Free Dining for 2011 Announced

And to think, a year ago Disney announced that discounts would be gradually scaled back. Now there are more than ever. I guess their studies are showing that in this economy, the only way to keep crowd levels up is to offer the discounts.

I personally wish they would just do away with the free dining all together. I really think people think they are getting a much better deal than they really are.

__________________

Upcoming Trips

July 2010 - Old Key West

Oct 2010 - Boardwalk Villas

I would think the Potter effect is a huge reason for this, even if Disney won't admit it.

Of course they're downplaying it. They're not going to play second fiddle to anyone. We all know HP is having, and will continue to have, a significant impact. At the end of the day it's great news for park-goers. We the consumer always win when there is competition.

I love the free dining (Ok maybe Disney tricked me). But I was going to get the deluxe dining w/ or w/o discount so it helped me. If I were a frequent Disney flyer I probably wouldn't think free dining was that great either.

I think free dining is often a good deal, it's just that there are other good deals that you can get instead of it as well. For example, we often got an AP discount, even when free dining was available. The savings were pretty comparable and AP discounts are very commonly available. The free dining this is a reasonable discount but has the unpleasant side effect of making it REALLY hard to get ADRs.

I also heard free dining makes the parks a bit more crowded than they used to be. Also anyone doing the math can see it's not the biggest bang for your buck discount. For example the 40% off room will actually save more but then your on your own for food. But considering I am not a member of any Disney $$ saving clubs, I don't live in FL, and this trip is the only one I'm taking for a while the free dining works for someone like me.

I did the math (rather quickly, because I am at work) and for the same trip here are the numbers I came up with. I used a garden view room in the Poly and the deluxe dinning plan on all three. I also used the same week in January.
Discount room rate $3146.70
Free dinning with upgrade to deluxe $3637.86
$500 gift card $3242.76

Nice job scrappy!

There are a lot of general discount codes too, but then you can't be as picky. I think Free Dining makes particular sense for those who have set dates or a particular resort they're desperate to stay at. We (used to) go often enough that we'd just roll with whatever resort had the best AP discount.

PS. What's the $500 gift card option?

Just ran the numbers again to check myself. Need to add that with the $500 gift card option I did not include a meal plan. So that price is without one. I assumed most people would use their gift card towards their meals.
The gift card is another option they are offering for the winter. The amount depends on the resort you stay in. I believe you must stay at least 5 nights. $500 is the largest, which you receive if you stay in the deluxe resorts.

Yeah -- it's a problem when you have Annual Passes and the free dining ends saving us less than the AP hotel discounts can save us. The numbers work out for shorter trips, but not for longer ones.

Still, I'd love to do deluxe dining someday. You're almost forced to go to all the best restaurants!

Thanks to free dining I got deluxe dining for $30 per person per day so it cost $360 for me and my bff to eat for a week! So cool. And I would so not be trying 5 signature restaurants if I didn't have this. I would probably do all counter(let the record show that I love Disney counter service and it's some of the best EVER).

I really do think the best deal for anyone depends on the trip. I bet if you are traveling with kids the free dinning would win.
We have gone with the free dinning and upgraded it. We have also gone with room discount and our upcoming trip was based on AP discount. For years we paid full price for our trips. I did not know to look for discounts until we started reading on this website. Silly me!

Same here scrappy. I guess each discount is different. I hope people do research before they settle on any discount. This is the first trip I'm planning completely on my own (First was a family trip and we were in the military, second was my high school senior class trip.) So I was prepared to go w/o discount but saved $500 with free dining. Free dining is nice but I guess people will have to research to see if it helps them.

On a separate note is it just me or do most Disney deals seem to come with a catch?

That's definitely a good way to put it. Like any marketing situation they focus on the positive so you get fixated on a vision that sounds appealing. Then once you've fallen in love with whatever idea they've sold you on, you realize all the details and how they change things.

The Free Dining/AP discount trade off that dsoup mentions is a good example. You might hear about free dining and think you're going to save a bundle, only to realize you have to give up another discount.

Also, I think Scrappy's point is really good. It seems like the ration of number of people per room and what you're spending on the room has a big impact on whether Free Dining would work for you.