over the fact that almost everything except deluxe resorts were sold out/limited from October 5-12. Had to split our stay. It felt like once the Free Dining promo popped, everything all around it booked or people had pre-booked through that week hoping for a discount to be added later on.. Craziness!
We got free dining last year, but honestly I am sort of happy our dates didn’t qualify for it this year. We ended up skipping restaurants that we really wanted to dine at because that meant giving up “free” credits to dine there, plus pay out of pocket for dinner, so we talked ourselves out of a lot of awesome dining experiences (we only had the Quick Service dining plan). This year we were able to score a room only discount at All Star Sports which saved us $120 on a 6 night stay! Since we eat a light breakfast, split a lunch, and then plan to spend our evenings at Food and Wine, the room only discount actually works out better for us.
We have 4 adults in one room and likely could have benefitted from Free Dining at a moderate for our stay…if only there was Free Dining at the end of October! Such limited dates, and from what I’ve seen, even included dates have limited availability!
Instead, we currently have a Room Only discount at Animal Kingdom Lodge which I am SUPER excited about, and 4 day base tickets. But I agree with you about the concept of “Free” Dining – I’ve gone to Disney on the Dining Plan before, and it is just so unlike how I normally eat (so many desserts, so few appetizers!) that when I pay out of pocket, I never spend ~64 per night, especially since I’ll have some groceries in the room to offset some full meals in the parks.
I hate everything about the free dining promotion. It artificially raises food prices for those paying out of pocket, books up restaraunts that should still have availability, and basically fleeces almost everyone that participates into paying too much for their vacation. Having soda and dessert at every meal (including quick service) always ordering the most expensive items on the menu to maximize “value”, and trying to manage your credits properly… it’s a racket. Disney loves it. Rent DVC points, stay off-site, get the room only discount with base tickets from undercover tourist and save lots of cash. Eat as much or as little as you want, when you want. Be happy! Of course, I’ll be sad for the blogs that get mega traffic from posts about this promo if it ever goes away!
We’re a military family staying at AKL from 8/30 to 9/3. When I first heard about free dining opening up for our dates I got really excited. Then, I looked into it and realized I’d have to buy park hoppers through DW and we’d also lose our room discount. For us the 40% military discount on the deluxe resort is definitely a better deal when coupled with the military salute tickets. Any retired vets or active duty families, don’t forget about the DW military rates!
Military should always have the best. Thanks for your service.
We have always gone during the Free Dining promotion, but our family doesn’t purchase park hoppers…I feel like we would be paying for something we don’t need. Our children are small, & switching parks is too much of a hassle w/ strollers & eats up time for us! We are considering renting DVC points for our next trip. I’ve read some about it, but need to research more.
Book early with DVC or you will be shut out or have partial availability unless you are really flexible on dates and resorts. Just a heads up….
I’m a little confused… Your site states the Free dining is good for a 2 day/3 night package. When I go to Disney’s site it states a 5 night/6 day package. Am I missing the special you are referring to? Or is the Disney site correct?
Hi Leslie:
Others may certainly correct me if I am wrong but Disney always puts that on there hoping you will stay that many nights but the actual minimum # of nights you must stay is 3. I hope that helps 🙂 Good luck to you as I am still on hold and worried they will close for the night before I am able to speak with someone. 🙁
Are you booking from the US or UK?
The UK promotion is always a 5 night minimum (as far as I can tell) but is available on far more dates and further in advance (e.g it’s available now for anything booked next year I believe).
Just booked free dining at Coronado for the week of labor day.
I have been on the phone several times today and I started checking online at 3am this morning. I booked CBR standard room back in January and I was hoping I would be able to tack on the free dining. We are checking in on Nov. 19. I had no luck online and the first cast member I spoke to said the free dining rooms at CBR were already gone (at 6:30 am ). So I was bummed when I left for work this morning. However, I got the email this afternoon about the Disney Visa offer and was able to get a garden room at POR for not much more with free dining.. So I was a happy camper after all!! So, don’t give up! The lady I talked to earlier did say to keep checking for rooms that may be discounted during that time frame in about 10 days from now , if anyone is looking for that.
Thanks I’ll keep trying . I was on hold for 2 hours and 30 minutes. Calling from Canada only to be told the rooms all book I got in on hold right at 7 am and I was up all night checking the web.. I did have a room booked hoping for free dinning as coming from Canada our dollar exchange is not good. The dates did not work with the dates I had booked .nov 12 to the 17 th. So I tried to change . No luck so upsetting it was to be a birthday surprise.
I was really hoping for a room only discount at CRB, the only one the system is showing is for the pirate room, which would actually cost more than my current room.
I called Disney to ask if the discount was exclusive to the pirate room, and they said no. I checked early early this morning and no other rooms were every available besides the pirate for the discount. Is there any chance one may open up?
And by CRB I mean CBR I’m sleep deprived today!
I also booked the pirate room (which my daughter is not excited for) and would prefer the standard room but none are available.
We paid $1967 total for 3 nights/4 days, 2 day park hopper tickets, and free dining plan for 3 adults, 1 child. Is this a good deal?
Thank you, this was very helpful. Great pictures as usual, what restaurant is that with all of those framed butterflies?
We booked POR last week for 9/30 to 10/8. We knew there were no deals at the time, but are bummed we weren’t able to get free dining today through our TA. Sounds like the number of rooms were far less than last year. So what to do when there’s no free dining or discount on rooms? Enjoy it, because we won’t be going back for a while. Keep up the great work Tom! I’ve learned a lot through your site.
The number was definitely far less than normal.
BTW – There *is* a room-only discount during your stay. Availability is also limited, and you might have to switch to Coronado or do a split stay, but a discount is still possible for those dates.
I was able to get my client a room discount at POR changing view but free dining was not available early this am. Now the rooms discounts are gone too! Sept 25-October 4!
I mentioned on another post that my family (2 adults and one kindergartner) will be at the Caribbean Beach resort in December. We booked the room weeks ago for five nights and base tickets, but no dining plan. We have found that the dining plans usually offer more food than we want to eat, and leftovers are not practical to keep in most Disney resort rooms.
However, this morning at 6am, we were able to get the free dining offer for our standard room, but with the Park Hopper requirements, our overall package cost would have to increase by $425. We were expecting to pay about that much out of pocket by bringing our own breakfast snakes and using our magic bands for lunch/dinner to pay as we go each day, so it’s not really a cost savings for us (especially when we have never used the Park Hopper before). We could have switched to another, less expensive resort, but we really want to experience CBR this time around.
Instead, we plan on waiting later into Summer to see if a room only discount is issued for December, which it seems to have been for the past several years.
I think you have the right idea there, and I suspect that a room-only discount will be released later. (BTW – is that a standard CBR room, or Pirate room. If standard, congrats! I think you’re the first person I’ve heard from who got a standard room for Free Dining.)
Oh, but one thing. Please do not bring your breakfast snakes into the parks. Some people are afraid of those things! 😉
I think I may have gotten the only Standard Room at CBR with Free Dining! To be fair, my dates were 9/6-9/10 and I saw availability for POR standard rooms well into late morning, so I may have just hit the magic dates for Free Dining this year.
We actually have a standard CBR room booked, and we were offered the free dining (it took several reloads of the page to get the online features for changing our reservation to work at first). Hopefully someone else got it once we declined the offer! And you have to at watch out for those breakfast snakes – they’re pretty wiggly!