2015 FREE DINING THREAD _ All Questions HERE!!

[RejoyceoverDisney]

Yes - I had a 2 hr hold this AM

Still!!! Yikes!!!
Glad I'm not fighting to resolve my vacation. I just hope I get my RO discount when that is released. Come on Disney Visa, give me a break.

 

[lazer]

My family has been to DW several times but this is our first time taking advantage of free dining. We have a 10 day window in which we can travel and plan to stay at disney for 7 nights/8days but maybe more. Where those 7 nights will fall in the 10 day range depends on which flights we book, which I won't know for a few weeks. If I book the hotel/free dining plan now for the full 10 days and then end up modifying the reservation to cut a day or two off the beginning or end, will that have any effect on the free dining? Also, is it true that if the day we check in falls within the free dining dates, we get the plan for our whole stay even if we check out after the promotion is over?
Thanks for your help!

You'll lose your package according to most reports (and a cm confirmed this with my husband on the phone yesterday). If you reduce your vacation days, you'll have to re-book and may lose you free dining/resort/room type. I haven't heard of this actually happening to anyone yet, but Disney recently changed their policy. Many people were doing this to move up their ADR days, supposedly.

 

[twoolle]

We have actually never actually made a reservation for meals, we usually stay in our trailer so we eat quick service or in the trailer. The only time we have done table service is years ago when you could still walk up during the day and see what was available and then last year we decided at the last minute to go have a date night at Liberty Tree and were able to get a table after about a 30 minute wait.

Of course now we are doing the dining plan and my daughter has a set of restaurants she wants to try. Is it easier to get seating a party of 2? Either way we are pretty flexible so I am not too worried.

Lots of things even open up the day before because you can cancel up until midnight the day before with no charge.

I'm not going to WDW until next year, but with all the talk about normally easy reservation restaurants filling up I just have a general question about ADR's...

We have a big trip planned, 12 adults and 1 child. Were getting 4 separate rooms, I was going to book 2, and my BiL would book 2. I really didnt want to book any rooms until free dining is released (to make sure our dates fall within), but now with the dates were looking at for next year our 180 day mark will be April 1st, which is probably going to be BEFORE any free dining would be released. I definitely want to take advantage of the 180+10 booking, but with all the issues this year I'd really rather not make reservations for 4 rooms then have to try and modify them all.

Hopefully that wasn't confusing.. But, my question is, am I able to make just ONE room reservation and make all of my ADR's for 13 people? or are you only allowed to book for however many people are on the reservation at the 180+10? I'd much rather only have to modify one reservation and make 3 new ones than have to modify 4 reservations.

If you were able to follow along with that craziness lol Does anyone know if this is allowed?

Yes you can do it. I did this with HDDr

 

[samsteele]

we will do a resort touring day one of the days of this vacation.

This is a great thing to do on your day off. I went for a walk about at CBR and CSR last fall. Its relaxing, fun to see something different & enjoyed eating lunch at a different resort. Enjoy!

 

[DisneyRunner2009]

Never thought of adding days and dropping them to get an advance on ADRs. You know what they say, "One bad apple." All these new rules and regulations may deter even more guests.

 

[smhwalker2011]

officially booked our resort ! $1100 in savings !

 

[RejoyceoverDisney]

Never thought of adding days and dropping them to get an advance on ADRs. You know what they say, "One bad apple." All these new rules and regulations may deter even more guests.

And if it does, then you won't need the 180+10 to get your ADRs. You can have more availability to decide and make changes when you need them.

 

[RejoyceoverDisney]

This is a great thing to do on your day off. I went for a walk about at CBR and CSR last fall. Its relaxing, fun to see something different & enjoyed eating lunch at a different resort. Enjoy!

Ya that's what I'm thinking. When I was looking to see if we could find a "different" place to eat not in parks, I was shocked at how many we never knew about. I am especially interested in the deluxe area because I don't know I will ever be ok with spending the extra money to stay there. I rather go two times a year. I think.

officially booked our resort ! $1100 in savings !

That's awesome!!! Where are you staying? I don't remember. It's suck a great feeling when you know what you want and it is able to happen. Sometimes it comes with perseverance, but it's worth it.

 

[MinnieMO]

Ok so I was able to get free dining but what if you are staying at a mod and your email says quick service dining instead of table service?? Do I need to do something to fix this?

 

[Aubrav]

Ok so I was able to get free dining but what if you are staying at a mod and your email says quick service dining instead of table service?? Do I need to do something to fix this?

This is a known glitch but nothing to worry about. If you look on your MDE it will have the right plan listed.

 

[MinnieMO]

This is a known glitch but nothing to worry about. If you look on your MDE it will have the right plan listed.

Ok I didn't know if this was something I needed to call on didn't wanna call if I didn't need too
I couldn't find it listed on mde

 

[lock3130]

I am so frustrated with Disney. I've been going to WDW since 3rd grade and it's my favorite place. I tried getting through for the free dining all day yesterday. My husband finally got through around 9:30pm central time. The lady checked all the resorts for our dates but couldn't find anything. I called again at 0600 this morning and the girl told me the same thing. Then she told me All Star Music had availability but after going through the process, she said there was an error. I checked my reservation after I got off the phone with her and she had moved us from Pop Century to All Star Music, without me asking her to do that. I called back later today and tried to switch back to our preferred room at Pop but, of course, it's sold out. So, not only do we not get free dining but I had to upgrade to preferred pool in order to get back to Pop. AND, I haven't been able to modify my reservation online. I called the MDE help desk and they told me the online system is so bogged down and I just need to keep check. UHHHHH.

 

[ThereYouSeeHer]

We just changed our reservation to our originally planned Labor Day trip because spots opened up at All-Star Sports. That modify button is going to be dangerous, it was too easy!

We love resort-hopping, so we had 3 reservations booked. Had to call to change one of them, but the whole phone call--automated prompts and everything---took like 5 minutes! I got to an agent right away without waiting using number (407) 939-5277.

 

[smhwalker2011]

Ya that's what I'm thinking. When I was looking to see if we could find a "different" place to eat not in parks, I was shocked at how many we never knew about. I am especially interested in the deluxe area because I don't know I will ever be ok with spending the extra money to stay there. I rather go two times a year. I think.



That's awesome!!! Where are you staying? I don't remember. It's suck a great feeling when you know what you want and it is able to happen. Sometimes it comes with perseverance, but it's worth it.

We're staying at AKL!! First time in a deluxe ever! We've stayed at POP, ASM, ASSports, CSR--last time we stayed at sports (in feb) and had the worst dis experience ever guess growing teens need more space & better comfort! we found our way to the mara (AKL QS restaurant) and we fell in love with what we seen. I knew I couldn't finish off the end of the year without a good dis experience. So we went for AKL. super excited and happy that we'll be able to go back. couldn't do it without everyone elses help!

 

[lauradis]

I understand that, I just think that the way that they rolled it out was terrible. Why would people use a travel agent if Disney isn't going to make it possible for TA's to do their job? Why would Disney offer up a discount if they don't even open up enough rooms for the special to make it count? Instead, the create hype for a promotion (that they are still promoting on facebook in ads) and they don't even have any discounts available for their chosen demographic. All of the site crashes, long holds on the line, etc. is the problem; from a PR standpoint, it looks really bad on them.

This happen every first 48 hrs of general offer to the public free dinning..

I bet it would be less if they offered this to visa members first.

 

[FriendoftheHatter]

Has anyone reported any UOCs for free dining going out? I wouldn't be surprised if they waited until after the mess has cleared up after the past couple days.

I'm thrilled with my CSR package I managed to book yesterday morning, but a small part of me is really hoping POFQ will be a possibility.

 

[cath1979]

I have a question about the 180+10 ADR.. when i get to my 180 days mark I just have to log in my MDE to be able to make adr for my all trip of will I have to call? and the ADR open at 6 or midnight?

 

[SaraJR]

just to be sure the proper FD went through because i upgraded from QS to disney dining plan, what should it say in my account?

 

[SPOERLX3]

I know this is random, but does anyone know when the best time to buy airfare is?

We booked with American from the Dallas/Ft Worth Area on March 30th. When we saw flights for our dates for $177rt pp we knew we would never find them cheaper. We paid $237rt pp last September with SW and thought that was a good price so when we saw it $60 cheaper we jumped. We knew we were going no matter what and already had our dates set for November 18-25 so we were just waiting to see if we were going to be within the date range for FD. When I heard that FD may be offered on 4/27 and knew that this would be the date that we were coming off our cruise, I broke down and called a TA at Destinations to Travel, LLC that I had seen referred on DAD's (Carl Trent) website. We gave her our first choice and a 2nd & 3rd alternative with permission to make any changes that we needed to make to get FD within our price range as long as our dates did not change. When we got off the ship yesterday, we already had an email at 5:48am with our confirmation with exactly what we had asked for.
2 standard rooms (connecting requested) at POP with FD and park hopper!!
The TA was AMAZING! and I will definitely use her again!
I do agree with Smitch, if you are using SW, ALWAYS book the day they release their flights for the next month. They book fast and the non-stop ones even faster and they rarely go down.

Good luck on your airfare!

 

[RejoyceoverDisney]

This happen every first 48 hrs of general offer to the public free dinning..

I bet it would be less if they offered this to visa members first.

Ya I was thinking that same thing. It would have at least limited the phone lines jamming because you couldn't use the online to modify. I wonder if that was their "test" to see how many would use the online vs calls. Well done and I'll be curious to see what happens the next round of discounts.
I'm assuming to get a RO I'm going to have to call. :-(

My 180 opens tomorrow. I wonder how bad the site will be in getting ADRs.
Someone asked and from all I read it sounds like online you can start booking at 6am. But honestly we thought that for this promotion and I believe it was reported to be open at 4:30am or so.