Free Dining 2016 is open.... Sort of...

[Kikisstar]

Disney announced free dining plan availability this morning, along with room rate discounts for fall. My trip is from 9/18-9/24 and we are booked at POR. My agent has been trying all morning to book free dining for my group, or alternately apply the room rate discount to our booking, with no luck. In her words, the offering for families staying in moderate rooms are EXTREMELY limited this year. She also tried to apply free dining for friends of ours staying in the Contemporary that week without any luck. Looks like we may be out of luck for any sort of discount this year.

 

[Pumbaa_]

that is the risk of booking before the announcement - your plan may or may not apply. as we saw last year, availability was very limited. this year at first glance seems to be even more limited!

 

[Enchanted Minnie]

My agents are having the same issue with their clients. There's very limited to no availability for Value and Moderates.

 

[DexLabDeeDee]

We're not eligible for FD but I just checked for our resort AKL for the first two weeks of Sept and no availability for FD or RO - except 1BR villa, standard view room only discount. Yikes!

 

[Kikisstar]

We were not opposed to changing our entire reservation around, but no matter what resort we looked at the package was just not going to be all that great. We are keeping our booking at POR. If we HAPPEN to be able to snag a free dining booking later, then great. But right now it makes more sense to just buy the dining package, or pay a la carte.

 

[havoc315]

At 9am, my Travel agent was warning me that everything was booking fast, as she rushed me to choose between a room discount and free dining.
It does seem that both promotions were very very limited this year. Maybe a better room only discount will open later

 

[Kingdome8]

Yeah I wish I just got on early and booked second reservation then canceled mine. Oh well. Lady on phone said they look for it and can cancels both reservations.

I was on phone for for 1.5 hours with lady after being on hold for 2.5. Didn't find anything food or room discount. Wonder if she knew and just kept trying. Which is nice. But waste of time. Thinking I may cancel room. And keep dining reservations and stay off site. Save a fortune. Hate staying off site but will be nice to have extra cash and keep all my ADRs.

 

[JennyT1]

Check again tomorrow or later tonight when the double bookers start cancelling.

 

[macfinn]

Check again tomorrow or later tonight when the double bookers start cancelling.

Check again tomorrow or later tonight when the double bookers start cancelling.

We were only able to book the first week for values - starting Aug 23 , any time after that was booked all the way too November dates

 

[Disney Crazed!]

Booked for Beach Club last week of September and can't get free dining! First time we have not been able to get it in years! Does anyone know if they offer room discounts in the fall?

 

[jhaig]

By limiting availability they are laying the groundwork for phasing out FD altogether. Why else would they make it such a pain to get?

This is the first year since FD has been offered that they wouldn't add it to our previously booked reservation. I realize the possible problem with booking early and that you're not guaranteed anything, but with such limited availability this year it makes me wonder if it's on the way out.

Not only no FD at the Contemporary Garden Wing, but they couldn't add the room only discount either.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Booked for Beach Club last week of September and can't get free dining! First time we have not been able to get it in years! Does anyone know if they offer room discounts in the fall?

Room discounts for dates through November 5th were released today, too. There is limited availability and the discount for BC is only 15%.

 

[leeserw]

Is FD open to the public now? I got an email that it is open to Visa card holders but I have a friend that isn't a card holder but wants to book FD.

 

[3boys4me]

Yes, but she better hurry!

 

[Kevenswife2]

After reading through all the FD threads I feel lucky to have gotten FD! When the FD rumors started I had a reservation at POP starting Dec 22. Rumor was I would have to check in by Dec 21 to receive FD, so last Saturday I added an extra day to my existing reservation. Monday morning I was able to modify my reservation online at 5:30am to add FD, and avoid all the phone wait time. I'm so thankful Disney has made it possible for me to make changes to a reservation online, without all the hassles of waiting on hold. I have a job where that would have been impossible.

 

[MouseMama11]

We booked our WDW vacay for 8/19-8/29 at POR and our agent tried to get us the FD the second they announced it (we told her ahead of time we were interested) but availability was too limited. She even tried to switch our reservation to another moderate resort with no luck. But I think it would end up being around the same price considering we had a 20% off room promo code with free park hopper upgrade so we weren't too disappointed. It just stinks that it's so limited now. We got hooked on the DP bc we got FD a few years ago and now it's just so much easier to have it, even if we have to pay for it.

 

[Lisa F]

A friend of mine (who is not disney crazy at all) is staying at AKL for 10 nights for her Honeymoon checking in on Nov 28th and I told her about the free dining promo and she was able to add it to her room. Since she was already non discounted it is HUGE for her, basically upgraded what she was already paying to include free dining. She is over the moon and I am the disney man, lol.

 

[Disneylover99]

A friend of mine (who is not disney crazy at all) is staying at AKL for 10 nights for her Honeymoon checking in on Dec 28th and I told her about the free dining promo and she was able to add it to her room. Since she was already non discounted it is HUGE for her, basically upgraded what she was already paying to include free dining. She is over the moon and I am the disney man, lol.

How did she get free dining if she's checking in on Dec. 28th?

 

[Lisa F]

How did she get free dining if she's checking in on Dec. 28th?

Sorry november 28th. I keep thinking december because her trip is mostly in december (and that's when mine is as well). Last day to check in on the promo!

 

[TraceyL]

I just managed to switch my ASSp FD reservation for Pop where there was previously no availability so inventory is changing