Is Free Dining Worth It?
With the Free Dining Plan at Walt Disney World promo now available for July through September 2019 travel dates, I thought it’d be a good time for a refresher on this post. At first blush, whether Free Dining is worth it might seem like a silly question. After all, Free Dining is free, right?!
Of course not. 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. This has been particularly true of late, as there’s a precedent from the last couple of years for Disney requiring more and offering less, particularly at Value and Moderate Resorts. With higher occupancy rates, it makes sense that the promo would have less availability–there’s less need to incentivize guests to fill (fewer) empty rooms.
This post essentially evaluates the 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.
Let’s start with the general rule concerning Free Dining v. 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 last year, there’s once again the (relatively) new wrinkle to this that the Quick Service Disney Dining Plan is offered for Moderate 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 no longer a sure thing.
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.
Note: The math and dates that follow in the post are based upon packages we priced out once Free Dining went live last year. The 2019 math should differ only slightly, as dates, hotel rack rates, and prices of the Disney Dining Plan are all different. The underlying points remain the same, however.
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 part of this trip occurs during Epcot’s 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 v. 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!
For those of us staying at CBR and getting the gift card,the possibility that they will not honor the gift card if you add free dining would not make financial sense especially if the moderates are only going to get the QS dining plan.If we have to pay to upgrade the dining plan we may as well stay at Pop Century or another value,the idea that this will drive people to book deluxe might not work out that way. The only way we will keep that room reservation is if they honor the gift card as well as the free dining,as it will work out in price per room to be about the same as value.
We’re staying at Caribbean Beach and will get the $75 card per night (we booked when you advice to do it, thank you so much!). Can we use that money to upgrade the dinning plan when we check in at the resort and receive the cards?
You won’t be able to add the dining plan at the resort. You have to do it in advance but you can use the cards to pay for your meals.
I am confused about this room only discount – where would I find it? Booked Pop Century about a month ago?
I think , for us , taking advantage of free dining far outweighs any other offer. I think I’ve looked at every other way, including the Canadian discount for tickets promotion that’s on now. We are a family of 5 with all 3 of our boys over the age of 10, thus all being adults. They have loved splurging on the most expensive items on the menus when we have had free dining before so it’s part of the experience. The only question I have now is whether it will still be worth upgrading the quick service as we had hoped to stay at a moderate or of we should look at a deluxe. Any recommendations for deluxe resorts for families of 5??
If you’re doing a single room, I think you should look at a Deluxe. I’d consider the Poly for the larger room size or Animal Kingdom Lodge for the lower price.
If only the quick service is offered to value and moderates, will I still be able to pay to upgrade to the standard plan?
You act like buying something on black Friday is a bad idea just because I won’t use it. Your tearing up my reasonings. I guess next time my 3 dollar Christmas sweater with the giant red Rudolph light up nose will have to stay there. Thanks a lot
I would never discourage the purchase of a novelty Christmas sweater. Just change your perspective: that Rudolph light-up sweater is an investment. It doesn’t matter that you won’t wear it–someday hipster kids will pay good money for a ‘vintage’ sweater like that! 😉
Glad you read the snarkism into it. Lol. BTW thank you for all you do to make everyone have a better time at the theme parks
We are just 2 people staying in a value resort (pop century hopefully). So we are just booking in the free dining window and saving what is probably a couple hundred each
It really takes a lot of running the numbers to figure out what’s the better value. We’ve been doing that for a month now. The problem with this comparison sometimes though is that the room-only discounts vary so much by date and resort. We’re staying at Polynesian, and the Poly room discount is only 15% (staying at the end of August). So for a family of 4, the Free Dining is still a much better discount (talking about $450-$500 savings on the room for 7 nights). Now we also received a return discount offer that bumped the room discounts up 5% by resort (20% for Poly) – the funny thing is that the “Return” offer was to my wife’s maiden name, and she never went to Disney as an adult prior to getting married, but I digress.
Those discounts, however, are assuming you can even get the room discount. We ran headlong into this problem a couple weeks ago. With the 20% “Return to Magic” offer, we decided we would definitely stay at Poly and at the dates we were leaning towards, and went ahead and booked a room the night before our stay so we could get to the resort early. We had been holding off finalizing because we were worried about whether we would get the Free Dining and, if not, would we switch resorts, dates, etc. to something more affordable. With the 20%, we decided we’d go through with it either way.
Well, lo and behold, none of the room discounts were available for our stay, unless we wanted to upgrade to a room that was $300 more per night – yikes. So, two weeks of running dozens of different scenarios, combinations of dates, different resort options, split-resort stays, even calculating with passholder discount if one of us purchased an annual pass just for the room discount (and get some pretty good restaurant discounts). Let’s just say it was crazy and stressful. The worst part was that the discounts were available for 8 or 9 night stays that completely covered our 7-night stay. We finally got lucky, and for a few hours one day, some rooms became available at the Poly Villas with the 20% discount, so we booked a second reservation which would save us about $1000 (no park hopper 0 so about $680 if comparing apples to apples).
So when comparing, make sure you actually check room availability in addition to the discount at the resort in question. Even if your resort has a decent room discount, you might find you need to upgrade to a twice-as-expensive room to actually get said discount. We initially made the mistake of just assuming we could get the room discount, and used that for our cost comparison.
Good luck Monday to all.
Realized one should write such a detailed post with kids running around crazy. One particular part my wife pointed out was poorly written and confusing – about booking a room the night before. We are staying 8/26 – 9/2 (Saturday – Saturday) – at least that’s the plan – at Poly. We booked a room for 8/25 at Wilderness Lodge using credit card points. The flights are cheaper going down that Friday, and we figured it made more sense to just get down the night before and have a full day there the first real day of vacation. We didn’t pay that much more than it would have cost to stay near the airport in DC and fly out the 26th, and we figured if we were going to fly down and stay in Orlando, might as well just stay on Disney. We did vary from the original plan of staying at a Value, which would have been about half the price, but we went for proximity to Poly while still saving quite a bit over adding another night at Poly.
We are going to Disney world in September. My daughter will be almost three (2 years 11 months). We decided to purchase her tickets because it came with a free dining plan. Technically, she should eat free at the buffets, but will they charge her since our magic bands will have credits for her? Will the magic bands tell the restaurant she is three since that is what our reservation says, even though she will technically be two?
We are talking our daughter also and she will be 2 years 11 months. I just put her as two since there is no ticket cost and Disney said she is welcome to eat off of our plate at restaurants if we don’t want to orsder her a separate meal or get her own plate at buffets. Our daughter doesn’t eat enough at 2 to justify paying for tickets to get free dining when she can eat for free anyway.
My vote is for the FD if you load up on character meals. We do at least one a day when we are there and they aren’t cheap. Lunch for two adults and one kid at Disney Jr Hollywood and Vine is practically the daily value of the dining plan in one meal. Even more if you are lucky enough to get a Cinderella’s Castle reservation.
Works only if moderates get the standard plan which isn’t certain. Otherwise, that’s a big bump in cost.
We just got the free dining quick service plan for Aug. We go ever year and the kids order off the adult menu for quick service. Can they still do this or has it changed for 2016 and kids can only order a kids quick service meal.
If someone in the party is sitting a table with a reservation and does not order. Does it count against a meal if the person shares or does not order an entree.
Technically, yes, but this is a rule that is *very* rarely enforced. They will charge you the amount of credits you actually use.
My wife and I often stay at Coronado Springs or Port Orleans. When we go for more than 4 days, we never get the park hopper option since we don’t feel we need it. Under the old dining plan, it wasn’t required. Now that the park hopper is required, it would cost us another $70 or more dollars each. That makes the dining plan less of a deal than a room discount.
But all that is moot, since we’ve started staying off-site at Sheraton Vistana which gives us a beautiful apartment – better than Disney’s vacation club resorts (I’m comparing to Kidani) for a fraction of the price (last time ran $120/night with taxes and fees). We’re retired, so we drive to Florida and thus have our car – so no car rental fees.
I agree with Patrick, seems like a no brainer to me. Our POR room discount would have been about $300, instead we got the free dining for four worth approx $1580. We were going to get water park tickets either way so all we had to give for our “free lunch” was the cost of an upgraded room because the standards were gone. I figure we’re still ahead over $1000 and have a better view. I don’t like being tied to reservations either but we got every restaurant we wanted and it will be great not to think about the cost. No reason to choose the most expensive thing on the list, we aren’t paying, and if there’s too much food/credits, we haven’t wasted any money. No brainer.
I recently visited from the UK for 2 weeks in April. Our dates fell within a free dining period offered in the UK (which seem different to offers in the USA), and we stayed for 1 week at Bay Lake Towers and the second week off-site. It was our first time staying at an on-site resort and first time experiencing the dining plan. I was really organised and booked all the TS meals at the first opportunity – Hollywood & Vine, Cinderella’s Royal Table, Be Our Guest, Crystal Palace and Living with the Land (my 3 children are 9,7 & 3) – and carefully planned where we would eat our QS meals.
On the positive side, I loved being able to book the character meals that the children would like without worrying about cost. Eating in the Castle was something I have wanted to do since I was a child, and I loved Be Our Guest and meeting the Beast. The food at both CRT and BOG was excellent.
There are 2 negatives:
Firstly, I was surprised at how limiting having meal reservations became. It meant that on the days we wanted to change our plans (and with 3 children that happened on more than one occasion!!) it was much harder to do. We never let the reservations stop us, but it did require more effort because of them.
Secondly, it was too much food. We very often shared QS meals because of the amount of food, and so had QS meals left over at the end of the first week. Despite the fact we let the children have snacks as requested, we had snacks left over as well. The combination of a QS meal and a TS meal a day meant that the children didn’t want too many snacks in between (something I could not normally imagine happening).
On the plus side, we were able to bring home 11 giant lollipops and 10 bags of Goofy sweets for cousins/Godchildren/friends etc (though having to carry all 11 lollipops in my hand luggage to ensure they didn’t break made for a heavy bag!).
Having done it once, I wouldn’t ever pay for the dining plan. If the date we wanted to go fell within a free dining period, I would probably choose a cheaper resort that had the QS plan. Though as we won’t be back for another 5 years, who knows what will happen!
Hi Tom,
We enjoy the FD offer and it turns out to be a better value for us at moderates vs. the RO discouny. We were lucky to get FD with a Preferred room at CSR from 11/28-12/6. Just realized the Spirit Spectacular convention will be happening at CSR from 12/1-5 at CSR. Do you think we should switch resorts or chance a mid-December change? Are the cheerleaders very disruptive? I’m worried we won’t get as good a deal (prices go up mid-December) or worse lose the FD.
For the record, I’m not a dining plan fan. A few years ago, when we had the choice, we opted for a 35% room discount.
But they are getting very stingy with room discounts. For our trip this coming August, the deluxe hotel discount is a maximum of 25%, and that’s only for a few rooms in each resort. We are booked for Beach Club, where the offered discount is only 15%.. We were getting park hoppers anyway…
Choosing between a 15% discount and free dining, for a family of 2 adults, 1 Disney adult, and 1 child… was a no-brainer.
I can’t really imagine paying for the dining plan, but as long as the resort discounts are rather limited, and a full family, the free dining does make sense.
We are staying at Caribbean in Nov. Got Free Dining for 3 of the days (yay), but the rest of the dates were blacked out for that and room only. Does Disney ever add more free dining dates later on or room only discounts? Trying to decide whether to keep the room the other 3 nights in hopes of scoring a discount or just booking at the Art of Animation those nights and save a bundle. Thoughts?
I had my mid-December AKL trip (w/dining & park hopper) already booked when free dining came out. We are a family of four and adding my parents to this trip so the dining plan makes life a little easier for us. We saved about $1k when my TA got free dining added. My parents were not so lucky as they’re staying at POR which is not available for free dining during our dates. I’m hopeful for a room only discount or a pin code from our Disney Visa to hook them up.
Tom –
Can we expect more room-only discounts to become available later in the year? I was one of the many that got skunked by the limited number of options to add free dining to our Oct 1 – Oct 9 reservations at CBR. All three of the currently available room discounts at CBR require you to “upgrade” to a pirate room, but after you do the math the discount only gets to you back to the cost of a standard CBR room. Essentially, the current discounts at CBR are simply get the pirate room at the same cost as a standard room. I’m hoping to get a discount on a standard room at some point. Thoughts? And many thanks for all your insights on dining. Disney surprised us all with the VERY limited selections.