Is free dining still happening

[JudyC]

I feel quite out of touch, the free dining plan was great for us in 2011 & 2015. Maybe the days of this are over. I know that the price in general was higher when this was on but we still liked having our dining credits.

[stanleycamel]

Sadly there is no free dining plan available at the moment - many Dibb members are keeping fingers, toes and everything elsecrossed that it does come bacl eventaully.

[MrsBC]

It's not only free dining, there are currently no dining plans at all even to buy.

[Claudette]

They don’t put hotel prices up when free dining is on. But I don’t expect any offers this year for 2022 stays, I think it will come back as a purchasable plan first.

[bighal]

Considering Disney has been trying to get rid of free dining for sometime don't expect it to come back at all. Disney will not need it for people to come back when everything is back to normal.
Any way free dining reduced the food quality and variety and now it has started to improve without free dining.

[babbymint]

Originally Posted by bighal

Considering Disney has been trying to get rid of free dining for sometime don't expect it to come back at all. Disney will not need it for people to come back when everything is back to normal.
Any way free dining reduced the food quality and variety and now it has started to improve without free dining.

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I haven’t heard this before... If they wanted to get rid of it why didn’t they just get rid of it?

[JudyC]

It'll be a shame if it's gone. We used to book the signature restaurants with two credits and use the quick service and snacks on other days. We did have some great meals although the tip and alcohol costs were sometimes the price of an off site meal . I don't know if we could justify signature restaurant prices without it.

[gjdjud]

Originally Posted by babbymint

I haven’t heard this before... If they wanted to get rid of it why didn’t they just get rid of it?

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Exactly. They’ve been doing it since 2005/06. If it didn’t make them money then they wouldn’t do it. They are a business first and foremost. They tweak it to suite them, removing starters, tips included, desserts etc and adding alcohol and extra snack credits and even recently the breakfast credit. Never believed they’ve been trying to get rid of it. If they wanted to they’d just do it. I don’t think they were planning on removing it however Covid changes things. I don’t think free dining will be back for 2022 as there are too many uncertainties and cost cutting measures in place until the pandemic is done. I’m sure it will be back at some point.

[Shooby doo]

Actually think it will return purely based on the fact that there are no incentives to pay the hefty onsite price but it may also depend on how this effects their current business model going forward- I mean any company that thinks a $150 each way, Mickey van is going to replace a previously Free service, is totally out of touch in my eyes! I don't think it will be next year unless the 50th is a disaster & who knows how the new minimum wage is going to affect Restaurants as it appears that servers will no longer have/be an exemption ( & they are not happy about it). For any plan to return I think they will have to be back to at least 75% or possibly full capacity before it happens
SD

[Nimbus]

At the moment free dining, and dining plans in general, are not happening. As far as anyone knows there are no immediate plans to reinstate them. Whether free dining will return sometime in the future is anyone's guess.

Free dining was certainly popular with UK guests, and I think for many USA guests as well. In recent years there was a queue just to get onto the Disney UK website when free dining became available. It helped to sell a lot of (overpriced) onsite stays. It was a major factor in us chosing to stay onsite.

But, at the moment whilst this pandemic is going on, the incentive for Disney to cram as many people into their hotels as possible isn't there. So there's no need for them to offer free dining and the like right now. But in a couple of years time, I would hope things will be different and then Disney may start offering incentives to stay onsite again.