Yesterday was another significant milestone in our September trip planning since it was the day Free Dining was announced. Much of our planning for this trip has been based on the possibility of getting free dining or at least a resort discount because nobody has to pay rack rate in September, right? With three rooms booked we knew our options to switch resorts to get a discount would be limited, but we figured WL would give us a pretty good chance at getting a discount. Well, here's how that went.
I got up at 4AM because the rumors had indicated that Monday April 25th would be the day, so I set my alarm an hour early and then got up and checked my phone.
I did not get up at 4AM. I was up at 12:45 and 2 though.
There was nothing on the DIS about the dining announcement, so I checked the wdw website, and sure enough there it was. That was better then caffeine, now I was awake! I called the number it showed and wasn't able to get through the first time. No big deal, probably just the initial rush, right. Maybe the phone operators are just grabbing their coffee and settling in. Well, I kept trying that number and a couple of other reservations numbers and either got the "please try again later" message or a phone company "all circuits are busy" message. Hmm, not a great sign, but I figured I'd see what was online while I tried calling. At 4:15 AM the only WL free dining option online was a club level room, which would be nice, but was still over a thousand dollars more than our current reservation. While I kept trying to call, I looked into the Villas and saw that we could switch to a studio and save about $500 over our current reservation. At least we'd still have pretty much the same location. I went and asked Melissa about it, since Marshall had decided breakfast sounded like a good idea.
It was 4:45 by the time he came back to bed and I had forgotten all about him getting up to check for free dining. It took me a full two minutes to process what he meant by "there's no availability". I thought for a moment it was a weird dream.
Melissa was open to the idea of a Studio Villa, but we both wanted to talk to someone to see if we could get free dining in the main building. When I checked back online 10 minutes later, the studio villas were sold out. That did show me that the online availability was being updated, so I could get some information even if I couldn't get through on the phone. Looking at all of our options, I saw that FW cabins were nicely priced, and actually would be over $1100 cheaper than our existing reservation. We figured that getting three together would be difficult, and the location is definitely more remote. As I later checked availability we saw at times the studio Villas at Boardwalk or Beach club were available for about a $500 discount over our WL standard view room. On our own we probably would have jumped on this option, especially if we could have gotten Beach Club to experience Stormalong bay, but we knew there was no chance of moving all three rooms, and the villas weren't available for long.
If it was just our room I would have been all over a move to Beach Club for this trip. I think the proximity to at least one park is going to be really nice with the baby.
While I was at work I kept checking and trying to call, and didn't have any luck getting through.
He kept bugging me at work too, I was dealing with a Monday crisis, which has now crept into Tuesday. Basically I had left it to him to deal with. I appreciate that we are both on the same page as far as this planning stuff goes, that way when one of us gets busy the other is there to jump on deals and such.
In the late afternoon though I saw a really interesting possibility open up online. We could get a Standard View room at Animal Kingdom Lodge and save $1100. We could also do a room only offer there but the savings would only be $800, so free dining was the better deal for us. We really preferred WL, but for that kind of savings it was worth considering.
We talked about it on my way to pick up Allie from daycare and even considered booking a second reservation. I love AKL and want to stay there sometime but have had a hard time convincing Paul that this would be a good idea. We decided while I grabbed Allie he would call and see how everyone else felt about such a drastic resort move.
I called my parents and our friends and discussed the possibility of making a lodge switch. Almost everybody was on board, but our friends were really looking forward to the boat transportation we had raved about at WL, and they knew that AKL didn't have any boats. They decided to stay put at WL and hope for a discount, and we agreed to stay with it too.
Finally while we were out shopping at Target at almost 8:00 PM (when the reservations line closes) I was able to get through and make it into the phone hold queue, where they said to expect two hours on hold. I was so glad to finally have a spot that I was more than willing to wait. We listened to the hold music Disney songs on speaker phone while we did our shopping and headed home. About an hour and 20 minutes later a very nice castmember picked up and cheerfully asked how she could help. I mentioned we were hoping to switch to free dining and gave her our info and she asked if we were Disney Visa card holders. She was glad to hear that we are, since that opens up extra availability for them, even though we don't get early access to the offer anymore. She checked though, and said there was no availability for either the free dining promotion or room only discount in any room at WL during our stay. She did offer to switch us to Old Key West which would save us a little over $600, but that wasn't enough savings to justify loosing the great location of WL. We were able to finally add Marshall to our reservation, since he now has a birthday to enter in the system, so the call wasn't a total waste but sure wasn't as productive as we had hoped. She did suggest that we keep watching, as something might open up later, so that's our plan.
I told him just to be patient, something will work out.
I agree we just have to wait, but in the mean time I keep looking for options.
Looking online this morning the availability seems to be better with the "Back to School Savings" room discount, so even though it doesn't save quite as much as with free dining it does give us some lower cost options. Here's a few:
Cars Suite at AoA: $500 Savings over WL Std View
POFQ River View: $1200 savings over WL Std View
POR River View: $1100 savings over WL Std View
VWL Studio Villa: $20 more than WL Std View
OKW Studio Villa: $1000 savings over WL Std View
If we arrive at WL one day later we can get free dining with a courtyard view room for $900 in savings over our current reservation, but we have one less day of dining and have to find a room for our arrival night. It might still be a possibility though because we could do a lot with $900. Mainly it gives us hope that something will open up, and gives me a reason to keep checking the website.
To be continued... Check back later to see what we wind up doing, and whether my husband goes totally insane.
I'm sure that it is a relief to have it finally booked. In a normal year it probably would have been easy to get free dining right away, but with half of the resort closed off, all bets were off. But it is great that it finally became available for you, your parents and your friends. It must have been a little nerve wracking in the meantime. 
