Sorry- another Expedia/free meals thread

[disney_princess_85]

Hi guys! DBF and I are planning to book our November trip this week, via Expedia. I know there have been some problems with booking online and getting confirmation that the free meals are included. Could anyone tell me *just* how difficult it was to obtain the correct information from Expedia? I know I could call them to book the holiday but I'd much rather get it over and done with online. I obviously don't want to run into any problems though, so I'm not sure what to do!

[mummybear]

We booked ours through Greenbee (which is a part of John Lewis)

We booked room only for January, and it showed Disney Free Dining, but not on the confirmation. Emailed them straight away, they emailed back saying they were looking into it. On Thursday, 2 weeks later, we received an email from them to say our meal vouchers were to be picked up from the hotel reception on arrival.

So I would recommend phoning them, if you want a faster response. And then get them to email you the confirmation.

[disney_princess_85]

Thanks! Yeah, I guess it would be sorted out either way, I just can't be bothered with the whole sending emails back and forth malarkey. I might call them before I plan to book and see what they advise me to do.

[disney_princess_85]

Hmm, so I just called Expedia to check this out and no-one seemed to know what I was talking about (I spoke to two people)! Oh dear. Under the 'DEALS' tab on the homepage there is a DLRP sub-section, where it is clearly stated that all meals are included when you book any Disney hotel. However, the advisor I spoke to couldn't even locate this himself- I had to direct him to it! ARGH! Anyway, he is now "looking into it" (supposedly), and will call me back later. It all seems a bit of a mess.

[Elroe63]

Hmm, so I just called Expedia to check this out and no-one seemed to know what I was talking about (I spoke to two people)! Oh dear. Under the 'DEALS' tab on the homepage there is a DLRP sub-section, where it is clearly stated that all meals are included when you book any Disney hotel. However, the advisor I spoke to couldn't even locate this himself- I had to direct him to it! ARGH! Anyway, he is now "looking into it" (supposedly), and will call me back later. It all seems a bit of a mess.

This is even more puzzling since for my dates in Jan all of the hotels except Cheyenne (the one I wanted) were showing free dining. Not looked very hard but it would appear that other dates have some but not necessarily all hotels with the offer. So I don't even feel confident that, say all bookings by a certain date have the offer.

I too feel that this could end up a right mess. Expedia must have had enough enquiries about this by now to be able to at least have some answers ready on a computer screen when somebody asks

[disney_princess_85]

I too feel that this could end up a right mess. Expedia must have had enough enquiries about this by now to be able to at least have some answers ready on a computer screen when somebody asks

Exactly! They're handling it really badly. Needless to say by the way, they haven't called me back (they said they would by 7pm). I feel like I should book the Magic Circus instead and pay for meals OOP- we are AP holders so we'd get a discount anyway. We were looking forward to staying in the Cheyenne though. :sad2:

Would anyone who has booked with Expedia please be able to tell me how you managed to obtain the confirmation of the free dining offer?

[DLPdaft]

Its definitely not all hotels and all dates that you can book the free dining plan with, on Expedia.

I booked about 2 weeks ago with them, at that time my plan was for March 2010, but the Santa Fe wasn't coming up with the free dining plan included on Expedia. But dates in late November were, so I booked those. I phoned to book though, as when I tried to do it online, the confirmation just didn't mention anything about the free dining plan included.

When I phoned, I explained what I wanted, and that I wasn't booking with them unless I got written confirmation with my booking confirmation, that the dining plan was included in the price. It did take 2 phone calls, to 2 different staff members, to get it done (the booking number girl could see the offer, but just couldn't get it to show on the confirmation). Customer services provided me with a booking confirmation, which has a note added to it that the dining plan is included.

Just as a further note, I looked at the end of last week on Expedia, and my November dates had stopped showing the dining plan as a free special offer, and the room rate had doubled :scared1:.

So I'd say, if you're planning to book with Expedia to get the good deals, do it sooner rather than later.

[disney_princess_85]

Thanks for the info! :thumbsup2 Not really what I wanted to hear though... :rotfl: Well, it doesn't seem like this is going to be easy. Just out of interest, I checked if it showed up on a hotel-only booking (rather than a flight-inclusive one), and, alas, it did! I guess it might make sense to just book the hotel and flight seperately, if it's going to save me some bother. Saying that, who knows if it will show up in the actual email confirmation... perhaps not. :confused3

[Elroe63]

Thanks for the info! :thumbsup2 Not really what I wanted to hear though... :rotfl: Well, it doesn't seem like this is going to be easy. Just out of interest, I checked if it showed up on a hotel-only booking (rather than a flight-inclusive one), and, alas, it did! I guess it might make sense to just book the hotel and flight seperately, if it's going to save me some bother. Saying that, who knows if it will show up in the actual email confirmation... perhaps not. :confused3

This is the point really. No it doesn't show up on any email confirmation. It is mentioned on the screen page then never seen again!

I don't quite know how Expedia works but presumably they act as a kind of agent for Disney who release to them a certain number of "special offer" rooms at any time and the offer is from Disney via Expedia and so when Disney get our details it will be on their system what deal we are getting hopefully! At least this was the situation when I bokked a totally different offer with a totally different company and all was fine.

I can see there could be absolute chaos if we all turn up expecting free dining and Disney don't know anything about it either!

[Sharon Mouse]

Oh dear, it does appear that expedia are having problems. I booked with them over the phone this week for Santa Fe for end of Nov and got the guy after much pleading to send an email, after he contacted Disney. However the email doesn't really look very official, but he did say the dining plan was included and Disney did confirm it for him. Would be quite nice to hear from anyone who is going on the free dining plan and booked with expedia in the first week of offer if they had any problems. Please lets hope the expedia and disney people have got it all right, i don't want to get upset when we first get there and spoil the magic :furious::sad1::sad2:

[disney_princess_85]

I can see there could be absolute chaos if we all turn up expecting free dining and Disney don't know anything about it either!

I know, I really hope this doesn't happen. :sad2:

Oh dear, it does appear that expedia are having problems. I booked with them over the phone this week for Santa Fe for end of Nov and got the guy after much pleading to send an email, after he contacted Disney. However the email doesn't really look very official, but he did say the dining plan was included and Disney did confirm it for him. Would be quite nice to hear from anyone who is going on the free dining plan and booked with expedia in the first week of offer if they had any problems. Please lets hope the expedia and disney people have got it all right, i don't want to get upset when we first get there and spoil the magic :furious::sad1::sad2:

It's ridiculous that you had to practically force an Expedia employee to send you the correct information! They obviously haven't been trained properly on this. It really isn't good enough, no-one wants unnecessary stress before a holiday.

I really hope that we're all worrying about nothing and when we turn up at DLRP, our vouchers will be waiting for us with no questions asked.