Bay Lake Tower is a Disney resort. It is a DVC resort. Disney makes rooms at DVC resorts available for booking by the general public just like any other resort room, based on inventory they have after DVC members switch out their interest during the year to trade for another timeshare elsewhere (one of the programs DVC offers.) How many DVC members trade out at any given time have an effect on how many rooms they have to offer to the public, or when. But it doesn't mean they are not eligible for discounts; if they have trouble filling up those rooms, they will discount them. OKW and SSR are DVC resorts, and they are so massive that they are usually included in general public discounts and may be offered for special discounts.
The only time I ever heard of anyone being able to combine
free dining with a room discount was an offer made to residents of Great Britain who agreed to stay at least two weeks at SSR or OKW at certain times.
Here's a list of historically excluded resorts for general public free dining:
2014 exclusions were Fort Wilderness campsites, AOA Little Mermaid, Port Orleans (both FQ and Riverside), All Star Movies, all three-bedroom villas and Villas at Grand Floridian.
2013 for the late fall offer - post September (in 2014 there was no late fall offer, all dates for September - December were released at once) the exclusions were Fort Wilderness campsites, AOA (apparently all of it), All Star Movies, POFQ, all three-bedroom villas, and Villas at Grand Floridian (which had just opened).
2013 September - excluded were Fort Wilderness campsites, AOA Little Mermaid and 3-bedroom villas.
2012 late fall offer - Fort Wilderness campsites and AOA Little Mermaid were excluded. There's not anything written for 2012 or prior about the 3 bedroom villas.
2012 September offer and all offers before that - only Fort Wilderness campsites were excluded.
This was just for the general public offer - I believe free dining access to everything except Little Mermaid, Fort Wilderness campsites and 3 bedroom villas has been offered to selected guests via PIN code even though they were excluded from the general public offer. And those are just full resort exclusions. Within the included resort, there could be limited access on the promotion to certain room categories or types.
Just watching here for more information to go off. We're definitely going, but can only justify the expense of staying on-site if FD is offered. Otherwise we'll be staying off-site and packing snacks and lunches to cut costs. We also have a family of 5 which is pricey when you either have to book 2 rooms, a suite or now CBR (and one other I forget). CBR is the cheapest since we'd have to book a suite at the all-stars.
