Deals for 2014?!

[I_Heart_MK]

Hi all,

We have a bit of a conundrum. We booked our trip with Virgin in October 2013 for September 2014. We booked 5 nights at Coronado Springs with the free dining plan and paid to upgrade to DDP, followed by 9 nights at Wyndham Lake Buena Vista.

When booking we mentioned upgrading to Club Level at Coronado and were told to request a quote after booking, which we did straight away. We were told it would be fine to change it post-booking, and we've had our hearts set on this. We didn't hear back about the quote, despite calling them a several times for updates. They said they were waiting to hear back from Disney. We chased it up (again!) last week, and they finally gave us the quote. The quote was fine, however the problem is, they are saying that as the dining plan offer has now ended, if we make a change to our booking now we will lose our dining plan! We're very annoyed as we requested the quote so long ago!!!

Our options now seem to be:
- Stick with our Coronado booking with dining plan and request a room near the main building and hope for the best.
- Upgrade to the Club Level at CS and lose the DDP (I have read discussions about it not being worth the money - bear in mind we wont have a car for this part of our stay and will want to eat onsite).
- Change hotel and lose the DDP. If we can't ensure we will get a good location at CS we are considering a change to AKL or similar as it doesn't cost a lot more. What are peoples thoughts on CS club level VS AKL standard?

At the moment we also have $100 gift card included. I've read on here that there's now a $150 gift card offer, so I wonder if we would get this instead if we made a change now? Although I haven't actually been able to find reference to this deal on any websites.

I'm also wondering whether anyone knows if there's likely to be another dining plan offer in the next few months (I know there is discussion about this on the board at the moment!)? If there is, then we can just wait until then to make our upgrade to CS CL as we won't lose the DDP!

I look forward to hearing any thoughts on what we should do! We're getting excited about our trip now so I may be more present on this board!!!

Thanks,
Christine xxx

 

[Elise79]

Having stayed at CSR 5 times I would stick with what you have - the DP is not good value if you pay for it however free it does have value especially as you will be eating on site with no car.

We have stayed in 7A which is one of the furthest buildings and it was no more than a 10 min stroll to El Centro.

Our favourite building was 8A - stayed there twice. It's right next to the main pool, a couple of minutes maximum to a quiet pool and just over the bridge to El Centro.

AKL isn't for us - we just don't like the resort and I would CSR over it any day.

 

[lennymore]

I would question what Virgin are saying re losing the DDP. I too booked last year for Oct this year (SSR withDDP) and changed it 2 weeks ago to go in May instead. Everything stayed exactly the same, just my dates changed. I booked direct with Disney so if they can do it, why couldn't Virgin?

 

[I_Heart_MK]

That's interesting thanks guys! I think we will try and question Virgin as it seems unfair that we miss out because they took so long to chase up the quote.

Still can't find anything about the $150 gift card at the moment - does anyone know about this?

Thanks!

 

[Disneynutinlondon]

The $150 gift card is with Disney US so any TA that books with Disney US will be able to get it ...... having said that I think it maybe for new booking only I'm not sure if it can be applied to existing booking.

As for losing the free DDP, I don't think Virgin are right. My sister booked with Total Florida in April 2013 but at that time she wasn't exactly sure of her dates and she wouldn't be sure until the end of November 2013 when the free DDP offer would be over. They told her that if she wanted to move her dates as long as the new dates were within the original free DDP offer dates and there was still availability in the hotel she wanted that it was certainly possible to make that change and for her not to lose the free DDP.

I hope that makes sense. Anyway I would contact Virgin and ask to speak to another operator or to a supervisor