For a few years, Walt Disney World released the popular Free Dining promotion in the first week of January. On other occasions, the company used the name recognition of that special offer to rebrand other promos–like “Kids Eat Free” and other discounts that have been touted as Free Dining in different forms.
It appears that the first deal that Walt Disney World releases in 2023 will be the latter. Rumors have been swirling since late December that a free Disney Dining Card (like the one pictured above) would be included with select packages in the second half of the year that include full priced hotels and tickets.
This has really firmed up in the last two days, with embargoed leaks corroborating the prior rumors. This special offer is pretty much an open secret at this point, and has been for a while. Heck, Walt Disney World has been promoting it on Twitter since December 20:
Unfortunately, this will not be the “real” Free Dining promo. Rather, this more closely resembles the “Stay, Play, Dine and Save” deal that we’ve seen repeatedly over the last several years. This, too, has traded on the ‘name recognition’ of Free Dining in order to make a less appealing special offer seem more desirable.
In fact, this is not all that different from the current Walt Disney World 50th Anniversary “Grand Finale” offer for the general public, which touts Saving Up to $100 Off Nightly Resort Rates. With that tiered discount, guests can save up to $20 per night at Value Resorts, up to $40 per night at Moderate Resorts, and up to $100 per night at Deluxe Resorts for dates between now and March 30, 2023.
The twist here is that rather than getting that money in the form of a dollar amount savings per night, guests receive it in rebate form, via a “free” (air quotes) Disney Dining Gift Card. This has two advantages for Walt Disney World: it makes this sound sorta like Free Dining (who doesn’t love FREE FOOD?!) and it also allows the company to maintain its beloved high per guest spending numbers.
For the last year or so, Disney has been proudly touting its ~40% increase in per guest spending over 2019. That has been accomplished in a variety of ways, including Genie+ and Lightning Lanes, higher ticket prices, limited resort discounts, fewer Annual Passholders, and…well, just about everything else.
In fairness, increased per guest spending is not a new or novel idea piloted by the dearly-departed Bob Chapek. (While gone as CEO, his spirit will undoubtedly live on for the year to come.) That’s a huge reason why Free Dining was launched in the first place–it locked guests into purchasing full price tickets and hotels, thereby increasing overall spending even though they received the Disney Dining Plan for “free” (air quotes, again).
This is a new twist on that same idea. Here, instead of reducing resort rates–thereby lowering per guest spending–Walt Disney World is shifting that savings to a Disney Dining Card. For most guests, this is a distinction without a difference as they’d easily spend that money on meals.
For others, that may not necessarily be the case–especially those who dine off-site or do grocery delivery to prepare meals in their rooms. Which is precisely why Walt Disney World is doing this rather than simply reducing prices. (Well, that and this is probably better from a marketing perspective!)
With that background out of the way, let’s go over the rough contours of this free Disney Dining Card deal.
This offer is set to go live on January 5, 2023 and will be available to guests who book a minimum 4-night stay at select, qualifying Walt Disney World Resort hotels with at least 4-day tickets. It will be available for travel dates between June 25, 2023 and September 14, 2023.
As you can see from the Tweet towards the top of the post, the headline touts that it’ll offer up to a $750 Disney Dining Promo Card. However,…
Read More: Disney World Rumored to Offer “Free” Dining Card Discount in 2023