"free" dining more expensive

[DNS]

Thanks faline!

[jillluvsdisney]

We booked 6 nights at POFQ during value season with the DDP. WE then got a pin code for free dining. That saved us about $750.

[joonyer]

Remember there is a difference between saying 1) the Free Dining offer is a better deal than using room discounts if you are planning on buying the Dining Plan anyway, and

2) saying the free dining offer is a better deal than using the room discount and paying OOP for food.

Determining which of the above two options may be the most economically advantageous for will will largely depend on your eating habits at WDW.

Under the first scenario, using the free dining offer vs. room discounts (if you are going to pay for DDP anyway, will depend on where you are staying and the specific room discount.

Under the second scenario, there is no doubt that you can do a WDW vacation for less money by using the room discounts and paying OOP for meals IF
you don't typically eat lots of TS meals or buy lots of snacks & beverages or frequent particularly expensive restaurants.

For our family of 4, we can eat all we want and be perfectly happy spending MUCH less per day than the cost of the DDP. We paid for the DDP a couple of years ago, when it included appetizers and gratuities (which it no longer does) and yes it was a great deal then. We really enjoyed eating at a nice TS restaurant every day and the listed menu prices of the food we ordered (and consumed) was much more than the daily cost of the DDP we paid for.
Problem is, it was MUCH more food than we would have ever ordered if we were just choosing everything we wanted to eat. When the DDP included appetizers for each person, we got 4 appetizers, when we would have probably ordered only one appetizer for the 4 of us or none at all if we were going to get dessert. Often at TS meals we were actually full after eating our appetizers and salads and could have skipped an entree (except for maybe dessert). We ate it all (or most of it) and brought home a lot of snacks, because we had paid for the DDP, but if we had paid OOP for just the food we wanted, we would have spent far less than the 39.99 cost per day of the DDP. But that's because of our normal eating habits, (for instance, DW and I often split a big salad at CS places for lunch, because it is plenty of food for the both of us).
We still enjoyed the DDP experience, but it was not a particularly good value for us.

Your mileage may vary.