Hi everyone,
I'm doing some loose tentative plans/research for a trip next fall 2016. It will be our third trip.
My questions are in regards to the free meal plan.
1. How far in advance is the deal generally announced? Do you recommend booking your package and then adding on your free dining plan once the offer is announced? Or waiting until the offer is announced and then booking your entire package at once?
2. I'm doing a bit of research into a price range dollar figure I can expect to pay at moderate resorts during free dining. I know that price ranges vary from one time to another, so next fall may be different, but I'm just looking for estimates. I hoped to go onto the Disney main website, select free dining offer, and begin exploring options. I'm directed to a page explaining the offer, with a button on the right margin saying, check availability. Over the last couple of days, I have researched nearly every date the offer is available at every moderate resort. I'm coming up empty handed. Every date/resort automatically redirects me to a page where I can search the fall room discount deal. Gives me 0 information about the meal plan availability. I know that fall is fast approaching, but given that the free meal plan is offered at many, many resorts until the third week of December, I find it hard to believe there is absolutely NOTHING available. Not to mention my webpage is then bypassing free dining package entirely, and going straight to discounted rooms only. We went in the fall of 2013, booked our package the last week of August for December. Unfortunately, our week was a blackout week and weren't eligible for free meal plan, but at that time I researched other weeks for comparison and had no trouble with searching the website at all. Plenty of free meal plan availability. Does anyone have any insight as to what may be happening? Does it mean that every single date/resort is already full, hence redirecting me to another page? That's strange though, considering it was not a problem in August of 2013. I know things differ from year to year, but still...seems weird to come up 100% empty handed.
Unfortunately I live in another country where calling the Disney phone line runs me quite a bit of money. As a result, I can't call very often with enquiries.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
I'm doing some loose tentative plans/research for a trip next fall 2016. It will be our third trip.
My questions are in regards to the free meal plan.
1. How far in advance is the deal generally announced? Do you recommend booking your package and then adding on your free dining plan once the offer is announced? Or waiting until the offer is announced and then booking your entire package at once?
2. I'm doing a bit of research into a price range dollar figure I can expect to pay at moderate resorts during free dining. I know that price ranges vary from one time to another, so next fall may be different, but I'm just looking for estimates. I hoped to go onto the Disney main website, select free dining offer, and begin exploring options. I'm directed to a page explaining the offer, with a button on the right margin saying, check availability. Over the last couple of days, I have researched nearly every date the offer is available at every moderate resort. I'm coming up empty handed. Every date/resort automatically redirects me to a page where I can search the fall room discount deal. Gives me 0 information about the meal plan availability. I know that fall is fast approaching, but given that the free meal plan is offered at many, many resorts until the third week of December, I find it hard to believe there is absolutely NOTHING available. Not to mention my webpage is then bypassing free dining package entirely, and going straight to discounted rooms only. We went in the fall of 2013, booked our package the last week of August for December. Unfortunately, our week was a blackout week and weren't eligible for free meal plan, but at that time I researched other weeks for comparison and had no trouble with searching the website at all. Plenty of free meal plan availability. Does anyone have any insight as to what may be happening? Does it mean that every single date/resort is already full, hence redirecting me to another page? That's strange though, considering it was not a problem in August of 2013. I know things differ from year to year, but still...seems weird to come up 100% empty handed.
Unfortunately I live in another country where calling the Disney phone line runs me quite a bit of money. As a result, I can't call very often with enquiries.
Any insight would be greatly appreciated!
