Can AP holders ever get free dining?

[mouseketeer mom]

Just wonderin'...

[ibelieveindisneymagic]

Yes.

What a lot of people do is buy the ticket as required by the package (to get the free dining). You don't have to use the ticket, so use your AP as usual during your trip.

When it is time to renew your AP, you can put the value of the ticket you didn't use towards it. (or save it for a shorter trip, maybe when you're in between AP's).

Although, many people have figured that the Tables in Wonderland card is a better value for them, since then they can get a room discount,, intstead of paying rack rate with "free" dining.

So, if you have an AP, there can be some number crunching required to see if free dining is really the best deal for you.

[KylesMom]

Yep, what Heather said. :D

In essence, this is what we did to take advantage of the "Buy 4 Get 3 Free" promotion - but it would work for free dining, too. You still have to buy minimum ticket package, and figure out if "free dining" is really worth it since you have to purchase a room at rack rate. We saved our base tickets that we had to purchase, and used one for our current A/Ps. However, we could only utilize one base ticket per person towards our A/Ps, so we still have one base ticket each to use towards our 2012 passes. MJ did the math for us, and for this particular year it was the best out there. However, as you saw when you first started researching your Easter trip, you know how much the rack rate can be on a room - and the "free" dining may not pay off at that point, especially if decent A/P rates are being offered and when you compare the TiW discounts for your way of dining versus what you actually get on the dining plan.