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Walt Disney World

Walt Disney World - 2019 Free Dining Promo Released (Valid July 5-September 30)

  • Last Updated:
  • Jun 24th, 2019 3:00 pm
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dgcan75 wrote: I booked art of animation - 2 adults 3 kids, Disney dining. The free dining may be better for you as you have more adults than kids and adult dining plan is more expensive than kids dining plan costs. Just try both says since people always assume free dining is the best offer and it is not always the case.
The free dining really depends on the age of the kids and their appetites. Mine were ages 7, 5 and 3 during my stay. Plus most don't realize that you can use your food credits towards other things on the park as well. If you're into character dining experiences some of the sit down meal credits require 2 credits while most are just 1 credit. You can stack 2 of the Quick service credits to make up 1 sit down dining experience as well as 2 snack credits to make up 1 quick service meal. The portions are really big for most stuff so in some cases you won't use them all in one sitting because some kids can share and if you're stuck with extra snack credits you can use the extra credits towards souvenirs in some of the shops around the park. Most people don't know this and I've taken full advantage of this for the kiddos.
Last edited by SwaunyJones on Jan 4th, 2019 9:21 am, edited 3 times in total.
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For those looking at non-Free Dining dates. My wife is an AP holder and we got 35% off our room at Caribbean Beach in May. It's not advertised but our travel agent was able to book it. The rate shown is 25% online.
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Yarbogash wrote: This Nov/Dec will be insanely busy as that is when Star Wars land opens. They are doing the Free Dining promo now for the time before that because they expect a lot of people will be delaying their trips to see the new land.
Doesn’t matter once Star Wars land is open as it will be forever busy. So for those thinking to go later it will make no difference lol
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SwaunyJones wrote: The free dining really depends on the age of the kids and their appetites. Mine were ages 7, 5 and 3 during my stay. Plus most don't realize that you can use your food credits towards other things on the park as well. If you're into character dining experiences some of the sit down meal credits require 2 credits while most are just 1 credit. You can stack 2 of the Quick service credits to make up 1 sit down dining experience as well as 2 snack credits to make up 1 quick service meal. The portions are really big for most stuff so in some cases you won't use them all in one sitting because some kids can share and if you're stuck with extra snack credits you can use the extra credits towards souvenirs in some of the shops around the park. Most people don't know this and I've taken full advantage of this for the kiddos.
For our family, character dining is part of the experience. Although we don't always go during free dining, preferring to go in spring, we are always on the deluxe dining plan. We have one sit down, character meal per day and do Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue as a 2-credit meal, making up for the "extra" dining credit you get at the end (assuming you don't use a dining credit on arrival or departure day).

We also end up with extra snack credits at the end, which we convert into treats to take home. With a young child, that always means lots of leftover credits.

My wife has an AP, so we would get 10% off at sit down meals but just recently calculated that we're better off with the dining plan. Next year, when my oldest is 10 and considered an adult on the dining plan, that may change.
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jcon wrote: For our family, character dining is part of the experience. Although we don't always go during free dining, preferring to go in spring, we are always on the deluxe dining plan. We have one sit down, character meal per day and do Hoop-Dee-Doo Revue as a 2-credit meal, making up for the "extra" dining credit you get at the end (assuming you don't use a dining credit on arrival or departure day).

We also end up with extra snack credits at the end, which we convert into treats to take home. With a young child, that always means lots of leftover credits.

My wife has an AP, so we would get 10% off at sit down meals but just recently calculated that we're better off with the dining plan. Next year, when my oldest is 10 and considered an adult on the dining plan, that may change.
I had no clue that becoming 10 makes you an adult on the Dining plan... Interesting
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Overall though right now is a good time to book (only wish the cdn dollar was stronger!). I don't think we will see rates like this for a while. And I do think staying at a Disney resort with a meal plan is a good value vacation. Last year we rented a car for the first time and will do that now all the time. Free parking at the resort and theme parks with the flexibility of coming and going when you want is worth the 300-400 for a week long car rental.
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Feb 19, 2009
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cheapbastage wrote: Imagine how many annual trippers are waiting to see when the new attractions will drop in "Fall 2019" before booking their next trip. (I bet this will be very close to Winter 2019) This must mean bookings are way down.

Any self-respecting RFDer would not even factor Galaxy's Edge in. ( Unless you want to spend an entire day waiting in line just to get into the new land.)

From a value perspective, if you can swing it, best time to go is late August-September for this offer. It will be very hot and humid. It will rain. But at least you won't have to fight the crowds.

If you can, book at a "Gondola" resort, this is expected to be opened sometime in the summer. This will be much faster than the buses if you can tolerate no AC.
https://disneynews.us/walt-disney-world ... la-system/
I went in August once and vowed to never go that time of year again.
Florida in August is like standing on the surface of the sun.

I'm going in March, but not going to use this deal.
The dining plan is wayyyy to much food.
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i thought there is no more free parking on the resort now. they are charging like $15/night no?
dgcan75 wrote: Overall though right now is a good time to book (only wish the cdn dollar was stronger!). I don't think we will see rates like this for a while. And I do think staying at a Disney resort with a meal plan is a good value vacation. Last year we rented a car for the first time and will do that now all the time. Free parking at the resort and theme parks with the flexibility of coming and going when you want is worth the 300-400 for a week long car rental.
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Dec 3, 2013
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x95zsk wrote: i thought there is no more free parking on the resort now. they are charging like $15/night no?
Parking at Values $13 a night, Moderates $19, Deluxe $24.
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That's a bummer - just saw that now. But still a good value and will still rent a car.
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Yarbogash wrote: Parking at Values $13 a night, Moderates $19, Deluxe $24.
I got the parking offered for free on a 8 days 7 nights package when I booked a few days ago so it's YMMV when setting up your reservations
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dgcan75 wrote: Booking the Fun and Sun promo with the Canadian ticket discount is a better deal than the free dining since you do not need park hopper either. Booking the exact same room and meal plan in mid July resulted in $650 dollar savings using Fun and Sun as compared to free dining.
How do you get the fun and sun promo for mid July? The latest it lets me check-in is April 27.
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I'm only going for one day in a few weeks as my gf and I are spending more time at Universal. Any way to save money on the ticket or parking or anything?
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P0rkchop wrote: I'm only going for one day in a few weeks as my gf and I are spending more time at Universal. Any way to save money on the ticket or parking or anything?
You can get tickets for cheap at the local Walmart close to the location for up to 3 days. Parking you're most likely SOL
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SwaunyJones wrote: You can get tickets for cheap at the local Walmart close to the location for up to 3 days. Parking you're most likely SOL
Great! I'll check it out. Thank you
Last edited by P0rkchop on Jan 4th, 2019 1:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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dgcan75 wrote: Overall though right now is a good time to book (only wish the cdn dollar was stronger!). I don't think we will see rates like this for a while. And I do think staying at a Disney resort with a meal plan is a good value vacation. Last year we rented a car for the first time and will do that now all the time. Free parking at the resort and theme parks with the flexibility of coming and going when you want is worth the 300-400 for a week long car rental.
We rent a car in Disneyland mostly because coming from LAX, but if you're down for a week in WDW, you can just catch their shuttle for free from the airport, and take WDW transportation to the parks. Unless you really need to get offsite, I dont find there is enough time to warrant a car rental. Maybe if you're going for more than a week and have some other tourist places to visit or staying offsite to save on hotel costs.

As far as value, I'm not sure I agree. I've been to WDW and Disneyland every year for the last 6 years, and prices are def alot higher now. We can usually score a decent price on a WDW resort room, but checking now room rates are alot higher. Although, it's prob more than rates are the same, and its just becoming more difficult to find deals for the dates we usually go. (We've scored deals on expedia surpsingly, as well as we do get pin codes from Disney)

I did some quick checking, and I was getting the same overall package cost for Feb with dining plan (and cdn discount tickets) as going when free dining was on. That seemed to be bundling us pricing tickets, so if you could combine dining +cdn discounts then it would be a good deal. Regardless, we only go to Florida in Nov or Feb, so cant see us going even when this free dining is on.
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SwaunyJones wrote: I had no clue that becoming 10 makes you an adult on the Dining plan... Interesting
10 makes you an adult in all aspects of Disney pricing - including tickets and dining.
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U4IA wrote: The only benefit of Star Wars will be the crowd pull from other areas of the park. (Maybe) We went to Pandora last year, and we had booked fast passes 60 days out, and still had problems getting ride choices. I can't imagine how insane Galaxy's Edge will be. The Pandora boat ride broke down for a few hours, and the fast pass line was prob an hour long.

We've never been able to find much savings with free dining, but we'll check it out again.

We were trying to book a Feb trip and noticed that overall prices for hotels have gone up alot (in comparision to other years) - We've stayed on and off WDW property but never at a value resort and it looks like the skyliner is at 2 of them.
I dunno, just got back from being 2 weeks on property for the first time over the holidays. Weather and crowd levels varied greatly with insanity on December 31st with MK closing its doors by 11:30 a.m. First time in Pandora and my family thought what is all the hype about. 2 rides, of which 1 is boring as hell. Toy Story Land was not all of that impressive either. We went in for an early ticketed event 7:30 a.m to 9 a.m. and were able to go on and off the Toy Story Land rides at will. Then the rope drop came and within 10 minutes the line for Slink y Dog ran all the way out of the area, all the way past Chinese Theater and into Frozen territory. 3 1/2 hour wait. We had to laugh. Speaking of Frozen ride in Epcot. Nice attraction but essentially the same ride that was already there (viking) but with Frozen theme.

My thoughts on Galaxy's Edge - Disney thought WAY too small for this. Essentially 2 rides and an attached first of its kind themed hotel where you take on a role over 2-3 days. Only 100 rooms and confirmed they will run min. $1500 US per night. Min. 3 night stay.
There is absolutely no reason, and don't say money as their Orlando parks alone each pull in 4-6 million per day (read $20+ million per day), they should have been planning a complete theme park for Star Wars with multiple lands, attractions and overall experiences. They also need to figure out their Marvel license deal with Universal because again a complete Marvel theme park with multiple attractions would make sense. It has been 20 years since Disney has opened a new theme park. Argue what you want, at least Michal Eisner pulled the trigger on so much and never looked back. Current CEO Bob Iger takes it too safe. The handling of Lucasfilm is case in point. A complete mess of the Star Wars franchise. Why was there no overall plan for the final 3 films? EPCOT is another mess that needs a complete re=imagining.

Anyway, about the meal plan. It can be a deal but understand they are not giving you anything for free. The savy RFDers on here know they can compile their own packages and come out much better without this deal. With this deal, you forfeit other possible discounts. Look into the whole thing and see if it is worthwhile and then figure out if there is an actual date with availability.

We are Disney Vacation Club family, and are always on the hunt for deals.
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U4IA wrote: We rent a car in Disneyland mostly because coming from LAX, but if you're down for a week in WDW, you can just catch their shuttle for free from the airport, and take WDW transportation to the parks. Unless you really need to get offsite, I dont find there is enough time to warrant a car rental. Maybe if you're going for more than a week and have some other tourist places to visit or staying offsite to save on hotel costs.

As far as value, I'm not sure I agree. I've been to WDW and Disneyland every year for the last 6 years, and prices are def alot higher now. We can usually score a decent price on a WDW resort room, but checking now room rates are alot higher. Although, it's prob more than rates are the same, and its just becoming more difficult to find deals for the dates we usually go. (We've scored deals on expedia surpsingly, as well as we do get pin codes from Disney)

I did some quick checking, and I was getting the same overall package cost for Feb with dining plan (and cdn discount tickets) as going when free dining was on. That seemed to be bundling us pricing tickets, so if you could combine dining +cdn discounts then it would be a good deal. Regardless, we only go to Florida in Nov or Feb, so cant see us going even when this free dining is on.
You are spot on with your observations of pricing. Things in the US are going well and the economy is dictating the price increases. People will pay. People have money. Just coming back we saw a number of families take on the VIP treatment whereby the entire party basically walks on and off every ride with Fast Pass. Price? Your daily ticket and anywhere from $500 to $700 US per hour, 7 hour min. If I had that money, I would do it too. So Disney is becoming or perhaps has become a place for the rich.

Then there's the Club 33. A set of private clubs located in 3 Disney parks. The original is in the heart of the New Orleans Square section of Disneyland. Originally maintained as a secret feature of Disneyland, the existence of the club is now well known, with similar locations in Tokyo Disneyland and Shanghai Disneyland, and new locations coming to Walt Disney World's four parks. Club 33 Members designate themselves and/or others to receive Premier Passports valid for Disneyland and Walt Disney World. In addition, their Club 33 membership card grants them access to early park admission, as long as they and their (up to three) accompanying guests have an accompanying annual pass or valid day ticket. Members are entitled to complimentary valet parking at the Disneyland Resort Hotels and access to many private and exclusive events held within the Club 33 restaurant and Le Salon Nouveau, throughout the Disneyland Resort, and a select number of experiences in destinations outside of Disneyland. At one time there was a 10-year waitlist to "get in". I think it has been reduced. Membership is $25,000.00 to get in with annual dues running $10,000.00 per year.

By the way if you guys go to Disney so much, did you every consider DVC? I think you would have recouped your cost by now.
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mrtvgame wrote: I dunno, just got back from being 2 weeks on property for the first time over the holidays. Weather and crowd levels varied greatly with insanity on December 31st with MK closing its doors by 11:30 a.m. First time in Pandora and my family thought what is all the hype about. 2 rides, of which 1 is boring as hell. Toy Story Land was not all of that impressive either. We went in for an early ticketed event 7:30 a.m to 9 a.m. and were able to go on and off the Toy Story Land rides at will. Then the rope drop came and within 10 minutes the line for Slink y Dog ran all the way out of the area, all the way past Chinese Theater and into Frozen territory. 3 1/2 hour wait. We had to laugh. Speaking of Frozen ride in Epcot. Nice attraction but essentially the same ride that was already there (viking) but with Frozen theme.

My thoughts on Galaxy's Edge - Disney thought WAY too small for this. Essentially 2 rides and an attached first of its kind themed hotel where you take on a role over 2-3 days. Only 100 rooms and confirmed they will run min. $1500 US per night. Min. 3 night stay.
There is absolutely no reason, and don't say money as their Orlando parks alone each pull in 4-6 million per day (read $20+ million per day), they should have been planning a complete theme park for Star Wars with multiple lands, attractions and overall experiences. They also need to figure out their Marvel license deal with Universal because again a complete Marvel theme park with multiple attractions would make sense. It has been 20 years since Disney has opened a new theme park. Argue what you want, at least Michal Eisner pulled the trigger on so much and never looked back. Current CEO Bob Iger takes it too safe. The handling of Lucasfilm is case in point. A complete mess of the Star Wars franchise. Why was there no overall plan for the final 3 films? EPCOT is another mess that needs a complete re=imagining.

Anyway, about the meal plan. It can be a deal but understand they are not giving you anything for free. The savy RFDers on here know they can compile their own packages and come out much better without this deal. With this deal, you forfeit other possible discounts. Look into the whole thing and see if it is worthwhile and then figure out if there is an actual date with availability.

We are Disney Vacation Club family, and are always on the hunt for deals.
Well, it's not as though WDW is the only property. They've expanded elsewhere and used the cash from WDW to help pay down the debt on those properties. They've renewed some areas of WDW and are slowly replacing the dead weight.

Epcot is obviously way behind but there is a renewal plan is place and being enacted.

There's nothing to figure out in terms of the Marvel agreement. Universal owns the rights on the East Coast and Disney owns the rights on the West Coast. It's not like Universal will walk away from that deal when their own park is heavily reliant on Marvel franchise. And, with Marvel being so big right now, why on earth would they?

Dining is always a great deal if you have 4 or more people in your family and you're willing to stay at a value resort. Otherwise, it's not much of a deal and can be a wash in terms of other promos.

To build a new park would take 10 years, which is why they didn't do it with Star Wars. They still have the opportunity to expand Galaxy's Edge if they choose to in the future.
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