Free dining Help!

[sleeping beauty 2]

I have room only AAA at GF for Sept 27 - Oct 3. We already have 5 day park passes from a vacation last year that we had to end early due to a death in the family. Now I am thinking that the free dining might be a good deal. Disney will allow me to book 1 day park passes and get the free dining for the 6 days. However, we will not get the AAA room discount. So the additional cost is $671. Does this still sound like a deal?

Has anyone every figured what it cost (without the dining plan) for table service, counter service, and a snack per day?

 

[Gillian]

How many people adults/kids are in your party?

edit: Ok, I did some math on this and it doesn't seem like a good idea, LOL! So, nevermind!

allearsnet.com has menus with prices that will give you an idea.

 

[ngtotd_dtrt]

If there are 4 or more of you and you like to eat, then it might be better to look at booking it with the 7-day passes included in the package and save your never-expiring 5-day tickets for a future trip.

We've found (2 adults, 3 small-ish kids ages 9,7,6) that we spent about $150 worth of food each day on the dining plan...a little more when eating at sit-down restaurants, and a little less on buffets.

But, this was ordering higher-priced entrees than we normally would since it's all included. Also, we would usually only order one appetizer and a couple desserts if we were paying cash. So, while we'd spend approx. $100/day if there were no meal plan, the free meal-plan purchases for us about $150/day worth of food.

If you enjoy eating lots of food...and it's really hard to eat all the food included on the meal plan..., go with the meal plan and save your old passes. If not, it'd probably be a bit cheaper to go room-only.

 

[angel's momma]

Last year we had APs & a AP discounted room at POP. We also had a stay longer than 10 nights, so we'd have to buy 2 sets of 1 day tickets. We did the math, and for our family it was a better value to give up the discounted room & pay for the extra tickets in order to get the free dining.

I think I've read that most times it's better to keep the room discount at a deluxe though.

 

[sleeping beauty 2]

We are a family of 2 adults & 3 children ages 9,7,& 2.
We have ADR's as follows:
CRT - breakfast
Ohana's - breakfast
Chef Mickey's dinner
Liberty Tree dinner
Tony Town dinner
Coral Reef dinner
Whispering Canyon dinner

If we estimate $100 - 125 (or $675) for dinner and use our 6 table service then the cost to swtich of $671 makes sense. We will still have counter service and snack. Plus the one day park pass.

What is the estimated value of counter service for lunches? How about the average price for snacks?

 

[ngtotd_dtrt]

CS lunches are about $6-8 each, but last year (on the DP), we received a dessert with it (and a drink), so probably about $9-11 for the adult CS meal.

Kid-meals are cheaper ($4-5 includes drink/small-dessert, I think), but we usually just bought 3 adult CS meals and split them among the five of us, and still couldn't eat it all. That left a few extra CS meal credits to burn on the last couple of days, so that was an adventure as well.

 

[tinker&beautymom]

We changed our vacation dates last oct to sept. to get the free dining and it was well worth it. We ate at places that we might not have been able to before and had plenty to eat. If you do decide to call keep ALL YOU RECEIPTS and add it up to what you would have spent if you paid out of pocket to what the disney dining charged you. We would have spent for 5 nights about 350 more that what we would have paid out if we did not have the free dining. We will purchase this with our next vacation.
Have a Wonderful time!!

 

[angel's momma]

How about the average price for snacks?

$2-$2.50 for what we bought.

If you go to F&W, last year they allowed snack credits to be used at the booth - many of those items would have cost us $3-$3.50.

 

[tinker&beautymom]

well the snacks just depend on what you get, they allow a water, soda, fruit, icecream or popcorn. Don't forget , it may be cheesy, that when you go to a buffet take a fruit or two if you didn't eat it. I also learned that if you do not get a dessert on your conuter meals aleast get packed snack to take for later, this all goes a long way. Over all I think it pays for itself with one of the buffets they have there is you whole days of paying for the package and you still a counter service and a snack, and if you plan well those counter service really has alot to offer. One meal in AK we got a bbque chicken plate with beans, slaw, bread, drinks and a dessert, it would have cost us( two adult, one child and 1 jr adult) $60.00. This is not to mention the time we went to France and a meal with the graduity would have been $220.00.
I am sold on the disney dining plan.