Free Dining 2015 - The Results - Poll

[Bella749]

Our dates are 9/16-9/22, and we were not pre-booked, just got really lucky! I also booked in the evening (about 5pm CST), so maybe when others who had pre-booked released their standard rooms, they may have become available.

That is great! We are going 11/14-11/21 and have a water view room, which is fine by me. Standards at CBR were not available for my dates even the night before free dining. I am starting to wonder if the CBR standards with free dining were only available in the month of September. Anyways, hope you have a great trip!

 

[SPOERLX3]

Voted A. Found an AMAZING TA since I knew that we would be getting off a cruise ship the morning of free dining was being announced.
I told her exactly what we wanted. 2 standard rooms at POP (connecting requested) with PH but gave her our 2nd and 3 option with our permission to make any changes necessary to get FD as long as it stayed under the budget we gave her.
We got off the ship at 7:44 and the first thing I did was check my phone. I had an email timed at 5:48am from my TA with our confirmation and exactly what we had requested! Saved $1763 and going to Disney World in November! WOO HOO!!

 

[scrappymel]

We were originally booked at AKL. I was up when FD released at 3:25ish... nada. Standard rooms and standard savanna rooms were excluded. Booked a waterview at CSR (standard was available then too) and almost immediately regretted it. The next day I was able to switch to a garden view RR at POR. I'm pretty happy now. Would still prefer AKL, but we saved $2200, so I can't gripe too much.

 

[Mcterry]

I voted B but it's really somewhere between B and C. We had been booked for 7 nights at the Poly in the middle of September. They only had club level according to my travel agent, so we switched to Boardwalk with FD fairly unhappily. Then we ran more numbers and it was cheaper for us to do the RO discount drop the park hoppers (we didn't want them to begin with) then add the dining plan. We have young children and are doing tons of character meals on our trip. It still saved us about $200 over the free dining at the Boardwalk. Not sure if we will enjoy the boardwalk, and we really wanted to be on the monorail, but in the end I didn't want to spend the extra money to stay on the monorail. We have every meal we wanted including CRT, Ohana, BoG lunch and dinner, Chef Mickeys and Crystal Palace In addition to a few more meals. I really didn't want to move dates and risk losing our reservations!

 

[FFMickey]

I chose B. Originally we had booked FD at Pop standard room, but we wanted to extend our trip a day early, but no availability. We decided to move to ASSp while still getting FD. I could also have chosen A because the extra day only added less than $100 by switching resorts.

 

[jhaig]

Not many folks mentioning getting FD at a deluxe resort.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

Not many folks mentioning getting FD at a deluxe resort.

For most the room discount would be a greater savings than free dining if staying at a deluxe. We are a family of 4 with 2 teen boys who eat constantly and the room discount is still a better deal for us when staying deluxe.

 

[NYCANC]

Not many folks mentioning getting FD at a deluxe resort.

Tried at all 3 monorail resorts and CR and GF only had Club Level. Poly was booked solid. Hoping for a room discount.

 

[tnd]

I voted A. We booked a Cars Suite at AoA from 8/28-9/6, which was exactly what I wanted. I also upgraded to the DDP. Because my son will be 10, we'd be on the hook for 3 adult meals at every buffet/TS meal, so I think this will save us money. My biggest problem is that I need to come up with enough TS meals, so I am reading this board avidly for new ideas.

 

[Lee & Kerry]

Had to switch from POFC to CBR but it's all fine, got everything we wanted. Looking forward to the twelve day eating festival

 

[AgletWDW]

Through out the course of the week I moved from "d" to "b" and now I'm an "a". Seriously took all week of checking and checking, but we got the dates we wanted, at the resort we wanted, and the room type we wanted. It was an emotional week!!!

 

[HappyCoder]

Voted D, but we are still going to WDW, staying at Wilderness Lodge in Nov, without FD. I had hoped to add it to our trip, but oh well. It's a nice to have for us, not a deal breaker.

 

[Jadyreen1282]

Chose a. I already had my room at POR and just did a "modify" to add FD. Simple and worth it.

 

[PFopma]

Vote is B. 4 nights at POP preferred pool with FD and 3 nights RO so I can at least stay in same room. This was the only way I could get the week I wanted in October. If a good RO discount comes out I would like to move to POFC and do a split stay for the last 3 nights. I've never stayed in POP or POFC so this would give me the opportunity to experience two new resorts.

Changing my vote to A - just got off the phone and was able to modify to preferred Pop room with free dining all 7 days. It pays to stalk the reservation website!

 

[nat8199]

We got exactly what we wanted... Yacht Club garden view. It took me two days of trying, but I got it. That took $1200 off of our package, versus the $800ish that the room only offer did. We are 5 in the room, two adults and three kids. I also got the RO discount for my inlaws, which saved them $80 more than the free dining would have.

 

[kingd4066]

I voted "c". We had a pre-existing reservation for Coronado Springs standard view for Nov.13-22.
There were no rooms available for Coronado with free dining (except a king junior suite for an additional $2000) so we ended up at CBR pirate room with free dining. Thrilled for free dining but DD15 and DD13 aren't thrilled about the pirate room and we have heard that the buses are horrible at CBR. So, we have mixed emotions. Happy about free dining and disappointed about resort. The important thing is that we will be at Disney, our favorite place!!!! By the way, we had already purchased our airline tickets so we couldn't change our dates.

These are our exact dates! We were unable to get what we had hoped for, we ended up with a preferred room as the only option. We are people that care very little about he room location and certainly not for hundreds of dollars more on the weekend nights. With the extra price for the room, adding the PH, we got a discount to the dining plan this year which is better than nothing for sure, but for these room prices we better be staying inside Old Port Royale!! lol. Don't get me wrong definitely happy to be coming back, but it took a few days to settle into the extra price! See ya there!

 

[kingd4066]

We had POR booked but switched to CSR to get free dining, which we were prepared to do, so we were excited to get everything we wanted. We are surprising the kids with a scavenger hunt next week for the big reveal! With free dining we saved $900 but it would have been more if we didn't have to do park hopper which we won't use.

We would never buy PH either, not with our kids ages right now at least. Kinda excited that we did the water parks and more option, the kids are excited about the miniature golf and Disney quest...oh and my middle is over the moon about blizzard beach!

 

[22Tink]

I voted A. I got exactly what I wanted at POP and didn't have to change my dates. We probably wouldn't have paid for PH otherwise but it was still a big savings for us!! I only hope my ADRs go as smoothly!

 

[izzymommy]

Voted "d" but still going to Disney. Had CBR preferred pre-booked for Oct 2-9, had wanted standard room but that hadn't been available for weeks already. No luck with finding FD even moments after it opened and playing with dates. Was eventually able to find a standard room a few days later for rack rate and switched to that over preferred at least. Have been checking multiple times a day for FD room to open up but no luck. Fingers crossed now for a late fall RO!

 

[hskaggs11]

Me and my Hubby going. We wanted a Value for 6 nights, had to settle for CBR standard for 5 (cause my Hubby dragged his heels for 5 days after FD started!!!). It worked out the same price by less than $50, as we were going to do the Deluxe DDP either way. I did loose a day, so I voted B. We really wanted to start our vacation 2 days earlier, but with November FD starting on 11/8, that's the start date we had to go with, and couldn't find anything moderate or value for 6 nights. Nov 8 is a Sunday, and typically airfare costs for Southwest (we fly them almost exclusively) is higher than Saturdays. We are contemplating adding a day to vacation and save a little on airfare. Southwest won't release fares for our dates til mid may, so we are still in limbo til then on a separate Saturday stay. Tried to book a RO for our same category at CBR, but not available for that day. Thinking of renting DVC points and staying in AKL value or standard studio for Saturday if we would have to change rooms anyways.