Free Dining 2015: The aftermath!

[AP1209]

First time poster here. Scheduled our trip last month for Dec 15-20 last month before DP dates came out. Based on rumors that I heard I did not think free dining would be available during our stay so we opted to stay at AoA LM room just to give it a try. To our surpise, free dining was offered during our stay but obviously not at the LM rooms. My wife and I debated changing rooms to POP yesterday to take advantage of the free dining. Ultimately, we decided to make to make an attempt to switch. I went online last night at 8:30 to try and switch but there was no availability at POP at all. We were a little disappointed but nothing really had changed. We still planned on going and enjoying our trip as planned. At 2:30am this morning our 5 month old decided he was hungry so I get up to feed him. After feeding getting him back to sleep I decided to take one more crack at trying to get a room at POP just on a whim. Lucky me, because at 3am a room at POP became available somehow. I scooped it up quickly and saved the family $500 bucks. Took all of 5 mins to switch everything. We are very pleased. Still a little disappointed to not stay at AoA but its our 1st time at POP as well so it should be fun.

 

[Anesthesia Fine]

We booked our upcoming trip back in February simply because the dates were what worked for us so they weren't going to change no matter what was going on. So I stayed far away from the website yesterday.

I owe our TA a thank you note, though, because we didn't contact her at all but received an email around 9:30 last night that simply read: "Free dining applied!" I am not sure I want to know what her day was like yesterday.

 

[Lifeangel1]

We had a reservation booked for Oct 1st-11th at AoA. We booked a suite because we are 4 adults and 2 teens. At 630 am we started calling. Took 119 times until we got through then on hold 20 minutes. Couldnt get FD applied at AoA so we moved to a cabin at Fw. Not as much room but we will make it work. Just happy to be going back!!

 

[rere101399]

Same as another poster, stayed up till midnight on Sunday went to bed and got up a few minutes before 6. Immediately was able to book on my phone via Safari with no issues. Got exactly what I wanted Nov 14-20 standard room at AKL and had an email confirmation at 6:07am

 

[MouseNerds3]

We usually would stay at a moderate, we could not find anything for our dates. So we had to settle for a standard room at POP. Oh well! It's Disney! We will make the best of it lol

 

[Astylla]

I woke up from insomnia around 2:40am PDT - saw FD was live and went online. Booked my room view and resort choice and dates - CBR Water/Pool view Dec. 15-21st all done in 10 minutes.
Now I attribute this to being so early before the rush began. Being online at the right time definitely worked in my favor.

 

[kels420]

We had a nemo suite booked at AoA for 10/24....my travel agent couldn't get us the free dining. She was on the phone working yesterday from 6am-11pm and said out of 48 clients she needed to switch over, only got 10 done. We went back and forth, I even booked myself through the phone a separate reservation for saratoga springs but it was a bit over our budget. Lo and behold, checked again today after being on the phone this morning for an hour and up until midnight last night, and there was a lion king suite at AoA for 10/25-11/1. Booked and saved $600!

 

[emmamomma]

The FD has different v ariables that make it work. We are only 3 people but we are at the moderate level and we are there for 10 nights. We saved $500 from the room only discount.

 

[Grendalynn]

I have been on hold off and on all day totaling over 2+ hours!! I have called what seems like a hundered times just hoping to get through and not heard the dreaded "all circuits are busy - please try your call again later" recording... And now, I am on attempt #212 and I am currently at 39 minutes... We already have an existing reservation which falls in a November FD window. I made this way back when hoping for FD and totally lucked out... Now I just need to update the package!

 

[Nebsky]

We booked a trip back in early March. We got 35 percent off room Atrium level at Contemporary, free upgraded park hoppers with the hopes of free dining coming soon. My wife called yesterday morning at 8 am central. She got us the free dining with out much trouble. She didn't call in on the main line though. She was given concierge number if she needed to book anything. She was told they couldn't do it but transfered to guest services who then transfered to central reservations. Worked out great for us. Hope others were as successful also.

I had heard there were a lot of issues yesterday. Read about some. It sounds like they didn't plan as well as it could have been.

 

[wdw4lif]

I had to wait until after I got the kiddos off to school, and did it online. It took me about an hour or so for the website to work all the way through to checkout. My mom also wanted to book it as well, but couldn't do it until later afternoon, and by then it was sold out. Luckily they still have a 1 day NE PH ticket left so she just got a package with 1 base ticket. It's just her and my step-dad so the money for the entire package difference was just over $300 and she didn't figure they'd eat that amount in a couple days at the parks. The only value I could get was POP Standard Pool Room, which was the resort we were hoping for anyway.

 

[mamaode]

I was able to get exactly what I wanted too! I however read all the problems about people on the phone and the modify button etc not working. So instead of trying to modify my existing reservation I simply booked a new one online at 6:36am took 5 mins and was a happy camper. Cancelled my existing reservation right after the new res showed up in my MDE.

 

[GoldenLulu13]

One word ...Disaster!! Our TA originally told us you could not add Free Dining to an existing reservation if it became available, so advised us to wait until early May when the promotion is typically announced! She emailed me yesterday at 9am...told me it was available for Visa holders now and general public on Thursday and that POFQ was included! I then found out through my own research ( Disney website and here!) that the offer became available somewhere between 4 and 6 AM, POFQ was NOT included, and our 2nd choice (Caribbean Beach) was also now no longer available (as of today)! Decided to call Disney on my own...had to try a couple times, once got through on hold but wait was over an hour. Hung up and tried again later and hold time was less than 5 mins!! Ended up booking a 1 bedroom villa at Old Key West for 4 adults with the Free Dining and actually worked out to be less than $100 per person more than doing 2 rooms at a moderate resort! I'm still waiting on a quote from the TA!! Lesson learned - next time I'll just do it myself!!

 

[Grendalynn]

Yay!! after 1 hour and 54 minutes I have made it through to a live person!!!!! And the Cast Member was AMAZING!! I scooped up a week long stay at the Boardwalk and a weekend stay at Caribbean Beach for the Jingle Jungle 5k!

 

[McGreezy]

This whole thing has my head spinning. I'm thinking the next time we book I'm going to do it myself and just learn how to navigate the online sstuff myself. It was such a frenzy.
Is it like this when room discounts get announced too???

 

[donp]

We booked a trip back in early March. We got 35 percent off room Atrium level at Contemporary, free upgraded park hoppers with the hopes of free dining coming soon. My wife called yesterday morning at 8 am central. She got us the free dining with out much trouble. She didn't call in on the main line though. She was given concierge number if she needed to book anything. She was told they couldn't do it but transfered to guest services who then transfered to central reservations. Worked out great for us. Hope others were as successful also.

I had heard there were a lot of issues yesterday. Read about some. It sounds like they didn't plan as well as it could have been.

Did you get FD on top of those other discounts??

 

[donp]

One word ...Disaster!! Our TA originally told us you could not add Free Dining to an existing reservation if it became available, so advised us to wait until early May when the promotion is typically announced! She emailed me yesterday at 9am...told me it was available for Visa holders now and general public on Thursday and that POFQ was included! I then found out through my own research ( Disney website and here!) that the offer became available somewhere between 4 and 6 AM, POFQ was NOT included, and our 2nd choice (Caribbean Beach) was also now no longer available (as of today)! Decided to call Disney on my own...had to try a couple times, once got through on hold but wait was over an hour. Hung up and tried again later and hold time was less than 5 mins!! Ended up booking a 1 bedroom villa at Old Key West for 4 adults with the Free Dining and actually worked out to be less than $100 per person more than doing 2 rooms at a moderate resort! I'm still waiting on a quote from the TA!! Lesson learned - next time I'll just do it myself!!

It looks like TA ups and downs were the norm. Folks felt helpless tryingto see if their TAs could get FD applied. Sounds like the whole thing was a shocker for most of them.

 

[Kshell40]

I have been on hold off and on all day totaling over 2+ hours!! I have called what seems like a hundered times just hoping to get through and not heard the dreaded "all circuits are busy - please try your call again later" recording... And now, I am on attempt #212 and I am currently at 39 minutes... We already have an existing reservation which falls in a November FD window. I made this way back when hoping for FD and totally lucked out... Now I just need to update the package!

Good luck. I tired to do that to an existing reservation and they said all free dining for that type of room was used. Couldn't adjust our reservation.

 

[soniam]

This whole thing has my head spinning. I'm thinking the next time we book I'm going to do it myself and just learn how to navigate the online sstuff myself. It was such a frenzy.
Is it like this when room discounts get announced too???

I haven't seen it so bad with room discounts. However, those are offered more frequently and spread throughout the year. I have added the room discount to reservations for 3 trips now with maybe a 15 minute wait at most. The last one I had the Disney Visa, so I got to do it a little early.

 

[Luv0fDisney]

I originally wanted the week of the 8th but by the time I got home from my job interview. However I managed to snag the 3rd week (our usual week) we go.
So Excited. I can't wait there's only 20-19 days until my ADR's can be made.