As the winter of 2025 turns into spring and then summer, many are planning trips to Walt Disney World, and looking to take advantage of some of the limited-time discount offers currently available from the “Most Magical Place on Earth.”
Two of the biggest current offers at the resort are the Save, Stay & Play offer, which is valid for arrivals most nights from February 26th to June 30th, and the Free Dining Plan offer, which is valid from May 27th to June 26th and again from July 7th to August 6th. The former offers savings of up to $200 a night (depending on resort level) when booking a “3-night, 2-day Walt Disney Travel Company room-and-ticket package at select Disney Resort hotels” while the latter offers a free Disney Dining Plan (the type of which depends on the level of hotel booked) to those who book a “non-discounted 3-night, 3-day Walt Disney Travel Company package that includes a room at a select Disney Resorts Collection hotel and a theme park ticket with a Park Hopper option.” So, which of these offers is better? Well, that depends…
In order to fairly compare both these Disney offerings, we looked at several variations of a hypothetical Walt Disney World Vacation. For the purposes of our experiment, we looked at trips with a check-in date of June 9th and a checkout date of June 12th, for two adults and one 10-year old.
All-Star Sports
Like its fellow Value tier resorts (the other All-Star Resorts, Pop Century, and Art of Animation), All-Star Sports is eligible for savings of $60 a night as part of the Save, Stay, & Play offer. That brings the price of a hotel and ticket package for a preferred room during our allotted timeframe to $1,991.
The same room at the resort is also eligible for the Free Dining Plan during that period. As with its fellow Value resorts, the dining plan offered is the Quick Service Dining Plan option, which includes the following for each guest:
- 2 Quick-Service Meals Per Night of Stay
- 1 Snack or Nonalcoholic Beverage Per Night of Stay
- 1 Resort-Refillable Drink Mug
The cost of a hotel and ticket package including the free dining plan is $2,918. In other words, the Stay, Save, & Play offer is $927 cheaper than the Free Dining Plan offer. That difference comes out to approximately $103 a day per person. So, if our hypothetical family is planning on spending over $100 per person each day on quick service meals and snacks, then they should go with the Dining Plan offer. If not, they should probably go for the Stay, Save, & Play offer.
Coronado Springs
Moving up to the Moderate resort tier, we’re heading over to Coronado Springs. The resort (along with The Cabins at Fort Wilderness Resort, Caribbean Beach Resort, Port Orleans Resort French Quarter, Port Orleans Resort, Riverside, and the Family Suites at Disney Value Resorts) is eligible for savings of $120 a night as part of the Save, Stay, & Play offer. A ticket and room package at the resort is available for $2,361.
As far as the Free Dining Plan offer, the Moderate tier resorts, including Coronado Springs, offer the same Quick Service Dining Plan option as the Value resorts. A package including this dining plan for the allotted period comes in at $3,489, a $1,128 price difference. That roughly breaks down to $125 per person, per day for quick-service meals and snacks. A group that would plan to spend under that would arguably be better off going with the Save, Stay, & Play discount.
The BoardWalk
Finally, we have The BoardWalk. Hotels that share its Deluxe tier status are eligible for savings of $200 a night as part of the Save, Stay, & Play promotion. A stay for the allotted party size and dates specified above would cost $3040 for a resort view room using these savings.
Unlike the aforementioned Value and Moderate tiers, Deluxe and Deluxe Villa Resorts are eligible for a free FULL Disney Dining Plan, which includes the following per guest:
- 1 Quick-Service Meal Per Night of Stay
- 1 Table-Service Meal Per Night of Stay
- 1 Snack or Nonalcoholic Beverage Per Night of Stay
- 1 Resort-Refillable Drink Mug
A Free Dining Plan package for the same room at The Boardwalk during this period costs $4,437, a roughly $950 difference. That comes down to about $105 per person, per day. Since the full dining plan includes a table service meal for each guest per day, in this scenario the Free Dining Plan offer is arguably the better deal.
Obviously, every guest’s case is likely different, and if you’re booking a Disney World vacation, you’ll need to take your own preferences for dining and hotels when considering which discount is best for you. However, we hope these breakdowns give you a good place to start! Stay tuned to DFB for more on Disney’s offers.
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Which offer would work best for you? Let us know in the comments below!
The post Free Dining vs Hotel Discounts: What’s the Better Deal for Disney World? first appeared on the disney food blog.