It’s somewhat fitting that the first article I would write for the blog would be for deals since the main reason I’ve started this blog is because I couldn’t find any articles to share to explain the deals without advertising for some other travel agent.  There are two new Featured Special Offers announced this week and as with most Disney deals, there is much to consider and how you may save in your situation isn’t as apparent as it should be. So, I’ll break down the Featured Special Offers and run through some scenarios to see if these deals can be of any help to you.

So, on to the deals!

Free Dining is back!

Sounds like a great deal right!  Who doesn’t like free food?  Well, the truth is, the deal isn’t for everybody because the devil is always in the details.  This absolutely is the right deal for some, and definitely not for others.

So, generally speaking, who is this deal for?

• Disney+ subscribers looking to visit in July – September 2024
• All members of the party are 10+
• Those who prefer the Dining Plan for its budgeting convenience

I’ll get into a more detail analysis of the pros and cons of this plan at the end of the post, but for now, the big takeaways to keep in mind are that you must pay “rack rate” for your room, you must have the Park Hopper upgrade, and, since the kids dining plan is significantly less than the adults (which is anyone 10+ for these purposes), having young children in your party makes the deal less beneficial.

OK, what is the second Featured Special Offer?

Saving 35% sounds great!  But to save 35%, you must stay at least 5 nights, and at Deluxe Resort hotel. You have to spend the money, to save the money, and that’s Disney Math in a nutshell.  That said, there are still significant savings to be had in most categories and for most dates.  This deal is straightforward, but with 15 different tiers at 36 different hotels, it is difficult to simply take in what the deal is for you without considering the other parameters of your trip. The most often reality, you know when you are going (or have a few possibilities) so the deal that is in place for those dates is going to be the right one for you.

Where it gets more complicated is determining which of the two Special Offers make the most sense for your trip.  Comparing one hotel discount to another is simple math, but comparing eating for free and paying full rate, or paying for food and having a discounted rate, requires a deeper analysis.  The truth is, without knowing your specific details, this post still isn’t going to answer the question for you.  My analysis below is based on a numerous assumptions and should not to be taken as literal pricing.  While I am using real pricing to determine these approximations, they are only approximations and you should contact me and provide your details to get the numbers that really mean something to you.  The purpose of this analysys is to highlight how these deals compare, and how those individual deals have an impact.  The bottomline is, you should contact me (or your trusted travel advisor) to do this math for you.  And why not?  It’s a no risk complimentary service!  And clearly I enjoy running out scenarios or I wouldn’t making this post.

To really test this out, we will need to set up some scenarios.

The Pickett Family is two adults and two children in their teens.

The Rudolph Family is two adults and two children under ten.

The Trubisky Family is two adults.

We’ll use the same dates for each.  Since 4 nights and a 4-day ticket is the minimum for the free dining deal, we will use that length of stay and also run the numbers for 8 night so we can get a couple more days at the highest savings tier for the resort deal.

For an apples-to-apples comparison, we will add the dining plan to the resort deal and then use a 90% factor for food for a non-dining plan option.

Lastly, we’ll do it for each resort tier.

This created 54 different pricing scenarios, and rather than bore you with the math, I’ll summarize it based on family.

The Pickett Family with two adults and two teens definitely saw the largest savings with the free dining offer in all of the scenarios.  Ranging from $440 for the 4-night Moderate to $1300 for the 8-night Value resort! Deluxe and Value resorts offered the most savings for each length of stay.  The 4-night Deluxe scenario had $730 in savings compared to using the resort offer and $580 in savings compared against ala carte dining with a 90% factor.  Clearly you can eat for much less than 90% of the cost of the dining plan, so is that $580 enough to really say you are eating at least some for free?  If you use the dining plan effectively, have costly alcoholic beverages with each meal, and use your snack credits for the most expensive snacks, then you can definitely come out way ahead.  But if you weren’t planning to go to that excess anyway, did you really save?  Answering that question is beyond the scope of this post and will be the subject of future posts to be sure.  Regardless, it is clear this is a great deal for the Pickett Family.

The Rudolph Family with two adults and two young children saves with the free dining offer in each of the scenarios as well, although the savings are not nearly as stark with the savings ranging from $160 for the 8-night Deluxe resort to $760 for the 8-night Value resort. While that is truly savings, it isn’t as clear of a home run.  If you for sure already wanted the dining plan, then it is the right offer.  If you would rather eat frugally, then you are probably better off taking the resort savings offer, especially for the scenarios that produced the least amount of savings.

The Trubisky Family with just two adults has much more variation in the results. The scenarios range from taking a $320 loss for the 8-night Deluxe scenario to saving $380 for the 8-night Value scenario.  Clearly even at the highest savings, this free dining offer will not make sense unless you know you want the dining plan.  Each of the 4-night and 8-night Deluxe scenarios came out as it being less expensive to take the resort savings offer and add-on the dining plan than to take the free dining offer, which isn’t too surprising since there are only two adult dining plans involved.  Conversely, each of the 4-night and 8-night Value scenarios show free dining coming out ahead, but again, at a minimal enough level that it isn’t a slam dunk.  The Moderate scenario was the most murky of all.  For a 4-night stay, its about a $110 savings to go with the free dining offer, but for the 8-night stay, it’s only $85, and with the 90% ala carte scenario actually comes in the least expensive.  Again here, the savings are so minimal, if you don’t already want the dining plan, your best bet is to take the resort savings offer.

So, after all of this analysis, where does that leave us?  The clearest takeaway is your unique situation needs to be priced out specifically to know.  To compound the matter, this post didn’t include all of the current offers and only the Featured Offers that were just announced.  To know which offer is right for you, you have to do the leg work, and price each package fully.  Of course, the best recommendation is to ask a travel advisor like yours truly or other trusted professional.