2015 FREE DINING THREAD _ All Questions HERE!!

[sarahplus4disneymom]

Did anyone get POR in September (9/25ish check-in) with a standard room???
I was online booking at 4:25 and no standard view rooms???

 

[ELSA711]

Thank goodness I'm not the only one with this issue. I booked online this morning at CSR and have the exact same issue. I thought perhaps I did something wrong when I booked. Surely I didn't accidentally downgrade to Quick Service? Pretty sure the only options were Dining Plan and an upgrade to Deluxe Dining Plan. Nothing but busy signals on every number I try.

I have CBR and it says Quick Service Dining on email but reg DDP on website

 

[Just Love Disney]

anyone know if I book pop now with the QS plan can I upgrade later, trying on the site and I get this message

Dining Add Ons is currently unavailable. Please try again later.

TIA

I initially booked ours this morning with the QS and had a change of heart. I couldn't modify either and got the same message as you. I did call in though (right at 7:00) and the CM had no problems upgrading our dining plan. HTH

 

[DisneyNannie]

My TA wasn't able to get free dining for Yacht Club. She put a hold on the Boardwalk for us, but I told her to let it go; we'll just keep the military rate, and then get the military tickets and cancel a few of our ADR's that we don't feel are must do's for us.

I did ask her to try again in a few hours in case things open up. I'm sure there are people booked who are going to cancel or are double booked. We'll see.

When I Checked yacht club at 5 am they did not have anything with free dining. I was in a garden view room at beach resort but that wasn't available so I had to upgrade to pool view. Now there are no rooms available at the beach resort for the week of September 13 th so I am glad I got what I did.

 

[gacallaghan]

Turns out not. I'd have to create a brand new booking via the US website and cancel my UK booking. It's too much hassle. I've got all the ADRs I want and I'd loose my deposit as well. Never mind. We did budget to buy food out of pocket so it's not a big issue. Just a little frustrating that if our booking had been US based we'd just have been able to add it.

 

[DisneyNannie]

So, in the end, here's how it looks. It took me until 8am eastern to get through via telephone. I had already booked @ AOA with dining but just wanted to get over to a mod. Well, when it was all said in done, I TOTALLY blew my budget and we are now booked:

Beach Club Resort club level
9-19-2015 to 9-26-2015
7 day park hoppers with Water Parks
Free Dining.

So- It was significantly over my budget, but HEY, still a bit lower than POR or CBR without a promotion. I am going to justify it with this:

It's our Family Honeymoon (Familymoon) and a celebration of our 1st anniversary! It is worth it, right?

What room type did you get at Beach Resort. I had to upgrade from a Garden View room to a Lagoon/Pool view.

 

[5kidsmommy]

I hope it's worth it to. We have only ever stayed at POR and love it. We did pay full price last year for everything but didn't want to do that again and don't want to wait our every other year routine schedule.
I'm so scared of CBR LOL, don't know why. But our first set of dates we could only confirm AoA so not sure which one to go with.

We have actually never stayed in a resort hotel, we camp and Fort Wilderness is so amazing, I just hope CBR lives up to that. I'm going to miss the awesome location of Fort Wilderness so I know transportation will be a little different but from all the research I've done on CBR it looks like a really nice resort and I am looking forward to the renovated rooms. The only thing I am worried about is finding enough time to enjoy the room. Luckily this isn't our first Disney trip so I no longer feel the need to do everything.

 

[Camaro305]

YES!

Seems like I'm getting further... baby steps lol... I can now see the room categories for Pop, but I can't click on them...

 

[samsteele]

Yay the DIS is working! I had an interesting night with dreams of booking dining so when I woke up every hour I didn't know if I had done it already or not.

After trying at 2, 3, and 4 I randomly woke up at 4:30 and checked the website on my phone. The offer was finally there! I raced to the living room and opened the laptop and gave the Disney website a refresh to nab the offer.

The good news is that I did get POP Century with free dining for my stay October 2-11. Yay!

The bad news is that the ONLY room type available was the highest one, premium pool view, which added an additional $230 onto the price. With the ticket upgrade and room type free dining is costing us $500.

However I could switch to sports (the only resort we don't want to stay in) and knock $400 off of the price. I hate to say it, but I don't think my planning is done.

Of course I immediately wanted to come here and talk about it, but this website only gave me an error.

Congratulations to everyone who is getting what they want!

I am just catching up on posts. Happy you at least got a foothold at the POP . . . something for now. I was up at 5:30 am, saw what I wanted online but then decided I needed to wait for my TA's office to open at 9am as I had told her I would call her and book with her. Eek! Hard couple of hours to wait & wait . . . However, long story short, she got me what I wanted at about 9:30 a.m. . . . POP standard room at the end of October/early Nov so I am very happy with the outcome. Aubrav, sending you lots of good wishes & pixie dust. You were incredibly helpful and kind to people on this thread. You and your family deserve the very best of luck with your ressies. ps I would consider AS Sports to save $400. That's a good amount of change to pocket for one value vs another value. POP is nice but $400 is something. And Sports is first up with bus service in the morning. Not bad!

 

[Aubrav]

Personally, I wanted a specific resort and room view - FD would have been a bonus, but not at the risk of not getting my dates, resort or room. Not realistic to wait and expect any availability. As it is, our dates do not fall within the FD offer...would it have been any different if I had waited? Doubtful with the millions of people booking vacations.

Just for clarification in regards to booking early. I understand that it reduces the need for a discount at all, that's obvious, but people have other reasons for doing it, like you and 5kidsmommy. However, if someone were to book early just for the sake of having a reservation to quickly add free dining to, there are no guarantees there right? I mean, for example, POP standard rooms weren't available first thing this morning with my dates. So if I had booked ahead of time I would still be subject to the room type limitations that were there for new bookings this morning, right?

I hope this makes sense.

 

[summer621]

Sigh. Missed it. Nothing for our family of 5 at CBR... Tried at 6:30 a.m.?! Only lagoon room at poly and tower at Contemporary. Did have a Yacht club but still out of the budget for this year.... What will we do! No Disney this year! AACK!

 

[choover2576]

Will I be able to switch from Park Hopper to Water Park tickets? In my planning I never included either option, so didn't really have time to think about which one I wanted.

 

[SuperJess]

So thankful I woke up early today. Was able to book POP right away. I stayed with the quick service dining. If I wanted to, I can still call and upgrade to Regular without loosing my room correct?

 

[vicarrieous]

Just for clarification in regards to booking early. I understand that it reduces the need for a discount at all, that's obvious, but people have other reasons for doing it, like you and 5kidsmommy. However, if someone were to book early just for the sake of having a reservation to quickly add free dining to, there are no guarantees there right? I mean, for example, POP standard rooms weren't available first thing this morning with my dates. So if I had booked ahead of time I would still be subject to the room type limitations that were there for new bookings this morning, right?

I hope this makes sense.

That is correct. Having an existing reservation did not give anyone any special type of room categories etc.

 

[Aubrav]

I am just catching up on posts. Happy you at least got a foothold at the POP . . . something for now. I was up at 5:30 am, saw what I wanted online but then decided I needed to wait for my TA's office to open at 9am as I had told her I would call her and book with her. Eek! Hard couple of hours to wait & wait . . . However, long story short, she got me what I wanted at about 9:30 a.m. . . . POP standard room at the end of October/early Nov so I am very happy with the outcome. Aubrav, sending you lots of good wishes & pixie dust. You were incredibly helpful and kind to people on this thread. You and your family deserve the very best of luck with your ressies. ps I would consider AS Sports to save $400. That's a good amount of change to pocket for one value vs another value. POP is nice but $400 is something. And Sports is first up with bus service in the morning. Not bad!

Thanks Samsteele! You have left quite the impression with me as well After asking (repeatedly) on this thread for input I have decided to switch to ASSp if possible. Although at this point I've been trying to do it for over 3 hours but the website isn't working for me. As much as we want to stay at POP, $400 is a hard pill to swallow when that's 1/3 of our savings from the free dining out the window. It's time to try something new.

Funny story, I was discussing the switch with my husband this morning and after talking about it I said in summary, "So it's okay to switch to Sports?" and when he responded I swear he said, "It's not up to me." I about killed him before he told me that he had actually said, "That's fine with me."

 

[ELSA711]

Just for clarification in regards to booking early. I understand that it reduces the need for a discount at all, that's obvious, but people have other reasons for doing it, like you and 5kidsmommy. However, if someone were to book early just for the sake of having a reservation to quickly add free dining to, there are no guarantees there right? I mean, for example, POP standard rooms weren't available first thing this morning with my dates. So if I had booked ahead of time I would still be subject to the room type limitations that were there for new bookings this morning, right?

I hope this makes sense.

I had reservation at POR for over a year and obviously it didn't matter! LOL
You just never know where the discounts are going to be...and POR is not one of them. We had FD there in 2012 but it seems to be no more for October.

 

[darlak]

I can't get through on any number and it won't let me change my reservation online OR make a new reservation for Free Dining. Any suggestions anybody???

 

[stitchfan75]

Again I ask...how are people booking when "supposedly" phone and website are down?
I have been trying the website all morning and all I get is "server is down". Wth?!

 

[supersnoop]

Turns out not. I'd have to create a brand new booking via the US website and cancel my UK booking. It's too much hassle. I've got all the ADRs I want and I'd loose my deposit as well. Never mind. We did budget to buy food out of pocket so it's not a big issue. Just a little frustrating that if our booking had been US based we'd just have been able to add it.

Cancelling your reservation would have no affect on your ADR's.

 

[jenf22]

Thanks Samsteele! You have left quite the impression with me as well After asking (repeatedly) on this thread for input I have decided to switch to ASSp if possible. Although at this point I've been trying to do it for over 3 hours but the website isn't working for me. As much as we want to stay at POP, $400 is a hard pill to swallow when that's 1/3 of our savings from the free dining out the window. It's time to try something new.

Funny story, I was discussing the switch with my husband this morning and after talking about it I said in summary, "So it's okay to switch to Sports?" and when he responded I swear he said, "It's not up to me." I about killed him before he told me that he had actually said, "That's fine with me."

I'm trying to switch from Pop to Sports as well. Unfortunately, I'm also trying to work I wish they would fix their servers. Geesh!