Does US follow UK for dining offers?

[SarahD]

I see that the Disney UK site has free dining through Nov 18, 2011. I was wondering if anyone knew if, historically, the US site makes the same offer at a later date. It looks like the end of year free dining offer doesn't usually come out until that fall, so I'm guessing it will be a while, but they did announce dates for earlier in 2011 very early. Any thoughts?

 

[eeyorethegreat]

I am thinking it is a bit of a testing of the waters to see if people will book ahead if the free dining is offered this far in advance. If it is popular then there is no need for them to offer room only rates at a discount. Right now, many people will wait to book until a discount comes out for their room and buy the pieces of their trip a la carte (ie tickets from a broker at a discount). I just think that the way they are doing it is because people see the free dining as a value to them (personally for me it hasn't worked out that way so I prefer room only) and Disney wants to get those rooms booked up. If a room is booked people will have a harder time letting the reservation go even if they shoud where as if people wait with the idea of if I can get a discount on our room we will go if we can't we won't . Starting the free dining offers this early is just a way to get people committed to a trip.

Visitorss from UK often get greater discounts and offers to encourage them to come this way.