I got it too! I was just now looking at the website since now you can book dining reservations online because I needed to double check when I could book Fantasmic Dessert Party reservations.....and I thought, I should check out any AP rates.
Happily I saw the 25% off select nights during our stay so I high-tailed it to my phone......we saved $218 off our original stay (which already included the standard 10% off AP rate). So Sun-Thurs the standard rate for Paradise Pier is $193. Fri-Sat rate is $273. The weekend rate isn't 25% off, I can see that since I'm only saving $16 additional those two nights but I'm happy with any savings.
I think it's a bummer that I cannot pay off my reservations with my disney gift cards over the phone or online. I paid off our entire WDW trip this way. There's something to be said about arriving to the Happiest Place on Earth and not owing anyone any money for it! I've been told by every CM I've spoken with that paying with Disney Gift Cards (not Disney Visa) must be taken care of at the hotel desk. So I'll be paying off my trip when I check in and that poor CM will have to scan 54 Disney Gift cards.
That's going to be hard to do with a smile on his/her face!
You know I buy those gift cards at Target with my Target Red Card (the debit one) and I get 5% savings on each of those. That is saving me an additional $137.50. Hey, every penny counts, right?
Okay, back to your originally scheduled programing. I've been trying to catch up and really really LOVE everyone's pictures. I take a lot of pictures as well and look forward to our first trip to the west coast parks to take some for myself.
I've been busy getting ready for my sister/brother-in-law's 25th Anniversary party (making decorations, etc) and my neice's Baby Shower preparations but I do check in a couple times a week. Happy weekend everyone! We fly out in 54 days and check in to PPH in 56!
Kathy --
Excellent! You are the first person I thought of in regards to this discount because I knew you were cancelling the actual package to do a room-only thing, and were hoping for a discount! I'm soooo glad you were able to get it! I knew it was a good sign when I saw the discount that ran until 9/27 or 9/28. Last year the discounts were non-existent (other than the standard 10% off for AP holders 365 days a year), but I thought that since there had already been a couple of decent discounts so far this year, there was a good chance that there would be one that carried into December (as has been the case in previous years). Yay!
As for using multiple gift cards to pay off the room balance at the PPH - I have first-hand experience with that, but the last time I did it was December 2010 (I didn't have 54 cards, but I had a lot of cards!). I am hoping that they have managed to make it easier now, and that the CMs are clear at the front desk about exactly what will be charged, and when.
Here's how it worked when I did the gift card thing:
1. I had paid whatever was required ahead of time (the deposit and a bit extra) and given them a card number over the phone to hold the room.
2. I arrived at the PPH very early in the morning to check in, with many gift cards in hand. In the past when I checked in, if I had to pay off a balance of some sort I was able to do that upon check-in, with either cash or debit/credit card, so I assumed it would work the same way with gift cards. I was not told otherwise prior to arrival.
3. The CM who checked me in told me that he could not accept my gift cards at check-in, and that I'd have to come back at check-out, at which point they could take the gift cards and apply them to my room total. The thing was, I had no reason to go to the front desk at check out because I usually have nothing to take care of (no final bill that needs paying or anything). And I like to have everything paid off before I ever set foot in the room.
4. The CM and I went back and forth about the gift cards -- at one point he even said to me that the reason he couldn't apply the gift cards right then is because there was nothing/no balance to apply them to (???
what about the total of the room that was still unpaid???) -- and finally he went to talk to someone in a back room about it (maybe a supervisor), but that other person never came out. The CM finally said that he
could take the gift cards at that moment. So he grudgingly took them and one by one started applying them to my room account.
5. I thought everything was taken care of and that my room was paid off. Instead, what happened was that the reservations system latched onto my original debit card/credit card number (the one I used to hold the room and pay the deposit) and deducted the balance due on the room, plus the dreaded incidentals fee (phone deposit and all of that). I would have preferred to use a different card if I had known that was what was happening, but they didn't tell me that almost $300 had just been held/blocked on the card that they already had in their system. They didn't ask if it was okay to use that card. They didn't tell me that even though the gift cards had been applied, their system didn't accept the credit yet.
6. So I went on my merry way, thinking I was all paid up, unaware that almost $300 was unable to be used on my debit card as I began charging meals and things to it (and I did not learn that the money had been held on my card until I got home).
7. The actual value of the gift cards was apparently not applied until I checked out. Supposedly, from what I later learned, this sort of mess could have been avoided. There was a way for the CM who checked me in to at least stop their system from automatically blocking the money on my card, and even a way to get their system to apply the value of the gift cards to the room balance at check-in -- just as they would have applied cash or a credit card. I think it was a simple matter of a few keystrokes that could have stopped it.
8. I called the PPH when I got home and discovered what had gone awry, telling them that I was spending on a debit card that I did not tell them they could use for holding/blocking funds. I would have used a different one for the hotel mess. They agreed and acknowledged that they screwed up all across the board, either by not stopping the system from deducting from my card or by not communicating exactly what was happening -- as well as for making it sound as if it was impossible to accept gift cards at check-in.
Because of this hassle, I ended up with one free night at the PPH on my next December trip in 2011, as well as a $99 rate for each additional night, VIP seats for the Christmas parade, VIP viewing for other shows, etc. It was a great compensation for the hassle -- but I would not choose to go through that hassle again.
So, I think that the hotels are sticking to the policy of applying gift card payments upon check-out. They may take your gift cards at check-in just to save you the trouble of coming back later to check out, but the credit may not actually apply until you leave the PPH -- and your debit or credit card may have the remaining balance and incidentals charged to it/held/blocked until you leave. Hopefully, the whole process has gotten simpler and the CMs communicate better about it now, but just be prepared for what may happen and be sure to ask them exactly what is being charged and/or credited on which cards (gift cards or credit/debit) when you check in, so you know what you're dealing with!
There's a lot they could do for selling points. A different kind of parade, perhaps. Something new. Something they haven't done before. Various entertainment. I think it would work perfectly. And old world theme is a good idea. There's a lot they could do with that.
