Is free dining ever offered between Halloween & Thanksgiving and between Thanksgiving & Christmas?
Yes it has been. They changed the plan though this fall as in order to get free meal plan you must stay at a Deluxe resort. In prior years you could get the meal plan if you booked an Intermediate resort but not any more, you now get only the Quick service plan for both the Intermediate and Value resorts.
I have free dining(Quick Service) Dec 10-16, at Pop. But I booked it last April, they may have already reached the limit.
There is NO limit. Quick service meals are cafeteria style meals. The only reservation I know of for QS is Be Our Guest in MK fantasy land. If you have a QS meal plan you won’t need any reservations except for the lunches at bigger named restaurants. They are few. Go to Disney Dinning and look up the Quick Service Restaurants in MK, Epcot, AK, and DHS. All resorts have QS restaurants as part of the resort. Drop by at any time.
Thanks for responding! I’m actually looking for 2018 for a cooler, less-busy time & decorated for Christmas and would like to book when free dining is likely to be offered. Will stay at CR because of easy transport & ability to walk to MK (important for naptime - kids AND grandparents!).
You can upgrade from the free QS to the regular dining plan for a fee. DH and I did this at our stay at POP! last November.
I booked for this year’s Christmas. The free dining period JUST covered our check in date when the offers came out (around May I think?) I upgraded from the all star resort to CSR, and upgraded the free QS dining to the normal DP for a savings of around $400. I recently upgraded it to the deluxe plan without any issues as well.
What are your dates? How far after Thanksgiving & before Christmas? Thx
We arrive 23rd Dec. Not sure how far after thanksgiving that is, being international, but it’s right before christmas!
Just remember Free is NOT free!!!
Earlier this year the Free Dining promo was released in May, and had to book by July. Value & Moderate got QS, Deluxe got regular. We scored a bounce back offer (while there in September under FD) for FD in December 2018. I know Free Dining isn’t free, but for our family of 4 (one of which is an 11yo boy), it’s worth it.
You know I have used the UOG meal plan calculator and it seems way off. Probably because they aren’t considering the specials. No the free meal plan is not free because you pay full rack rates and ticket prices on other things you could have gotten a discount on. That said, two things, First it is better than most if not all other specials and second in order to make it worth it’s price you must use every thing as far as table service, Quick service and the two snacks to come out ahead. My wife and I do this but were not pigs about it. We try to get what we pay for. Now the basic meal plan is great and here again you get way to much food if you pig out, but it’s beyond me how anyone can do the Deluxe plan. WAY TOO MUCH FOOD and way too expensive. Every time we go we keep track of the cost of each meal and snack. Though we may not eat it all, monetarily we come out ahead by about $200. The tips of coarse are separate and if you use their percentages it will truly cost you. We do NOT use percentages but rather value of service.
It works for DH and I because if there is a steak on the menu, he is going to order it. It doesn’t matter where we go. He does this because I don’t eat beef so he never gets steak at home. It also works for us because even as two adults, we still very much enjoy character meals. We will in future be taking full advantage of the alcoholic beverages now offered with TS so I expect we will still come out just ahead.