Editor’s Note: The 2017 Disney World Free Dining Offer was originally released in April 2017. Because of the popularity of the Free Dining promotion, the offer sells out very quickly.
IT’S ON. The Walt Disney World’s Free Dining Offer is officially coming back and will be offered to guests for select dates in late August, September, November, and December 2017 (NOTE: There are no October dates this year, but if your check-in date is in late September, you can obviously take your stay into October).
Disney World Free Dining 2017 Travel Dates
Free Dining is being offered to guests ARRIVING during the dates listed below. 
August 21* – September 30, 2017
November 14 – November 20, 2017
November 25 – November 27, 2017
December 8 – December 23, 2017
You must book by July 7th to get the offer.
*Disney Visa Cardholders may book dates starting August 13th. We’ll be updating the post throughout the day with details as we get them.
(Please note that the offer excludes: campsites, 3-bedroom villas, Disney’s Art of Animation Resort – Little Mermaid Standard Rooms, and Bungalows at Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows as per Disney World’s website. Some sources are reporting more exclusions. Your mileage may vary. )
Disney Resorts
If you stay at a Value or Moderate Resort, you’ll receive the Quick Service Dining plan for FREE. (Note that you can upgrade to the standard or deluxe dining plans by paying the difference in cost per night.) Note that the Caribbean Beach Resort is undergoing massive refurbishment this year. It’s still available to book for the offer, but we just wanted to give you the heads’ up.
If you reserve a Deluxe or Deluxe Villa Resort, you will receive the standard Dining plan for FREE. (You can upgrade to the deluxe dining plan by paying the difference in cost per night).
Minimum/Maximum Days
You must book a minimum stay of 3 nights/maximum stay of 14 nights
at a Disney-owned resort. (This is based on our calculations making trial reservations, though Disney does not specify a minimum stay this year.) You also need to purchase AT LEAST a 2-day Magic Your Way Disney World ticket with a Park Hopper AND/OR the Park Hopper Plus Option.
Will Free Dining Save You Money?
Since Disney World’s Free Dining offer generally can’t be combined with other discounts, it’s often difficult to determine whether or not your family will save more money with a Disney World hotel room discount or with the free dining offer.
We break down and compare the costs and options for several Disney World discounts, including the Free Dining offer, in our fully updated DFB Guide to Walt Disney World® Dining 2017 Second Edition e-Book to help you save the most money possible.
Along with over 650 pages of great Disney World dining advice, full color photos, and details, this book is a great deal.
Get your DFB Guide to WDW Dining here, and speaking of saving money — use code “SAVE2017” to get 20% off today! With a full, money-back guarantee, there’s nothing to lose!
Are you excited for Free Dining? Please let us know with a comment!
Our handy (and portable!) ebook guides make sure you get the best deals and can plan a vacation of a lifetime.
I have to make the same comment I make each time they do these “dining” things at Disney. We have found that each time they do this, the quality of the food, as well as the portion sizes and the choices suffer.
We have been going to WDW for some 30-odd years now, and each and every time they do this dining thing, we just opt for fast foods instead of the sit down meals because of the drop in quality AND quantity.
You are absolutely correct. I wish Disney would realize that not everybody can afford their pricing. I am just a regular type person and and enjoy coming to Disney but lately it has gotten way out of hand. Also, have you tried to book a popular restaurant? I have tried 30+ time using many dates and all times and 7 months out and was not able to get in Be Our Guest. Something is not right here. Anyone else having the same experience?
Also, do you think for one minute Disney is offering this dining plans if they aren’t making a ton of money off the promotion? I don’t think so.
I booked my Caribbean Beach reservation back when they were offering $75 in gift cards per night for the length of stay with the idea that I’d be adding the free dining when it was added, but today they also announced 25% off room discounts for my stay and doing the math, I save more with that than with free dining that I’d have to upgrade to the regular plan and get park hopper… so I just updated my reservation to the room discount instead… and I can use my gift cards to cover my meals (and more)!
Any insight as to whether Disney will offer room discounts in October, besides the first week?
If you’ve already booked your vacation, and it includes the meal plan, is there a way to cancel the “paid” plan and add the “free” meal plan?
How can people get free food?
I’m confused. You say the required minimum is 3 nights; Disney website says this:
“Get a FREE dining plan when you purchase a non-discounted 5-night/6-day Magic Your Way room and ticket package with a Park Hopper or Park Hopper Plus Option.”
I booked for 5 nights this morning, which is two more than we were planning to stay… not that I’m complaining, but my budget is. So, is there really a way to get free dining this August for a stay of only 3 nights?
Elizabeth — Yep! I booked a three-night stay at Yacht Club with free dining this morning. Just choose three nights when you’re booking online and you’re good to go! You should be able to cut your current trip down to three nights as long as you are still checking in on an applicable date. Disney ALWAYS does the 5-night trick — it’s just marketing language and meant to pull in more money.
Tricia …
Personally, it sounds like you are getting a much better deal w/25% Off + $75 GiftCard/Night for the Caribbean Beach you’ve booked. I could be totally wrong, as I’ve never been to WDW! I am just now researching how to go about getting the best deal for our first vacation in Fall ’18. And to me, it sounds like you’re getting a great deal. (Out of curiosity when did you originally book your reservation with that promotion? And what time of year are you going?)
With the mentioned decrease in food quality during the Free Dining dates and the difficulty in reserving dining options, it’s frustrating news when trying to navigate the wild (disney)world of vacationing on a budget!
We had already booked a 2 week stay in Sept 2017 back in December. We opted to ignore the Dining Plans, and also have a 14 day Ultimate Park Ticket. Are we eligible for the free dining plans?
I have already booked a trip for Dec 6-12th. will any dates apply or will I have to change the dates?
Daniel — Check your dates against the dates of the offer and your accommodations against the resorts where the offer is applicable, and then give Disney a call. If all the stars align, you may be. 🙂
So I rang Disney, about those with pre-existing bookings during said dates, they advised you would be best cancelling your original booking (and forfeit £100 and re-book) to get the Free Meal Plan added on.
I explained the original booking came with a discount in December, but they said that shouldnt matter.
Just a quick tip about reservations. If you can’t get a reservation and you’ve been checking back a whole bunch with no luck, try again when it’s less than 24 hours out. A lot of people book reservations months in advance, and then their plans change when they actually get there. If you don’t want to be charged a cancellation fee, you have to cancel before that 24-hour mark. As a result, I’ve had really good luck with booking reservations within 24 hours.
I was at animal kingdom the other night waiting for Rivers of Light to start. I checked the MyDisneyExperience App for breakfast reservations for the next morning and there was an 8:05AM reservation at Be Our Guest available! There were quite a few other hard-to-find reservations as well. We ended up going with an 8:30 Ohana reservation (also a hard one to book), but there was also a Chef Micky reservation available. All of these had been booked out for months before our trip, but they were all available within 24-hours of when we actually were looking for breakfast. So, if you’re feeling really frustrated, try one more time the day before you want to eat somewhere. You might luck-out.
Just booked the free dining package. Thanks so much for the heads up! I have the Disney Visa so I could book for our trip 8/13-3/19. I was on hold for over an hour this morning but got in and was good to go. It’s going to save us a ton of money. We were planning on paying out of pocket but with this deal we’re saving over $400!
We have been to Disney both with free dining and without, and I have not ever noticed a decrease in quality or quantity of food. The food depends on the restaurant you choose. For my trip booked at the end of August 2017 that has 4 adults and a child of 17, the free dining is an excellent promotion. We are booked at Caribbean Beach and also have the $75 gc per night. We upgraded our dining plan to the regular one as we have booked all our table services through the my Disney experience app at the 180 day before mark. Disney isn’t cheap that is for sure but right now we are going to stay at a moderate resort for 8 nights with food and park hopper tickets (which we always get anyway) for about $1100 per person. Try going anywhere else for that! Because it’s technically 5 adults in our room the room only discount does not save us as much as the free dining does, plus not having to worry about spending money on food while I’m on vacation is a huge plus for me. So all that to say don’t dismiss free dining out of hand and say the room only is a better deal (sometimes yes, sometimes no) It’s a good deal used to fill up resorts at a quiet time and I personally love to take advantage of it!
Is the newly released free dining for 2017 for the American market only or can it be booked from the UK for a 2 week holiday?
While at WDW last August, fortunately we booked on the bounce back offer they had at the time. We are staying at the Port Orleans Riverside from August 26-September 5 and got free Disney Dining. I would have been upset at the quick service they posted this year! 5 of us go every year and the free dining saves us a ton of money because we stay anywhere from 7-14 days at a time.
Also, I was looking on the site to get a price for a friend and her family who is looking at traveling with us this year. Same dates, same resort with the free quick service dining is almost $2,000.00 more than what we paid! And we have free Disney dining!
Does anyone have any thoughts on the recent Free Dining Offer? Disney has now changed the Moderate Resorts to Free Quick Service Dining now? With having to “upgrade” to the regular dining plan which I received in last year’s package, this will now cost me an additional $1200 more from last year to this year for the same length during the same time at the same resort…not to mention I deducted two less park days. It’s very disappointing to take the same vacation but now pay $1200 more with less park days. That’s a huge hike! It is concerning to me that they are out-pricing themselves and forcing more people to bypass this offer.
Why all this whining about prices etc higher than in the past and free stuff? When have people become so entitled? You either want to go to Disney, save the money and go. Or you don’t. Disney does not owe you anything.It is a business. Smartly run. They will always be busy. Or after another 50 yrs, they might go bust. And then you have missed your chance to go. It is your decision. Take responsibility!
I merely asked for comments and people’s thoughts , not mean replies and assumptions about entitlement. I commented on the sharp price hike…not just “whining”. Being in accounting myself, one should realize if you are paying $1200 more….free is not really free. You really are paying for the dining with the price hike. Hope this helps your understanding. Les Stuckey states it well in the above comments too. Promotions are run to draw people in especially when competition like Universal is building up. Disney will not go bust. However, if they want to compete and keep their share of the pie, they need to make their promotions attractive and affordable to families. Every child deserves a little Disney magic and hopefully Disney won’t out-price themselves to their competition.
Wished DVC would be included in these promotions at times.
I am not happy. we started to go to Disney in October because we like the Halloween atmosphere, and they all ways offer free dining. But not this year and we have all ready booked our vacation and bought the dining plan. sooo not happy with Disney right now!!
Disney knows nothing about this free dining offer! So disappointed your site got my hopes up for nothing!!!
If your posting this you should confirm this first !
Tom — Thanks for reading. The 2017 Disney World Free Dining Offer was confirmed earlier this year. It could be that all of the spaces for it have sold out at this point.
Ambrosia — This offer was originally announced in April 2017. Free dining is an extremely popular offer, and tends to sell out very quickly.
We were at Disney World from July 31- Aug 6 and back in January 2017 I booked a partially free dining plan offer. It was quick service and everyone in our party got 1 meal free per day. The plan was 2 QS meals + 2 snacks + a refillable mug. We loved the plan. QS meals were fine with us as we had my 9 year old with us and we were on the go a lot and the QS meals were fast but very good. I also liked the fact that I didn’t have to carry any cash or even my wallet all week. Everything was done through my Magic Band. This deal beat all other offers that I saw as I continually checked until I made my final pmt.