Is Play, Stay & Dine a Good Deal ?

The question of a package offer being a deal as compared to a room offer is not an easy one. Every family has a different make-up of people and needs, and until the actual pricing is released is hard to second guess.

Take Free Dining for example if you were staying at the BC. For a family of 5 with all the kids being over 10 and doing lots of character meals it can be a far better deal than than a room discount.

For my husband and I alone, not so much.

You would have to actually run the numbers and guestimate food costs to see which works best in your favor.

My Grandfather used to say "An elephant for a quarter is a good deal - IF you need an elephant and IF you have a quarter"

Nanc

Tink said it best, its so dependent on both the make up of your family and the resort level which you want to stay at, and if your kids are considered adults (ages 10 and up) for the meal plans.

Here is what I can say based on our last stay (Jan 2015) which we booked under the Stay-Play-Dine offering at the time. Straight up, the free dining offering vs the SPD offering, the free dining is a better deal. For 5 of us, 2 adults, one child adult and 2 kids, the meal plan for our stay (the regular DDP) would have been just under $2,000. Free dining wasn't offered so we booked under the only discount available at the time, the Stay-Play-Dine. The result by comparison is that we saved a little more than $1,200 (about 25%). So in comparison, SPD was about $800 less of a discount than outright free dining.

My understanding is that its very difficult to break down the actual components of Stay-Play-Dine. From what I recall from those that tried very hard to break it down, it came out to something like a 50% savings on the Dining Plan, 10-20% savings on room and not much on tickets. Resort level could have had some impact.

Basically you will need to price out the individual components of your trip at full rates, then compare your total cost with the package price of Stay-Play-Dine and then again compare to the total price with discounted room rate only.

I would guess that Stay-Play-Dine would yield the greatest overall discount, but that is only relevant if you truly want the Disney Dining Plan. As Tink said, if you don't really need an Elephant, getting it for a quarter isn't that great a deal.

If you really prefer the DDP, then I think you'll find the SPD deal better than a room discount with the DDP paid for out of pocket. Depends on the actual discount offered, but I think that is how it will play out.

Thank you both.
We will be 4 adults (me, my wife and 2 "kids") staying at the Beach Club.
I'm paying around $375 per night for the BC but hoping to get a 30% discount, which would bring it down to $263 per night.

Its historical, but for what its worth, the last two-three years the Stay-Play-Dine package has become available end of September or early October. If they offer it again, I would think that would be the rough time period it would be released.

If the DDP is something you want to do (and it comes with a full list of pros/cons) I would think Stay-Play-Dine would be a better overall discount than just a 30% discount, even at the Deluxe level.

The problem though, with any package, the number available are limited and it isn't always as simple as converting your existing reservation to a new one.

Hopefully it works out for you. Good luck.

The Hitchhiking Ghost;2490484 wrote: Its historical, but for what its worth, the last two-three years the Stay-Play-Dine package has become available end of September or early October. If they offer it again, I would think that would be the rough time period it would be released.

If the DDP is something you want to do (and it comes with a full list of pros/cons) I would think Stay-Play-Dine would be a better overall discount than just a 30% discount, even at the Deluxe level.

The problem though, with any package, the number available are limited and it isn't always as simple as converting your existing reservation to a new one.

Hopefully it works out for you. Good luck.

Thank you
It looks like they got rid of 2 EPCOT TS restaurants we plan on eating at for the 2017 DDP: Teppan Edo and Via Napoli :(

2017 Dining list is not yet finalized and will not be until the contracts are signed in December. I expect both those restaurants to sign on and be included.

Nanc

Here's what I can tell you, after pricing out the trip my family is taking in just a couple days...

We prefer to have the DDP so Dad (me) doesn't get frustrated with paying bills for every meal...we have a 4 year old, so we do our fair share of character meals, etc...

So, there was a "free dining" offer, and a room only offer running at the same time...along with a few other promos - after pricing nearly everything out, every way, it came out slightly cheaper to use the free dining than the room only and buying dining...remember, that in 2017, the DDP will be running upwards of $80 per adult, per night, so you'd be looking at "saving" about $300 a night of your stay on free dining.

At the end of the day, everyone's right...if you want dining, free dining makes sense, and then you have the benefit of not having to try to book meals to "make back your money" you spent on the dining.