2011 Free Dining is Extended! New dates as of 8/3

[OatsZoo]

It states on Mousesavers that the Photopass book is required for the package and will add about $100 to your total.

That is okay with me, I bought one on my 10th Anniversary and I LOVE IT!!! It is so beautiful, I love the Disney page themes and Disney lined inside, and the fact that you can get the Photopass pictures in it without buying the CD. They really are worth the money.

 

[Dizneydaz]

That's the thing. My price yesterday when I booked was less than it is today. Book or no book. So for some reason the pricing changed with the release to the public of the offer. Glad I booked yesterday!

 

[princessreilly]

Thanks for the info!

You will get a coupon code for the free 20 page book (a 79.95 value, plus free standard shipping ) with your package. The coupon code expires 1-31-2012.

Here's the official verbage


I booked my stay last night (starting on 9/24-free QSDP for the whole stay) and as far as I could figure the book is free with the package. I did the math with figuring my nights in the room, my 2 days base tickets and the book didn't add up in the total. So I guess it is really free.

 

[sunny_stace]

booked this afternoon through a travel agent and got free dining for 10 nights at POR starting Sept. 23! The travel agent told me that the photobook was included in the package and I would be given a paper voucher for it. She said it was part of the promo.

 

[TravelMama]

We are missing this free dining promotion by 1 lousy day! I'm just sick about it. Only reason I could convince DH to let me book the flights so earlier was because I told him I was sure Free Dining would come available, which of course it has but only thru the Sept 24th, we are flying in on the 25th. :-(

 

[DISNEYNY]

We are missing this free dining promotion by 1 lousy day! I'm just sick about it. Only reason I could convince DH to let me book the flights so earlier was because I told him I was sure Free Dining would come available, which of course it has but only thru the Sept 24th, we are flying in on the 25th. :-(

Oh that stinks... We aren't going this year, but I can't believe the timeframe is so short. Are you flying Southwest? Maybe you could go down one day early.

 

[LZMarine]

Oh that stinks... We aren't going this year, but I can't believe the timeframe is so short. Are you flying Southwest? Maybe you could go down one day early.

There's always the possibility of them extending, based on bookings. I hope it works out for you. Best "Wishes"!

 

[Toeknail]

That's EXACTLY what we did last year. Except that first we were at a conference at Coronado Springs. We transferred over to Pop the night before Free Dining started. So we had a 1 night ressie, and then a package ressie that started the next day with our free dining. We got our park tix early (as I explained in my post above). We were able to stay in the same room, and it was a quick check out and back in with free dining on the morning of our 2nd reservation.

Enjoy!!

We have made the change (we are arriving August 27, one day BEFORE free dining starts). We now have two reservations: one that is room only for the first night and one for the remainder of the trip which ALSO INCLUDES OUR FIRST DAY PARK HOPPER PASSES. Our travel agent confirmed (twice) with the good folks at Disney travel just what was written here - the resort will not give us our theme park passes on the first day, but when we get to any of the four main parks, guest relations will give them to us. They will not include dining for the first day. On day 2, when we check out and check back in to the same hotel, we will surrender our park passes from day 1 and be issued a new set of park passes including dining in our "keys to the world."

We aren't saving a ton of money doing this vs our original reservations which had the kids stay and play free option. The savings are about $250 minus whatever we spend for food on the first day. I conservatively estimated spending about $180 on that first day (including counter lunch and dinner at Coral Reef). So the way I see it, we are paying $70 less but also getting a photo book thrown in.

 

[ahiltz]

As an experiment, this is what came up online -

Caribbean Beach standard room 8/28 - 8/31, 1 guest, 2 day base ticket, no dining - $710.32

Same reservation on the free dining offer - $801.22

This is a difference of $90.90, so it appears the book is not free.

The photo book is in fact free. They are charging you the discounted price for the Photopass CD package and you will get to order a book using those photos to put it together. There are cast members all over the theme park that will take your photos and put them on web using a special no. they give you. Those are the photos you use to make your album and by having the CD's, you can print them at home whenever you want. You can even copy and crop the photos and add special borders around them. Also make sure you ask the cast member photographer for special magic shots. That is where they will superimpose a disney character onto your photo (ex. you looking at your hand with Tinkerbell there!). It is an awesome deal. The pkg. normally costs $149.99 without the free book!

 

[Toeknail]

The photo book is in fact free. They are charging you the discounted price for the Photopass CD package and you will get to order a book using those photos to put it together. There are cast members all over the theme park that will take your photos and put them on web using a special no. they give you. Those are the photos you use to make your album and by having the CD's, you can print them at home whenever you want. You can even copy and crop the photos and add special borders around them. Also make sure you ask the cast member photographer for special magic shots. That is where they will superimpose a disney character onto your photo (ex. you looking at your hand with Tinkerbell there!). It is an awesome deal. The pkg. normally costs $149.99 without the free book!

It was my understanding that you get the photo book only, and not the CD. If that's the case, then the photo book is not free, you pay $90.90 for it.

 

[ahiltz]

I asked the cast member when we booked specifically about this because we always buy the Photopass deal. She put me on hold, spoke to her Manager and was told you get whatever you normally get with the Photopass pkg. deal (which are the CD's) and the photobook is in addition to that. If you normally don't order the photopass offer, then I guess this would not be free for you. For us, personally, it is free plus a big discount on the reg. price of the CD's. We go all out with our photos and our last trip we ended up with 5 cd's of photos from them. It did state in the offer that you would be paying for the Photopass CD deal.

Quoted: "Photopass Book is available at a special pre-order price of $99.95."

http://www.wdwinfo.com/disneypackages.htm#general

 

[ahiltz]

For those not interested in prepaying for the Photopass CD deal, I wonder if they would deduct the $99.95 from your total? You wouldn't get the photo book then though. Might be worth a try. It did say it was "available" and not mandatory.

 

[mtuttle]

I asked the cast member when we booked specifically about this because we always buy the Photopass deal. She put me on hold, spoke to her Manager and was told you get whatever you normally get with the Photopass pkg. deal (which are the CD's) and the photobook is in addition to that. If you normally don't order the photopass offer, then I guess this would not be free for you. For us, personally, it is free plus a big discount on the reg. price of the CD's. We go all out with our photos and our last trip we ended up with 5 cd's of photos from them. It did state in the offer that you would be paying for the Photopass CD deal.

Quoted: "Photopass Book is available at a special pre-order price of $99.95."

http://www.wdwinfo.com/disneypackages.htm#general

The more I read, the more confused I am. I changed our reservations over to the free dining, which I was told included the photo book. The CM did not say anything about the photo CD - so is that included or does that also have to be purchased separately?

 

[tinkmom2]

Well I am still hoping they will extend it through October

 

[Toeknail]

The more I read, the more confused I am. I changed our reservations over to the free dining, which I was told included the photo book. The CM did not say anything about the photo CD - so is that included or does that also have to be purchased separately?

It's included (the cost of $90.90 would also have been included in your new reservation).

 

[mtuttle]

I hope so, because if I have to turn around and spend another $100 for the CD, then I would have been better off staying with my Kids Stay and Play Free offer?

 

[TDC Nala]

There's always the possibility of them extending, based on bookings. I hope it works out for you. Best "Wishes"!

I can see them extending to the general public for later dates, but not earlier ones. Best bet would be a PIN code but you have to have those assigned to you.

 

[catne]

The more I read, the more confused I am. I changed our reservations over to the free dining, which I was told included the photo book. The CM did not say anything about the photo CD - so is that included or does that also have to be purchased separately?

Agree it's a confusing situation--reports of CMs telling people photobook only, others being told CD & photobook. Non-Disney website with mostly accurate info reporting you get the CD (wdwinfo.com)

But according to Disney's own website, the offer includes a free photobook...and though there's quite a bit of detail about the photobook included in the Free Dining package, the Disney website makes no mention of the photopass CD.

Will be interesting to see how this all shakes out...one thing, though, if it turns out the CD is not included and you decide you want it, you can always order it after the fact. A lot of people do that anyway (wait and see if they like enough pictures to warrant the cost. Some people forget to take multiple photopass pictures, or can't find the photographers, etc. Or everyone's pouting in the pics, For whatever reason, it is possible to end up with very few usable pictures. Also possible to end up with 100s of great pics, too. We've done it both ways.)

 

[TDC Nala]

The photo BOOK is included in the reservation and the cost has been added into your package. If you want the photo CD you have to purchase it separately. These are two separate photopass products and the package includes the book, but not the CD. You don't HAVE to have both of them, you have the option of whether or not to buy the CD.

 

[mtuttle]

My reservation invoice only shows the memory book - it does not say anything about the CD. Do you know if this is written anywhere?