Listening to the WDW Today podcast recently has all too often made me scream at my mp3 player. And it’s all been about the same subject, free dining. As I am sure you know, Disney World is offering the free dining promotion again this fall. It’s one of the most popular promotions they do, yet the WDW Today crew seems remarkably negative about it. The show’s host, Matt Hochberg, has written a column on this subject that he’s published on his MGMStudios.org website. (It’s a great site, so check it out. You’ll also find me on those forums quite often.)
The first thing to keep in mind is that, like me, most of these guys are annual pass holders, and Disney Dining Experience card holders. (The Disney Dining Experience, DDE for short, is a 20% off program at mostly sit-down restaurants offered to Florida residents and pass holders.) For us, the value of this promotion is somewhat limited. But to argue the worth of it for others is without merit. Let’s take the first point in the column…
You have to buy a Magic Your Way Package and that means you’re paying what’s known as “rack rates” for the rooms. So if I was going to save $15-$20 per night at a value resort with my annual pass, I’m now $100 behind the 8-ball (assuming a 5 or 6 night stay) for my trip.
Fair enough, don’t you think? So what we need to do is balance the savings of the food against the savings of the room. But wait! There’s more to this. Is the food truly a value? Matt continues…
Truth be told, the reasons I’ve mentioned before are not the main reason why I’m not a fan of the Disney Dining Plan. Sure, they matter and when you add it all up, the sum of it all makes it worse, but what really gets me is the amount of food you get. When you’re on the dining plan, you get a lot of food, especially at the counter service meals. This might sound like a good thing, but the reason I don’t like it is first, I end up not eating everything I get, which is a waste.
Folks, if you are considering the free dining plan, please keep in mind you are not going to be forced into shoving down a dole whip every day or risk losing all that savings you acquired. Let’s take these two reasons for not getting the plan, and put them together. Matt suggests at a value hotel that you save somewhere $15-$20 per night through various room discounts that one can’t take advantage of during free dining. But then says the plan gives you too much food. Besides not understanding how “too much food” can be a bad thing, I’m not sure why it is even a factor here. For example, what do you think you’ll eat in a day, plan or no plan? For just my wife and me, I would say coffee and a muffin for breakfast equals about $8. For lunch we do a counter service, which comes to around $15. Now, let’s say for dinner we are like Matt and have just another counter service meal. That’s another $15. Put that together, and even on our most frugal of days, my wife and I have spent $38 on food, and now it’s free! Already, we’ve nearly doubled the $20 Matt’s saved on his room. Now apply these numbers to a family of four, and you’ll see what I mean.
Even the theory that the Disney Dining Experience card is better, is not always the case either. First Matt says…
If I were going to Walt Disney World for 4 or 5 days, I might have 2 or 3 sit down meals and be satisfied with counter service at the rest.
But then in the next paragraph says…
Plus the DDE card gives me more flexibility in terms of where I can go.
Considering the only theme park with counter-service options available for the DDE is Animal Kingdom, WDW Today’s least favorite, I’m not sure how this can offer more flexibility. The only real way to save money on the DDE is to have sit-down meals, which is no different from the dining plan. But the dining plan also offers the deal at every counter service once a day.
Here’s the bottom line. When doing this you need to determine what exactly it is you are savings and compare it to what you are paying for the rack room rate. If you are making out in the end, which you almost always are, then it doesn’t matter if you stuff your face or not. Keeping money in your wallet is the goal, and at Disney World that can be a tricky proposition.