Mama Melrose's
Disney World has announced that it will again this year be offering free dining to guests who buy a Magic Your Way Package (room and tickets) for travel to Disney World between August 16 and October 3, 2009. Free meals on vacation? Woohoo! And it’s not restricted to couples or families, so solo travelers can take advantage of it. What could be better, right? Well, that depends. Do you want to go to Florida during hurricane season?
Naturally, “free dining” doesn’t mean you get to gorge your way around the World on anything and everything that looks good. (IF ONLY.) The free dining is equal to the Disney Dining Plan (except free), which gives you one snack credit, one counter service meal, and one table service meal per day of your stay. Sounds pretty good so far, right? But take a closer look at the plan and consider your own dining habits before you decide to jump on this deal.
First of all, unless you use your snack credit for a piece of fruit for breakfast, or you’re perfectly okay with only eating 2 meals per day (which is not healthy for you), you’re still going to have to pay for one meal per day. If you want to eat only at table service restaurants or only at counter service restaurants (or you’re one of those shy solos who will only eat room service), you’re out of luck. If you’re anything like me, and you’re more of a grazer than a three-squares-per-day person, you’re going to have problems with this plan, too. Even if you are perfectly okay with the structure of the plan, the details are not all that flexible. Say, for instance, you prefer appetizers over desserts. Too bad. According to Disney’s Dining plan, you get one non-alcoholic beverage, one entree or combo meal, and one dessert per table service meal. No appetizers and no substitutes, unless of course you want to pay for them yourself–and that sort of defeats the purpose, doesn’t it? It’s the dessert at every meal part that really turns me off–I would throw up if I were forced to eat a dessert at every meal. But if you don’t, you’re not taking full advantage of the “free” dining. Oh, and about that “free” part…..
It’s not really free. You have to book a Magic Your Way Package in order to get it and these are priced at rack rates. As this article by Lelah Kimball so correctly points out, if money is your motivation, you might be able to save more money in other ways. As Kimball notes, you could purchase your tickets from a discounter (like Undercover Tourist) and use a code to get a cheaper room-only rate. Renting Disney timeshares is also a popular option, as you can save a lot of money by preparing your own meals in your own kitchen. You can also save money by staying off-site, as long as you have a car to get back and forth.
But lest I completely rain on Disney’s parade, I’ll admit there are people for whom this is a great deal. If you absolutely have your heart set on staying on-site anyway; if you were planning on getting the Disney Dining Plan anyway; if you like having every vacation expense paid for up front; if you love eating dessert at every meal; and if convenience matters more to you than money, then you score! About the only part of it that appeals to me is the freedom to order more expensive menu items than I normally would. Since it’s free, all entrees are equal. So splurge ahead.
The upshot is (as usual) do your homework, shop around, crunch your numbers, and be honest with yourself about your dining habits before jumping on this “free deal”.
