Considering a Summer Trip - what am I not thinking of?

Walt Disney World
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So I’m looking at at king room at CBR during the free dining offer. So includes QS dining plan and park hopper tickets.

What am I not considering? I don’t know much about CBR, and I’ve never done a dining plan of any level. Pros/cons of both?

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You should check whether free dining is better value than the room discount.

https://blog.touringplans.com/2019/01/07/disneys-free-dining-discount-saves-money-these-scenarios/

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I’m going in August and here are a couple things I’ve found:

  1. You can’t get a room discount if you get the free dining plan. Room discounts in the summer may be up to 30% so you have to do some math to see if its worth it.

  2. Are you going to use all your meals? We went 9 years ago on the free dining and by the end we were so sick of food we skipped our last reservation. In the end, if you do this, the math rarely works out in your favor. You could book a few “2 ticket” meals, but again you have to check the math.

  3. What are you going to order? We are vegetarians and those meals tend to be cheaper, but we would end up paying just as much as we would if we all got surf and turf for every meal. If you are ordering the expensive stuff it could work out in your favor.

Long story short, you have to do some math. For us, the room discount made more sense. Good luck.

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The heat and humidity would make an August trip a non-starter for me. Back in my 20s it was one thing, but at just a few months away from 60 I would be miserable from the time I left my room until I got back to it.

Not sure how many are in your party, but if it’s only 1 or 2, a 30% room discount and no “free” dining would probably be cheaper. If you have a larger group, the DDP might save you money in the end. But the DDP will lock you into nothing but QS for every meal (unless you paid to upgrade). This works for some, but not for me; on a 7 day trip I may eat one QS meal - the rest are TS.

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One of the best…least crowded trips for us was last week in August and it wasn’t even hot…but that was when sons were 8 and 10 and well 15 years ago when I could handle that. I hear these days it’s still a good time to go…but it is hurricane season. Personally, I wouldn’t even try it these days, but like @bswan26, I am 60 and can’t imagine dealing with the heat. But, this is your trip. These days, August can be some of the lowest crowds.

And I meant to say, I really like CBR and I hear with the refurbs, it’s really nice now. I did DP years ago, but it doesn’t make sense for us; however, as everyone else has said, do the math and a dining plan may be good for you as opposed to 30 percent off room.

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