Whenever Walt Disney World releases new reductions for 2024, followers ask concerning the Free Dining deal. With room, ticket, and Dining Plan particular provides by Summer 2024 all now obtainable–and extra coming quickly–we thought it’d be time to ‘answer’ these questions with our predictions as to if or when Free Dining can be launched, and greatest guesses as to journey dates.
For starters, we’d direct you to our complete Guide to the 2024 Disney Dining Plan and Everything You Need to Know About Free Dining when you’re new to Walt Disney World trip planning and deal searching. Both comprise a whole lot of historic info and canopy whether or not each the Disney Dining Plan (paid) and Free Dining (promotion) are well worth the cash, and rather more.
We’ll begin by supplying you with a fast recap right here to put the muse for our Free Dining predictions. The final two instances the Free Dining deal dropped, Walt Disney World shocked everybody by releasing the particular provide in January. (Well, the primary time was a shock–not a lot the second.) The final ‘regular’ 12 months of Free Dining, this was adopted by two subsequent waves of low cost dates and lodge room stock within the spring and summer season.
Prior to that, Walt Disney World traditionally dropped its Free Dining promotion between late March and mid-to-late April. This spring launch window was frequent for a couple of decade, and occurred 12 months in and 12 months out till the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. That 12 months began a brand new development because of folks suspending journeys till that new land debuted.
So the massive questions for 2024 are whether or not Walt Disney World will carry again Free Dining and, in that case, will or not it’s launched in early January 2024 or with the subsequent quarter’s set of reductions in Spring 2024?
In attempting to reply that, the very first thing we wish to do is as soon as once more reiterate that Walt Disney World doesn’t provide any promotion out of company generosity. The Disney Dining Plan is given away to entice visitors to journey at instances of 12 months which have traditionally decrease lodge occupancy charges.
Moreover, there’s no such factor as a free lunch–you obtain the Disney Dining Plan for “free” since you pay full value to your lodge room and park tickets. A bit tangential, however that is additionally why Free Dining is commonly not such an amazing deal. For many households, taking the room-only low cost is superior. Always do the maths, as a result of the comparative worth varies primarily based upon resort, occasion measurement, and consuming preferences.
With pent-up demand having been exhausted, Walt Disney World as soon as once more wants to supply reductions to fill lodge rooms. Park attendance and lodge occupancy are each down this 12 months. This just isn’t in dispute–firm executives have expressly said as a lot throughout earnings calls, and we’ve been documenting the slowdown in crowds at Walt Disney World.
There’s been a whole lot of skepticism about this provided that crowds can nonetheless really feel fairly dangerous at instances, however attendance completely is down year-over-year. Wait instances and the corporate’s personal financials corroborate this. No, the parks aren’t useless or ghost cities or completely empty, however they’re “underperforming” as in comparison with the blockbuster heights of revenge journey.
The firm beforehand attributed the drop-off at Walt Disney World largely to pent-up demand exhausting itself for the Florida parks first for the reason that state reopened earlier. By distinction, California and the worldwide parks, in addition to the cruise business didn’t see a tourism rebound in earnest till roughly a full 12 months later, so they’re nonetheless benefiting from lagging pent-up demand.
To deal with this, Walt Disney World has been releasing extra (and higher) reductions. Again, this isn’t a matter of company benevolence or Disney attempting to chop the patron a break. They’re doing it out of necessity. This is one thing we’ve additionally documented, and it’s truly gotten extra aggressive within the begin of the 2024 fiscal 12 months.
For many dates in the course of the vacation season, there have been no common public reductions for the final 3 years. By distinction, this 12 months has seen the very best room reductions for October by December since 2018. As famous above, there are already offers by Summer 2024, which had been launched manner early relative to current precedent and a couple of month early as in comparison with historic (2019 and earlier) dates.
These 2024 Walt Disney World particular provides embody the usual room-only reductions, however that’s fairly unremarkable. More noteworthy is the “Free” Disney Dining Card Deal for 2024 and the 50% Off Tickets & Dining Plans Discount for Kids in Spring & Summer 2024.
If this had been a regular 12 months–that means that the March 2020 closure by no means occurred–that may be all you’d must know. We would predict with about 98% certainty that these reductions had been a precursor to the actual Free Dining. It could be a foregone conclusion that Free Dining could be launched the primary week of January 2024.
Unfortunately, March 2020 did occur. This is hardly a minor footnote or asterisk, as that modified quite a bit. For one factor, the Disney Dining Plan was suspended for just a few years and is simply lastly returning as of January 9, 2024. For one other factor, it allowed Walt Disney World to hit the “reset” button and implement a whole lot of modifications they’d wished for years–in some circumstances, so long as a decade.
Let’s begin with that second level. Those of you who observe the monetary facet of Disney may recall again in 2010, when then-chairman of Parks & Resorts Jay Rasulo said for the primary time that Walt Disney World deliberate to “slowly wean our guests off discounting.” Rasulo and CEO Bob Iger talked about ending deep-discounting on numerous earnings calls after that.
They indicated that the intense measures put in place by Disney to prop up attendance and occupancy in the course of the depths of the Great Recession had been now not vital. However, in addition they mentioned, “we don’t believe we’re dealing with an economy that allows us to cut off the discounting immediately.”
Variations of those strains had been repeated advert nauseam for years. Whenever the discharge of a particular provide was just a few weeks late by historic requirements or a room-only low cost was 5% worse than the earlier 12 months, it appeared like perhaps this was lastly taking place, for actual this time. And then, like clockwork, Free Dining and 40% off rack price offers would roll out just a few days later.
In equity to Rasulo and Iger, I suppose, it’s true that the worth proposition of Free Dining was diluted at factors with tiers and different issues altering. It’s additionally true that ticket and lodge costs steadily elevated, making the particular provide dearer. But that was not distinctive to Free Dining–costs went up throughout the board irrespective of the way you booked. (This is why we’ve half-joked for years that Walt Disney World makes use of the “Kohl’s Pricing Model,” the place the sticker costs are virtually meaningless because of reductions. It’s a half-joke as a result of it’s true!)
Suffice to say, Free Dining continued even because the financial system recovered–and began booming. Walt Disney World noticed its attendance soar by tens of millions of visitors per 12 months, and the parks opened new lands primarily based on Avatar, Toy Story, Star Wars, and extra. All the whereas, Free Dining saved going robust.
In reality, Free Dining truly acquired higher within the final couple of years it was supplied, because it started encompassing extra dates than earlier years and by advantage of the Disney Dining Plan including alcohol. Point being, it proved very troublesome for the corporate to surrender Free Dining–it was too profitable, and nice for incentivizing trip bookings.
However, Free Dining now hasn’t been supplied for 3-4 years relying upon the way you depend (it was bookable in early 2020, however nobody who took benefit of the promo might find yourself utilizing it). If you’re a pessimist, you would argue that this hole has offered Walt Disney World the chance to hit reset, and recondition visitors who used to e book Free Dining to simply accept various or lesser reductions.
This argument could possibly be persuasive. After all, Walt Disney World did the identical in altering free FastPass to paid Lightning Lanes, instituting park reservations, ending Disney’s Magical Express, limiting Park Hopping, and making a variety of different guest-unfriendly modifications.
Almost all of these had been issues they’ve wished to do for ages–the closure and subsequent phased reopening gave Disney “cover” for making the strikes with out as a lot blowback. It was an opportunity to hit reset and/or blame the modifications on exterior forces, even when that wasn’t precisely true.
You might say that the aforementioned ‘free’ eating card and 50% off children tickets and Disney Dining Plans offers are an instance of this. For years earlier than the closure, Walt Disney World had carried out “Free Dining Lite” or “Half-Free Dining”, but it surely was by no means as standard as the true deal. Perhaps now Walt Disney World has discovered a option to market a eating deal with out truly going all-out and doing Free Dining?
Honestly, I don’t know the reply to that query. That’s exactly why this submit isn’t introduced with 98% confidence!
My counterpoint to all of these arguments is that lots of the modifications Walt Disney World made beneath the guise of the phased reopening have been or are being undone. There has been a whole lot of visitor backlash at a lot of these modifications, and decrease satisfaction scores as outcome. Mid-January 2024 goes to be the beginning of a brand new chapter for Walt Disney World, and it’s one that appears quite a bit just like the previous chapter, pre-March 2020.
Discounts are a little bit of a special story, because it finally comes right down to the naked minimal that Walt Disney World finds vital to supply with the intention to entice sufficient folks to e book holidays. If what they’ve supplied up to now isn’t it, they’ll provide extra. It’s not a sophisticated equation.
The query thus turns into: are the present 50% off children and ‘free’ eating card offers sufficient?
It’s additionally troublesome to know the reply to that from the surface, however I believe we will safely say that the eating card deal was inadequate. Shortly after it was launched, Walt Disney World dropped the 50% off children deal. Although these are technically distinct particular provides that can attraction to completely different demographics (households vs. {couples}), there’s nonetheless a whole lot of overlap. And previously, it was pretty uncommon for Walt Disney World to launch ‘unique’ particular provides (e.g. not percentage-off room-only charges) virtually on prime of each other.
Beyond that, we will considerably reverse-engineer the recognition of a reduction by looking for lodge room availability to see what’s offered out. During the heyday of Free Dining, total resorts would e book up shortly beneath the promo even for low season journey dates. That’s not what we’re seeing for most conventional dates throughout both of those 2024 particular provides.
This just isn’t essentially conclusive, neither is it an enormous shock. For one factor, there’s the aforementioned exhaustion of pent-up demand. People made up for misplaced time and took Walt Disney World journeys in 2021-2022. They’ve since appeared to different locations, and we’d count on that to be much more true in 2024.
For one other factor, it’s frequent for folks to not begin planning the next 12 months’s holidays in earnest till after the vacations. There’s a purpose why Walt Disney World places a lot effort into the ABC Christmas Day Parade–the window from then till the primary couple weeks of January is traditionally a large time for bookings.
Suffice to say, it’s a bit untimely to attract any robust conclusions about demand for the present promos.
Even although we will’t definitively reply the final query, we’ll transfer ahead to the one about timing for launch of the 2024 Free Dining promo.
If Walt Disney World had the luxurious of exercising endurance and restraint, the reply could be pretty apparent–they’d take a wait and see strategy, releasing Free Dining in March 2024. That would give them time to check completely different promos in January and see how bookings develop early into the brand new 12 months.
That’s not what precedent with current releases suggests will occur, although. Discounts have been coming earlier and extra aggressive. Notably, the present promos are providing important financial savings in March 2024. This is an early ‘red flag’ for crowds subsequent 12 months, as regular spring break and Easter break can be consolidated into March slightly than unfold out throughout March and April 2024 because of Easter taking place early.
Even with revenge journey burning out and a slowdown seemingly on the horizon, the ultimate 3 weeks of March 2024 are going to be very busy. Occupancy for these dates being low proper now doesn’t actually imply a lot–folks don’t begin reserving spring break journeys in earnest this early. The early launch of reductions for March 2024 was seemingly a matter of Walt Disney World wanting the seize the bookings and income within the final quarter and financial 12 months, slightly than letting momentum construct regularly.
With that mentioned, it might additionally level to forward-looking demand eroding even additional. I’m skeptical that Walt Disney World is that good at successfully forecasting something, however maybe they’ve actually good information that reveals even decrease demand subsequent 12 months.
Regardless of the explanation, that is one other level in favor of Walt Disney World releasing Free Dining in January versus ready till March 2024. Either they wish to seize income and make the subsequent quarter’s earnings look higher (bear in mind, they’re going through one other shareholder proxy problem and investor unreset) or their information reveals declining demand.
The ‘why’ doesn’t a lot matter–the end result could be the identical.
That is, after all, assuming that the opposite reductions they’ve launched within the final couple of months didn’t already transfer the needle sufficient on occupancy and that Walt Disney World isn’t going to stay it out with hitting ‘reset’ on reductions, and refraining from providing Free Dining in any respect.
There’s a remaining purpose that Walt Disney World may wish to wait, which is regularly opening the ‘faucet’ of Disney Dining Plan demand. Remember, there have been two large the explanation why the paid Disney Dining Plan was so sluggish to return: greater per visitor spending throughout ‘revenge travel’ with out it and a provide/demand imbalance.
It’s potential that there are nonetheless issues with eating capability and the power of eating places to fulfill demand as soon as the Disney Dining Plan returns in early 2024. The excellent news is that this has been lessening with every passing season, and it might be a complete non-issue in 2024. But it’s troublesome to say that definitively till Walt Disney World is ready to see how issues play out with the Disney Dining Plan.
I don’t actually see this as an enormous problem or obstacle. The paid Disney Dining Plan will return in January 2024. At absolutely the earliest, Free Dining journey dates gained’t happen for an additional 6 months after that. (If there are Free Dining journey dates in May 2024 or earlier, it means one thing has gone horribly improper–we expect there’s a lower than 1% probability of that.)
In any case, that ~6 month hole is greater than sufficient time for extra demand to fall off and what little capability continues to be lacking to be restored. This would’ve been an issue had the Disney Dining Plan returned this 12 months–when it in all probability ought to have, looking back–however not a lot in 2024.
That’s segue into potential 2024 Free Dining journey dates. Assuming that Walt Disney World provides it, we’d anticipate that Free Dining dates will monitor pretty intently with 2018, 2019 and 2020. (See this submit for historic dates for the final decade-plus.)
Free Dining journey dates might begin as early as late June 2024, that means it could overlap with the present children promo. I wouldn’t depend on that–I believe post-Fourth of July is extra seemingly. Summer isn’t peak season and hasn’t been for some time, so everything of July by mid-August is a chance.
With that mentioned, essentially the most dependable set of dates can be in mid-August to late September 2024. Those dates are the slowest of the 12 months at Walt Disney World, and have been the commonest and constant for Free Dining. That date-range must also have the very best availability when it comes to motels. A scattering of November 2024 dates must be obtainable once more, and there’s prone to be a stretch in December after (however not together with) the primary week and working till as late as December 20, 2024.
With all of that mentioned, there are a few wildards. The first is October. That total month had been excluded from Free Dining since 2016. Even earlier than then, there have been solely a scattering of October dates, and never round holidays or fall break. October had spiked in recognition pre-closure and was additionally a preferred month for conventions. But within the final 2 years, we’ve seen a decline. Will that be sufficient for Free Dining dates in October 2024? Maybe, however I wouldn’t wager on it.
The second is Free Dining being launched in a number of waves. This is one thing I might wager on, particularly if Free Dining is launched in January 2024. In reality, if the promo is launched then, I might wager that it solely runs by September 2024 journey dates. Even if there are trepidations about extra of a slowdown and a need to spike bookings, it’s troublesome to examine a situation through which Walt Disney World drops common public reductions for the vacation season on the very starting of the 12 months. That’s simply too quickly.
If they do launch a reduction for October by December 2024 in January, it’ll seemingly be a weak one in an try to seize bookings with out providing a lot. But my cash could be on no reductions in any respect for that timeframe. Those later dates will solely come if Disney waits till March or April to drop Free Dining. Even then, they may do a multiphase strategy and slow-roll the promo’s return.
We’d additionally anticipate that Walt Disney World will proceed its current development of providing an prolonged date vary for Disney Visa cardholders. This provide is considerably akin to a bounce-back in that it’s extra restrictive than a common public provide, and makes it simpler for Disney to supply sure “borderline” dates to a subset of most people.
Ultimately, I’m optimistic concerning the “real” Free Dining returning in 2024. Walt Disney World has now launched a number of reductions for the primary quarter of 2024, all of which got here sooner than their counterparts in 2018 or 2019. In addition to that, Walt Disney World has additionally launched the aforementioned free eating card and Kids Play & Dine for 50% Off Discount. While worth for cash can fluctuate, these reductions are each higher on common than the “Half-Free Dining or Free Dining Lite” reductions launched again throughout the identical time frames in 2018-2019.
In different phrases, what we have now already seen from Walt Disney World when it comes to discounting for 2024 is healthier than 2018 or 2019. The backside line is that every little thing Walt Disney World has carried out up to now with reductions in 2024 means that Free Dining is more and more seemingly. Walt Disney World is heading down the street of at the least matching offers from 2019 and earlier–Free Dining is the logical subsequent cease.
With that mentioned, it’s not a foregone conclusion. Free Dining was an enormous and daring deal that was leveraged by diehards, and Walt Disney World could be reluctant to carry it again after “retraining” longtime followers to simply accept lesser particular provides. However, they’d been attempting to “wean guests off discounts” since 2010–for a full decade as of 2020–and it had by no means fairly labored!
There’s probability it’s not working now, both. That’s very true as prices on every little thing else have gone up. Casual guests pricing out a 2024 trip with paid FastPass, no Disney’s Magical Express, and so on., may want to see Free Dining earlier than being prepared to drag the set off.
Given Disney’s sense of desperation and the way that’s solely prone to worsen as soon as pent-up demand fades additional in 2024 (to not point out a possible recession), I believe Walt Disney World is extra seemingly than to not launch the Free Dining promotion by April 2024 with journey dates for Late Summer and Early Fall 2024. At this level, I’m far much less assured about an earlier launch than that or vacation season journey dates from the soar.
In the tip, Walt Disney World is probably going extra involved about filling lodge rooms and sustaining elevated per visitor spending than they’re about setting an unhealthy precedent with good reductions. My guess is that Free Dining is the ace up their sleeve that the corporate gained’t find a way to withstand enjoying.
In my view, it’s extra a query of “when” slightly than “if.” But I could possibly be completely improper. After all, I did assume that the paid Disney Dining Plan would return a full 12 months earlier than it did. (A viewpoint that, with the good thing about hindsight, I’m guessing many Disney executives share in judging by current earnings calls.)
Planning a Walt Disney World journey? Learn about motels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews web page. For the place to eat, learn our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To lower your expenses on tickets or decide which kind to purchase, learn our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets submit. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips submit takes a singular have a look at intelligent gadgets to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will assist. For complete recommendation, the very best place to begin is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for every little thing it’s good to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you assume will occur–will Free Dining be launched for most people in January 2024, March/April 2024, or by no means? Predicted journey dates–assume it’ll be the usual July by September to begin, fewer dates, or extra dates? Expecting a second wave of Free Dining, or every little thing to be launched unexpectedly? Agree or disagree with our predictions or commentary? Any questions? Hearing your suggestions about your experiences is each attention-grabbing to us and useful to different readers, so please share your ideas or questions under within the feedback!