September free dining and crowds/restaurants

[aurora, ariel, and bell]

I know the question of crowds during September has been asked, and the usual response is the crowds are not bad but the restaurants are packed.

Just curious how can the restaurants be packed without the crowds being heavy at the parks

[disneykat]

Disney offers a limited number of "free dining" packages. Not everyone visiting during this time will have "free dining." That being said, those who do have the free dining plan will more than likely planned ahead and made their ressies. This makes the restaurants quite busy. However, overall attendance during this time is typically quite low. This is the primary reason that Disney started offering the free dining incentive. They wanted people to visit at a historically low attendance time. This year will make the 4th straight year that we've gone during free dining. We've been able to walk right on many rides and fastpasses made the others very short wait times.

17 Days til Disney!!!

[faline]

Prior to the free dining offers, many folks who visited the parks did not take the time to utilize the table service restaurants and relied mainly on the counter service restaurants. Since free dining is included with your reservation, you would obviously want to make the most use of it so the table service restaurants tend to be very busy during this time.

[aurora, ariel, and bell]

Yea that makes sense...couldn't get my head around it at first...figured if restaurants busy, so the park would be too!

Thanks for the explanation

[MuchLovedMama]

I think another reason could be beacuase not all the TS's at the parks are on the dining plan so with basically everybody being on the plan they are forced to split between say 4 of the TS's instead of the 6 that may truly be there because 2 aren't on the plan.

[KAT1811]

Prior to the introduction of "free dining" we really did not spend all that much time at TS restaurants. We typically booked a few and ate CS the rest of the time. Now we are not going during "free dining" and still have TS meals booked every night we are there. We are hooked on Disney dining and are trying a few more upscale restaurants this trip. When "free dining" is offered people feel obligated to get their "money's" worth and make certain they book a TS for each day thus making the restaurants, much busier.

[Lynn J Mc]

Which TSs aren't on the DP? I haven't run into any that aren't

[MizMissy]

Also, I think the parks are not crowded because this is not "high" season for the rest of Orlando - therefore, there may be people staying at Disney resorts and most are eating TS because of free dining, but not as many non-Disney resort guests in the parks.
That's also why EMH aren't so much of a benefit because most people attending the parks are staying on property. Although, I find that we have to use EMH in September because of the shortened park hours otherwise.

[MuchLovedMama]

Which TSs aren't on the DP? I haven't run into any that aren't

Let's use AK for example. Normally my family would eat at Rainforest but it's not on the plan. So those wanting to do a TS there are forced to pick between just 2 other places there.

There's also BISTRO DE PARIS at Epcot. I was thinking there was more but I'm not seeing any right off the bat.

I was thinking Brown Derby wasn't on the plan but I just saw that it is but it's 2 credits.

I'll just add though that normally at Epcot & MK there aren't any TS's that normally catch our eye so we would be doing CS's instead but on the plan like almost everbody else during free dining we are doing the TS's therefore making them more crowded when I'm sure there are others out there like us as others have stated.