2010-2011 Walt Disney World Free Dining Promotion

DISNEY DINING DEAL 2010 NOW AVAILABLE

UPDATE AUGUST 2010: This deal has now been extended well into 2011! See this for more.

Disney’s usual free dining offer covering visits in late August and September 2010 is now available for booking to the general public.  (See this for more on the Disney Dining Plan.)

The deal must be booked by August 14, and covers dates from August 15th through October 2nd.

NOTE JULY 6 2010: The free dining offer has been extended for many dates into December 2010.  See this for more.

Other Disney discounts and promotions are available for earlier dates–see this for more.

See this for the page on Disney’s website about this offer.

TWO TYPES OF FREE DINING PLANS

The promotion provides one of two dining plan variants for free for those who book an otherwise undiscounted trip of at least 3 nights in a Disney World Resort, including tickets. (See Where to Stay.)

Those who stay in anything other than a value resort get the basic dining plan, which provides, per night of your reservation, and for every person three and older on your reservation, a snack, “counter service” meal (think cafeteria), and a “table service” meal. (Think waiters.)

Depending on family size and ages, daily savings could easily exceed $100. For example, if family of four, with three ten years old or older and one between 3 years and ten, would save more than $140 a day. Those following this site’s Basic Itinerary would save more than $1100.

You can use these credits on any day—e.g. three table services on one day.  The “credits per night” thingy is just the way that you—and Disney—know how many credits you start with. See How to Eat.

VALUE RESORT DINING

Continuing the approach it used last year, those who stay in a value resort get for free not the basic dining plan, but what Disney calls the “quick service” dining plan. This plan swaps the “table service” meal for a second counter service meal.

Those booking value resorts who plan enough table service meals— for example, anyone following one of the itineraries on this site—can “trade up” to the basic dining plan, using the value of the “quick service” plan as a credit.

Savings will not be as great for these families, as the family of four used as an example above will need to pay around $35 a day to upgrade. This puts daily savings for the Basic Itinerary at around $100, or $800 over the 8 nights of that itinerary.

Those planning to stay at a value resort and upgrade the free plan should probably make their reservation over the phone, as the upgrade likely will be simpler that way. Call (407) 939-7928. 

WHAT TO BUDGET LINKS

For the basic December trip recommended by this site

• See this for what to budget during the basic December trip
• See this if you are on particularly tight budget, for (difficult) ideas to reduce the December trip budget by more than $1,000

If you can’t go the week this site recommends, see Estimating Budgets for Different Trips

For help getting to much lower budget numbers,

• See this for links to current Walt Disney World deals and discounts
• For basic Disney World budgeting concepts, see Planning Your Walt Disney World Budget
• To design a trip around a specific budget target–e.g., what you can do for $2,500–see this