Which saves you more?

[Airblue1]

Which discount saves you and your family more, free dining or room discount?

[missastrocat]

I think the overwhelming answer to this is the room discount based on previous threads and discussions on this subject.

However, the dining could possibly be a better deal based on how much you are planning to eat, ages of those going, and other factors. More often than not though, the room discount will be better.

[Madame Leona]

We've always gone with the room discount. I have a family of snackers and the dining plan is usually wasted on us since we can't stand eating at a sit-down meal everyday. The general feeling is we miss too much park time. This time the discount for us was better with the free quick service dining. It'll be interesting to see how that works out for my little eaters.

[RedSoxFan]

For us, free dining has worked out better. Last year there were 6 of us in two rooms at AKL for Thanksgiving. Free dining saved us a lot more than a AAA discount which could only be applied to a couple of nights because it was a holiday week.
There are 4 of us this year for 12 days at AKL during Thanksgiving and free dining is a lot better than a couple of days discounted wi AAA.

[PopPhan]

Depends on what level of accommodations, how many are in your party, your eating habits and the value you put on convenience of paying for meals 'in advance'.

For more than one person, at a value resort, the "free dining" saves more cash. This can be offset by upgrading to the standard dining plan and/or whether or not you would be able to take advantage of the amount and types of meals on the plan.

At moderates, for one or two people the room discount would be a slightly better monetary option. For more than two people, it would depend on eating habits.

At deluxe or DVC resorts, the room discount is almost always the better deal.

It all comes down to you.

[goofiecrazy]

am hoping when we go in the beginning of next oct they offer free dinning during our stay..

[azcavalier]

There is no right answer here, because there are too many variables. Free dining, for us, *always* saves us more, because of the number of people who go. If there are only two or three of you, staying at a moderate/deluxe, then the room is likely better. But, the more people you can stuff into a room, then the room discount gives diminishing returns, whereas the free dining is the gift that keeps on giving.

We're going (in TEN days! YAY!) with Free Dining, and staying at POR. There are ten of us. Six adults and four children. Free dining saves us about $2400. A discount on the room, at 40% (if we could even have found that) would be $1000 combined for both rooms. A 30% discount would have been $750. Obviously, if there were less of us, maybe the room discount would have been better.

[magicofdisney]

For us it's always free dining. We are a family of 6, although usually only 5 travel (only 1 is young enough to get the child rate). We stay at either a value or POR so the room discount can't compete with the free dining.

[buzznwoodysmom]

It really depends on the size of your party, how much you normally eat in WDW, and what level resort your staying at.

I'd say if your a family of 4, staying at a value resort, and plan to eat one TS meal each day then free dining might be the better choice. However, now that the value resorts only come with free QS dining, you'd have to pay for an upgrade to basic dining and your savings would be less, but possibly still a bit better than room discounts, since the money you save with a room discount is much saller at the value resorts.

If your staying at one of the more expensive deluxe resorts the room discount will pretty much always be your better discount.

At the moderates it's sort of a wash. My SIL is a family of 5, with 2 of their kids being "disney adults" on the dining plan. They are all good eaters, so the dining plan does not go to waste with them. By staying in a moderate at Port Orleans Riverside and getting dining free for 5 people (4 adults/1child) they come out ahead with free dining.

On the other hand my inlaws, also staying at POR opted for the room discount since it's just the 2 of them. They would only get free dining for two people, therefor saved more money with a discount on the room.

In almost any case you can get by spending less on food by not doing the dining plan. Not many people order dessert for each person in their party for every single meal. There are lots of things we don't normally eat that come with the dining plan, so we can get by for less paying out of pocket. When DH comes to WDW with us he likes to get the dining plan. At POR we priced all different discounts, stay/play/eat, Free dining, and military discount. Free dining came out the cheapest, and since DH was dead set on getting the plan that's the route we took.