2015 FREE DINING THREAD _ All Questions HERE!!

[lazer]

I DID IT! I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD! I officially have All Star Sports standard booked in lieu of POP reducing my balance from $3120 to $2744. Now I can be excited and unstressed! And thanks to all of you, I can be excited about the choice to save money instead of stay at our preferred resort!

Great news! I've been following the thread all morning (after we were lucky and changed our reservation at 7:20 am). WOOOHOO!

 

[Aubrav]

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???

Keep trying on the website. I've been trying to modify my 4:30am reservation online since 9am and finally got through and got the confirmation... almost 4 hours later.

 

[SamIAm21]

So, I usually go to WDW around Columbus Day, but this year, those dates are excluded from Free Dining. I'm okay with that as I sometimes find it is too much food. Do you think because FD isn't offered that weekend that the parks "may" be less crowded?

FD always brings the crowds and it sure would be great to have parks that aren't packed to the rafters. Looking for some good opinions and observations.

 

[lazer]

Maybe that will work out better- except for our character meals lol I think a lot of those are buffets

Yeah, I actually think all character meals are charged per person (as long as they're under 3 they are free). Share away

 

[Camaro305]

I DID IT! I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD! I officially have All Star Sports standard booked in lieu of POP reducing my balance from $3120 to $2744. Now I can be excited and unstressed! And thanks to all of you, I can be excited about the choice to save money instead of stay at our preferred resort!

Me too! The page still says please wait, but the email came through. From 7350.00 to 4850.00! 13 nights. What a nice discount!

 

[ky.]

GOT IT!!! Had to make a new reservation and switched from music to sports but finally got through online!!! So excited for my first every trip!!!...now I just have to get the website working again to cancel my original reservation...

 

[samsteele]

We stayed in POP last year and LOVED it! I just don't know if we loved it enough to spend an additional $230 on top of the $270 for tickets. I mean, worst case, we don't like Sports as much as POP right? I mean, it won't be terrible either way because it's Disney, right? Please reassure me! lol.

The standard rooms are the same inside at all the values . . . exception being that some of the All Stars have adjoining family suites. Same decor, footprint, amenities, etc. AS Sports has a great perk in that buses pick up first in the a.m. You may or may not need to cycle the bus through the other AS before getting to the parks. My experience last Fall was that the AS Sports buses seemed to fill completely at Sports & we could see them driving by AS Music along the road and never stopping for our resort. So . . . you might get a direct bus more often that not many mornings. Also, you could easily walk through the adjoining parking lot to AS Music if you wanted to check out that food court one morning. With the money you save by going to AS Sports, could you swing MNSSHP tickets for your family? Just sayin'. Sending lots of pixie dust!

 

[JoAnn319]

this happened to me too for our reservation at WL!

It looks like it is happening to alot of people.

 

[Just Love Disney]

I DID IT! I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD! I officially have All Star Sports standard booked in lieu of POP reducing my balance from $3120 to $2744. Now I can be excited and unstressed! And thanks to all of you, I can be excited about the choice to save money instead of stay at our preferred resort!

Your perseverance paid off ~ Congratulations

 

[jbrest]

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.

Glad to hear you love POR! We've (almost) always stayed at CBR, and it's been great (for the most part), so I am a little nervous for the change. It looks like we'll be paying full price this year, so I hope POR is worth it!

 

[ELSA711]

I DID IT! I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD! I officially have All Star Sports standard booked in lieu of POP reducing my balance from $3120 to $2744. Now I can be excited and unstressed! And thanks to all of you, I can be excited about the choice to save money instead of stay at our preferred resort!

We decided to save to instead of staying at POR, feels good to save $ doesn't it?!!

 

[22Tink]

I know some people are upset about people booking before the deals came out but I know in my case I booked before the deal came out because I was going with or without a discount and wanted to make sure a standard room was available. When I plan trips I plan them at rack rate, that way I know I can afford to go. The free dining was a perk I wasn't counting on, I gladly would have paid for a full price standard view room if that was all that was available but I was not willing to risk being completely shut out.

Exactly!! I knew my dates and which hotel I wanted, so I booked it. I didn't even know FD existed when I booked my room!! It just ended up becoming a very nice perk!

 

[DISNEYNY]

For those who got through on the phone, what was your wait time? Im at 1 hr and 34 minutes and counting.

I got into the queue this morning around 7:05. Oh hold for 2:15 and they cut me off. Now I can't get through again - just a busy signal. Was online at 6:00 this morning won't let me switch online. Very frustrating.

 

[ELSA711]

Glad to hear you love POR! We've (almost) always stayed at CBR, and it's been great (for the most part), so I am a little nervous for the change. It looks like we'll be paying full price this year, so I hope POR is worth it!

You will love it!!

 

[Astylla]

Just for the heck of it decided to check my dates I booked ( Dec. 15-21st) first thing online at CBR..only pirate rooms available now. I had booked Water/Pool view. Thank you insomnia..
When I booked all categories were available at 3:00am PDT so now I am curious if the rooms just went THAT quickly or there were less to offer. Will be interesting to hear more as more people report back.

 

[choover2576]

I DID IT! I AM THE KING OF THE WORLD! I officially have All Star Sports standard booked in lieu of POP reducing my balance from $3120 to $2744. Now I can be excited and unstressed! And thanks to all of you, I can be excited about the choice to save money instead of stay at our preferred resort!

Congrats Aubrav! So happy for you! I got my preferred resort and dates, but didn't want to post anything until yours went through. I've enjoyed all of your posts, help and enthusiasm! Now you can relax and have a Disney day

 

[Honeybee83]

My mom just made her regular reservation for Pop century this morning (FD wasn't available for our dates and no RO discount has been announced yet either for later in October). If she's on a different reservation, but will be doing the same FP+ and dining experiences, can I just link her reservation to mine so I can get them all booked together?

 

[JustCallMeMommy]

They excluded those dates because they expect they can fill the resorts without free dining. Fortunately or unfortunately, depending on your perspective, if Disney finds that the resorts aren't filling for those days, they will "extend" the offer to cover those days.

 

[minerva78]

This is the only scenario I can see them losing money on. People choosing to stay offsite.

Yep, because I was fully prepared to stay offsite if I couldn't get FD to work out for me. I originally wanted to stay at a moderate, but over the course of the past few days of following these threads I realized if I wanted to have a chance to get FD I would need to try to get Pop and upgrade dining. With the addition of the PH ticket requirement Disney just about priced me out, but my costs of staying offsite in a 2 bedroom timeshare resort and paying OOP for parking and dining (although on different dates) is almost exactly the same as what I'm paying for a preferred room at Pop with upgraded "free" dining. If I am lucky enough to get an offer code for a standard at POR or POFQ, then I would be willing to pay the extra $100 above what I'm currently booked. But that's it! Another $100 - $200 of pricing tricks and I would have definitely said to heck with it and stayed offsite, and would have been perfectly happy. Though following this FD drama has been fun, I think I see more offsite trips in the future, if this is the state things are going to be, lol.

 

[Aubrav]

Me too! The page still says please wait, but the email came through. From 7350.00 to 4850.00! 13 nights. What a nice discount!

Whoa, that's an insanely huge discount... and here I am celebrating about $400, you just bought yourself a 2nd vacation!