Help with free dining needed

[pigby]

We are looking to book a stay next Fall (September) and hopefully get free dining. I have seen the dates this year and they would work for us if similar next year.

If the dates are released in April again, we would have already booked the Disney hotel and park hoppers so I thought it would just be a case to adding the free dining to our booking if our first day of our stay was eligible.

Someone on another thread said that Disney only release a few rooms for free dining and that they were all sold out 'within hours' this year - is that true?

 

[supersnoop]

Most of the less expensive rooms sell out almost immediately. But availability changes constantly, and many rooms were available late in the promotion period this year.

Also remember that Disney offers "free" dining as a promotion to fill rooms, so if everyone already has a room booked, there's little reason for them to offer any sort of promotion.

 

[vicarrieous]

Also remember that having a room booked does not guarantee you free dining. That type of room, date etc. has to be available in order for you to book it. Having it advance unfortunately is no advantage whatsoever.

The restrictions and availability for free dining has been rapidly decreasing. If they do offer it next year, I would expect even more less availability or more requirements in order to receive it. Make sure to stay on top of rumors/advice etc. so you are prepared for a potential release.

 

[Fiddysmum]

Hi this is my very first post and I am using it to tell you how free dining worked for us

We booked in November at POR Riverside for 5 nights Sept 15/2015 with the HOPE that we would be able to get free dining but knowing we would go anyway. When the free dining opened up my travel agent said "cross your fingers!" and she was on the phone for hours and the only way for us to get the free dining was to upgrade to a Royal Room and get the Water Park and More tickets. So we did that, knowing we would have gotten the dining plan free or not, added another night on our trip and are taking a waterpark break now

This is my first ever trip to Disney, we are surprising the kids, my DH went a million times in the 80s but not since...so trip of a lifetime for me. 44 days to go! Thats it! Hope that helps!

 

[runnerchick]

We have booked with Free Dining quite a few times. This year we are using the magical agency deal - and visiting over labor day (works out better for us than the free dining). I was watching free dining closely though - if you wanted POR it was gone super quickly. However, Coronado - standard view room was still available close to when the promotion ended. I was looking at the week after Labor Day (arriving on Sept 12th). So depending which resort and your dates, it may not be too difficult to book! This year you needed to add Park Hopper or Water Parks as a add on to your tix (about $250 for a family of four). Looks like that is the requirement for the "free dining bounce back offer" for Sept of 2016, so I imagine that will be the case when/if this promotion is offered to the general public. Good luck!

 

[pigby]

Thank you - we are looking the week after you runnerchick so probably 19th September - do you think that the earlier you go in September the better chance you might have?

We were thinking of a value resort - would they be really hard to snag - is there one value resort easier to get than others?

 

[burne99]

With free
Dining offers, work out what would be best for your family, but if you stay value, you get the quick service plan free. With a moderate, you get the regular dining plan. Most people pay to upgrade to get the regular plan. Most find it works out only a little more expensive to upgrade to a moderate hotel and get the regular plan free. You get a better (subjective) hotel for a similar price.

For me, there is only two of us and we stay deluxe. Room only discounts are a better deal for us and when I calculate my spend vs the dining plan, I have always found it cheaper to pay out of pocket.

 

[12disneybee]

Hopefully bounce back for next fall is out next month
I'll be there for 18 days this September

 

[MakiraMarlena]

Free dining is a package reservation and must include at least 2 day park tickets. Make sure you book a package reservation if you are intending to apply free dining.

If you are looking into booking at a value resort, remember the free plan will be the quick service plan. You can pay the difference to upgrade to the regular plan that has table service allotments.

There will likely be no offer at Art of Animation regarding the Little Mermaid rooms. There may be an offer for the family suites. Pop Century is usually represented in the offer. All Stars may include Sports and Music but exclude Movies.

 

[pigby]

Thanks I read which resorts offer the free dining potentially and exclusions etc but I was really meaning in your experience whether it was really really difficult to get a free dining deal at value resorts - we have had free dining a few times and are OK with Quick Service this time (I think - although always had full DDP in the past)
If as one person suggests that CSR still had availability towards the end of the promotion that may well be OK too.

As I am ringing from overseas and it will be around lunchtime here, then I will probably be in work on the day the deals first come out and I don't think they will be overjoyed if I make a call overseas for an hour or more, which is why I am wondering which resorts get booked up the quickest.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

don't know where you are, but if it happens to be Great Britain you could probably get free dining right now. I don't think the British offer extends to value resorts though.

 

[pigby]

It is - we have done free dining over here several times and you have to buy 14 day all singing all dancing tickets which is about $1500 for the three of us plus the cost of the hotel. This has worked out well for us before but we only want about 5 days park hoppers which would be much cheaper plus as you say, no free dining with value and only QS with moderates (instead of full dining with US offer) - we are intending to stay only a week in Disney and rest of the time, go to Cabana bay in Universal (where we went this year - amazing BTW)

 

[kaytieeldr]

We are looking to book a stay next Fall (September) and hopefully get free dining. I have seen the dates this year and they would work for us if similar next year.

If the dates are released in April again, we would have already booked the Disney hotel and park hoppers so I thought it would just be a case to adding the free dining to our booking if our first day of our stay was eligible.

Someone on another thread said that Disney only release a few rooms for free dining and that they were all sold out 'within hours' this year - is that true?

The more rooms already booked at a given property, the less need (and so likelihood) for the specific resort to participate. The goal of any promotion or discount is to increase occupancy levels.

 

[Nancyg56]

I know that people book rooms hoping to secure FD if the offer is released. I think that can be problematic if Disney opens a FD offer. They only open the rooms they want to fill, so until all those "extra" rooms are canceled, it is a nightmare to try to apply the discount. The folks who were vying for those few rooms this year were pretty frustrated.

 

[pigby]

Thanks all. Idea is to book our flights - have to book these early as from experience prices always go up - and just sit tight until April or whenever the offers come up - we will have to go for less nights on a room only if necessary - we will book the remainder at Universal.

 

[Misha72683]

I spent two hours on hold the first day to get FDing and wasn't able to get the room I wanted, but I took what I could get and a month later I was able to swap it out. It's a bit of a hassle, but at least this year it seems more availability eventually opened up.

 

[RiversideGal]

If I am on the wrong thread, Please redirect me, but I was wondering when any Free Dining offers for January 2016 might be coming out??

 

[sharonabe]

If I am on the wrong thread, Please redirect me, but I was wondering when any Free Dining offers for January 2016 might be coming out??

They probably won't. There hasn't been free dining in Jan for several years now. They MAY have the Stay, Play, and Dine offer which is a discount, but not as good as free dining. It looks like it became available in early Oct for the last two years.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

If I am on the wrong thread, Please redirect me, but I was wondering when any Free Dining offers for January 2016 might be coming out??

They probably won't. There hasn't been free dining in Jan for several years now. They MAY have the Stay, Play, and Dine offer which is a discount, but not as good as free dining. It looks like it became available in early Oct for the last two years.

Stay Play Dine was released last year on 10/6 for Disney Visa holders! We're a little over a month away on that schedule.

Also the previous poster is correct - it is not as good as free dining. Last year it worked as 55% off of dining; No discount on tickets; and a small discount on the resort that varied on a lot of factors. Details on the calculation can be found here: http://www.disboards.com/threads/stay-play-dine-calculation.3339097/