Free Dining Plan v. Actual Costs
When it comes to ‘doing the math’ on Free Dining at Walt Disney World, often I see people compare the actual cost of the Disney Dining Plan to a room-only discount in order to determine whether Free Dining is the best offer for them.
This is an ostensibly fair but ultimately fallacious comparison unless the Disney Dining Plan perfectly matches your eating preferences. If the Disney Dining Plan offers “too much food” for you, it’s not worth the ‘sticker price’ of the plan. (This is a point we’ve made before several times, so if you feel like we’re preaching to the choir, this article is not for you.)
To illustrate what we mean, think of the dilemma consumers face when browsing Costco or Sam’s Club. I think we’ve all been there: we see an exceptional buy one, get one free deal on a bulk package of something that makes that product effectively half price! Even though it’s way more than we need, we buy it anyway.
We use a quarter of one package and the rest goes stale. (Or, in our case, this is how we’ve had the same ginormous boxes of Keebler Club Crackers for the last 2+ years.) Suddenly, we’ve overpaid for that “exceptional deal.”
For many people, this is the exact scenario with the Disney Dining Plan. I cannot stress this enough: if you’re arbitrarily ordering the most expensive thing on the menu, only eating half your meal, or stockpiling treats on the last day to take home, the Dining Plan is not worth its full price to you. A deal is only a deal to the extent that you’re getting something you want and will actually use.
To further demonstrate this, I thought I’d use our meal costs and stay at Fort Wilderness during our last trip to Walt Disney World as an example. Since Free Dining was not offered during our visit (a room-only discount was), I’ll adjust our dates for this hypothetical, moving our trip forward to late August when both Free Dining and a room-only discount of 25% off is available for Fort Wilderness.
With the room-only discount, we would save $78 per night on the Fort Wilderness Cabin. As we’ve noted before, this savings is static regardless of whether there’s one person in the room or 4 people; whereas Free Dining is incremental. This means that Free Dining becomes a progressively better deal as you add more people to the room. In fact, for parties of 4 in a single room, we almost always recommend choosing Free Dining over the room-only discount.
We also would save $83 per person on park tickets over the course of the trip by not having to purchase the Park Hopper option, and also buying from an authorized reseller. (See our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post for more info on this.) Your mileage may vary on this depending upon whether you’d want the Park Hopper.
This amounts to a total savings of $722 over the course of our 5-night trip. Let’s see how much we ended up paying for meals out of pocket, and whether that would’ve closed the gap…
Day 1:
Fort Wilderness Brunch — $97.98
Planet Hollywood Observatory — $87.29
Day 2:
Epcot Festival of Arts Snacks (x6) — $31.25
France Snacks (x3) — $15.71
Via Napoli — $51.46
Day 3:
50s Prime Time Cafe — $111.46
Sunshine Seasons — $50.02*
Day 4:
P&J’s Southern Takeout — $44.04*
Gasparilla Island Grill (plus 4 snacks) — $72.54*
Magic Kingdom Snacks (x2) — $10.63
Day 5:
Plaza Restaurant — $83.07
California Grill — $55.01**
Magic Kingdom Snack (x1) — $4.57
*Total cost extrapolated for 4 people based upon 2 person costs.
**Total for 2 people and not extrapolated
What We Paid…
Total: $715.03 (plus tips)
Free Disney Dining Plan Totals…
Upgrade Cost to Standard Disney Dining Plan: $423.40
Out of Pocket Cost: $55.01 (plus tips)
Total Savings of “Free” Dining: -$485.38
In the end, we would have lost about $485 by virtue of Free Dining. As mentioned above, though, this was a far from perfect case study. In large part, that’s because it’s done after the fact, and with even slight adjustments to our itinerary, we could have broken even.
This would’ve been possible to accomplish by sticking to counter service restaurants instead of upgrading to the regular Disney Dining Plan, or upgrading and doing more expensive table service restaurants (and switching our California Grill lounge meal to a counter service meal…or a couple counter service meals).
However, I think it’s at least somewhat instructive, as it shows what our “natural” Walt Disney World dining experience was when choosing where we wanted to eat and paying out of pocket. There’s no doubt that part of the reason we would’ve lost so much with Free Dining was because we didn’t tailor our dining experiences to take advantage of the promotion nor did we try to fit within the confines of what credits we had.
This brings us to something that grinds my gears about the Disney Dining Plan: people saying it’s more convenient than paying out of pocket. It boggles my mind that people think ordering what you want and paying for the actual cost of that food is less convenient than keeping track of different credits, planning meals that comport with those allocations, and using all of said credits.
As is the case for many visitors to Walt Disney World, we would’ve had leftover counter service and snack credits. We would’ve also had an insufficient number of table service credits. This would have necessitated modifying our dining behavior, and also stocking up on junk at the end of the trip to take home so we didn’t waste credits. That is not more convenient than eating where you want, and paying as you go.
The other common argument I suppose people could make–and one I find absurd–is that the Disney Dining Plan still would have been better because we could’ve eased our mind about menu prices, and not have been cost-conscious. There are a number of times when we ordered a less expensive menu item, shared, didn’t order a drink, etc., because we didn’t want to spend extra money. There are also times we splurged.
In news that will surprise no one, we’re frugal. We could’ve afforded to splurge at every single meal, but we tend to look at prices and nix certain items because, to us, they are not worth it. Since when is being cost-conscious a bad thing? At a time when American consumer debt is at an all-time high of $12.73 trillion, my humble opinion is that being careful about how you spend your money is a good idea. Avoiding reality by creating an artificial buffer of “credits” to psychologically trick yourself–even on vacation–may not be pragmatic.
In fairness, this frugality cuts both ways. If we had the option for Free Dining on this trip, I would’ve taken it. If we modified our meal schedule to better-leverage Free Dining, we would have come out ahead. It would’ve cost us a bit more money and been less convenient than paying out of pocket, but that would have been be fine. Having Free Dining would’ve improved our overall experience as we could’ve splurged more without seeing our out of pocket costs increase.
This all might seem contradictory. Those potential contradictions lie in our frugality and convenience. With regard to the frugality, it’s important to remember that the distinction between being frugal and being cheap is a very meaningful one. We’re willing to pay more when the experience is commensurate with the cost. We think the gains made by taking advantage of Free Dining would have been “worth it” here.
Second, convenience. We do a lot of planning for trips, and some of that requires a bit of inconvenience for an improved experience. I don’t take issue with inconvenience–I just want to call a spade a spade. To that end, it irks me when people contend that the Disney Dining Plan is more convenient than paying out of pocket. The Disney Dining Plan is inconvenient, but that does not mean it’s always worse.
The salient point here is the same one we’ve made in probably a half-dozen other articles about Free Dining–that there’s no such thing as a free lunch and whether free dining is a good deal for you depends upon your personal circumstances. It’s the same point again and again, just stated differently. While this blog might sound like a broken record, as long as an alarming number of people keep indicating that they are opting for the Free Dining promo “because it’s free,” it’s a point we’ll continue making.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. 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
Do you agree or disagree with our assessment of Free Dining? In your personal circumstances, has Free Dining been more or less advantageous than a room-only (or other) discount? Any thoughts about our case study? Any questions? Hearing from readers is part of the fun (and is helpful to others), so please share your thoughts in the comments below!
We are a family of five, and even have my mother-in-law joining our room for 11 nights at Beach Club this July, totaling 5 free diners (the toddler is only 2 and yes, free dining in July, it was a bounceback). My kids are fish, so we typically add on the waterpark option regardless of its requirement to get free dining. When the room only discount for the summer was announced, I priced our identical vacation, it was $3200 more ! Granted, it was booked at last year’s prices, but still, looks like the best way to save free dining is to cram a boat load of people into your room! I know it’s been said on this blog before, but I didn’t realize how true it really was! Thanks for the great advice!
My upcoming trip will be the first time I have not gone the free dining route. I couldn’t have imagined not selecting free dining in the past but this time around it just didn’t work on multiple levels. Firstly, any of the hotels we wanted were not available with free dining, even within one week of the discount being announced. Luckily a 25% room only discount worked nicely. Secondly, there was a great Canadian resident ticket offer available which was 30% off. And finally, this is the first trip with my 4 year old son, so the thought of dragging him to a table service meal every single day was making me very apprehensive. Having to schedule all these table service meals and making him sit through them daily seemed like a big undertaking. So aside from the fact that a room only discount offered more savings and the resort we wanted, I am really looking forward to only a couple key reservations, and not having to plan everything around dining this time. It feels liberating!
Your analysis at the end of the value that can be provided by splurge reasoning is sound. What I think you are missing in the value to some families when you reference the psychological tricks is that it isn’t always a psychological trick on the part of both people, and not always even a psychological trick at all. What it is, is cheaper than a divorce lawyer.
My husband is a splurger. He always wants to order off the menu without consideration of cost. I am a cost counter. So, we have three options:
1. We can not make reservations at restaurants where we break the budget if he wants to splurge.
2. We can make reservations at restaurants where we break the budget if he wants to splurge, and I can say ‘no’ a lot, which really does detract from that vacation feeling.
3. We can make reservations at reservations where we break the budget if he wants to splurge, and I can say nothing, and sometimes the budget goes down the tubes in a big way.
#1 is not always an option. #3 is obviously undesirable. #2 is no problem for *him*, but it definitely is a vacation dampener for me.
Even if the dining plan actually costs more than we spend by the time you have added up my meal and his meal (and our kids’ meals), there is value to me in not having to keep mental mathing every time he wants to order the most expensive item on the menu, and not having to repeatedly say no and bring up the issue of cost. I don’t mind paying a little extra for peace of mind that we will not be paying a ton extra if I don’t keep on top of everything.
Having the Dining Plan act as a ‘family mediator’ or buffer of sorts is a very fair point, and definitely something I hadn’t considered!
YES! This is basically why I love the dining plan. My husband is a big eater and a splurger. It is 100% worth it for us. I want to enjoy my vacation and not be constantly counting how much he has spent. For me, as the “financial advisor” of the group (whom desperately deserves a vacation!) the paying ahead and not worrying about it is awesome for me. I am confident (though I didn’t keep tabs, we were on vacation!) that we saved money on our last trip by using the dining plan, at the worst broke even. For our upcoming trip I do plan on logging what we spend and seeing how that goes.
Also, I forgot to add, my 6 year old is a very picky eater. No sense on getting a DDP/Free Dining when most likely she is going to order mac and cheese, chicken strips, or pizza. Our last trip, a $33 Via Napoli pizza fed all of us; that came out to $11 per person. If we had a microwave in our room, it would have feed all of us twice (our dinner was the last thing we did for the day in Epcot).
Other have also mentioned, if you have a magic band, most likely your credit card is linked to it. Just get it scanned, and you’ve paid.
We live near two other (regional) major theme park and are season ticket holders. Both parks have season food passes. We determined we would have to eat more than we want to, or go there every day (to the park that is 25 minutes away) for it to make sense for us.
We’ve never done the “Free Dining” plan. If I understand correctly, one must add either water parks or a park hopper to their tickets, no? While we did a park hopper for a short visit in the fall, that was more of a “nice to do once” deal. When we go this summer (kid in school, wife’s a teacher), we opted for the room discount instead. We had actually booked PRIOR to the discounts being announced, but a few minutes spent on the phone with a cast member netted us a return of $190. That should help with our 1 character breakfast and two full service dinners. The rest of the time, we plan on winging it with counter service. Also, since we are driving to WDW, there’s nothing to stop me from going on a food run while my wife and kid are taking their daily mid day pool break, or making a run to Publix or Winn Dixie to get snacks or meals to put in the min fridge in the room.
Somebody who eats slimjims giving food advice is funny
It’s almost as if that was the point.
Slim Jims are as much an American institution as they are a foodstuff. They got me through law school, several powerlifting meets, and continue to serve as a go-to snack on trips. Suffice it to say, they build strength of mind, body, and character. To this day, my legal colleagues and I will often partake in a post-scotch Slim Jim as a means of cleansing the palate, both emotionally and physically. Dislike and/or criticism of the venerable Slim Jim is distinctly un-American.
Thanks for doing the math!
If any room only discount comes out for our stay then I’m going to reassess the free dining. We (2 of us) are at CBR with the $75 gift card but unfortunately in the pirate room.
I’ve booked most of our dining now and have a rough idea what we will order. So will do some of my own math later and if it works out better see if our authorised Disney Agent can change our booking and get us back in a normal room.
I completely understand your point about convenience! When my DD was young, we could visit during “free dining” time periods and it was the best discount for us, so we took it. After 3-4 trips that way, we visited Disneyland. It was almost a relief just to pick what and how much food sounded good to us.
I understand and have a similar story. Back in the mid-00’s Free Dining was a much better deal, as it included the gratuity. My kids were not school age, so we took that option a few times. The kids were all about rides and things that did not involve table-service dining! When going to dinner, one daughter started asking “Does this place have servants?” If the answer was yes, she would put her face in her hands and say “NOOOOOO!!!!!!” We still joke about going to restaurants with “servants” to this day!
That is hilarious! My daughter was never much of a napper, so we used the TS meals in part as forced downtime in air conditioning. It worke dwell for us.
I love wholesale club shopping, so you’ve sold me on the dining plan!