Free Dining rumor mid-way through stay

[MinD]

Sorry if wrong forum but nothing came up in search ...

My family has a vacation planned this August (14th - 27th). Just heard rumor that free dining is set to start August 23rd. If we were able to grab one of these deals, how does that work that we'll be there for several days before it starts? Will we have to break it into two separate reservations (one free dining and one not free dining) which may mean we would lose ADRs? I've heard that if your first day is the last day of promo they will extend it throughout - would be nice if the opposite was true, but I'm thinking that's too much pixie dust to hope for Trying to figure out if it's worth trying for it.

 

[Wood Nymph]

Sorry if wrong forum but nothing came up in search ...

My family has a vacation planned this August (14th - 27th). Just heard rumor that free dining is set to start August 23rd. If we were able to grab one of these deals, how does that work that we'll be there for several days before it starts? Will we have to break it into two separate reservations (one free dining and one not free dining) which may mean we would lose ADRs? I've heard that if your first day is the last day of promo they will extend it throughout - would be nice if the opposite was true, but I'm thinking that's too much pixie dust to hope for Trying to figure out if it's worth trying for it.

There is always a ticket purchase requirement that goes along with free dining. I don't know how far ahead of time you can pick up package tickets, but you could be looking at several days without tickets.

Your ADR's wouldn't change since they are tied to your MDE account and not to your hotel reservation.

 

[MinD]

Sorry new to this and not sure I understand ... We currently have park hopper tickets for each day as part of our reservation as it stands now. If we now split the stay into 2 packages to get a few days of free dining (before free dining and the 2nd with free dining) would it be worth the hassle? I'm thinking there's probably a fee to change the reservation.

They came out with free dining prior to my previous visit in 2013 and it was just basically a paper change to add the free dining to my existing reservation so nothing changed. The difference is that time all of our days were under the free dining schedule. This time some will and some won't.

 

[sharonabe]

Sorry new to this and not sure I understand ... We currently have park hopper tickets for each day as part of our reservation as it stands now. If we now split the stay into 2 packages to get a few days of free dining (before free dining and the 2nd with free dining) would it be worth the hassle? I'm thinking there's probably a fee to change the reservation.

They came out with free dining prior to my previous visit in 2013 and it was just basically a paper change to add the free dining to my existing reservation so nothing changed. The difference is that time all of our days were under the free dining schedule. This time some will and some won't.

Let me see if I can clear it up. You would need to change your current reservation with tickets to begin on a date that includes free dining. Then you will need a room only reservation for the days prior. Now your tickets are linked to your 2nd stay and qualify for the free dining promo. When you get to Disney, you can access those tickets to use immediately. I believe you can access tickets 10 days before the package part begins, but you might need to ask that question in a new thread to be certain. One problem with this scenario is you will NOT be able to make FP+ reservations for the first part of your stay, because the computer won't see any tickets with it.

 

[MinD]

Thanks so much for the clarification! I think I'll just keep things the way they are and forego the free dining this trip. We have a Fast Pass Party scheduled just prior to our 60 days for everyone in our party to come together to pick their choices for FP+ (we have 3 rooms of family members) so any risk/change to making FP+ is a deal breaker for us

 

[purple figment]

wdwinfo (which the disboards is a part of) posted that possible FD dates starting on Aug 23 showed up on the Travel Agents' website very briefly and have since been removed. If this turns out to be the case, you would have to do 2 separate reservations as mentioned by previous posters. However, you would only get FD from Aug 23 - 27 and while you can activate your tickets up to 10 days before the start of the FD package, you wouldn't be able to make any advanced FP+ for any of the days prior to Aug 23. Sounds like your decision to keep things the way they are will probably be better since you have a large group and FP+ is important to your group.

 

[jmkjr72]

Or keep the tickets you have split the hotel stay to get the free dinning and save those tickets for a later trip

 

[nj disney family]

Or keep the tickets you have split the hotel stay to get the free dinning and save those tickets for a later trip

This is what we did. We had annual passes, so we bought the tickets to get free dining. Now we have those tickets for our next trip.

 

[happymommy]

That's what we will do IF free dining comes out. We are booked 8/23 - 9/1 at Pop but have annual passes. If free dining (we'd get QSDP) is released, we'd save our tickets for next spring (it's just DD and me).

I take it all with a grain of salt. You never know!

We have a rental car, so if no dining, we're going to stop and pick up snacks at Target on our way there! We're not big eaters anyway.

Like the others said, your check in date needs to fall into the qualifying date. You can pick up tickets ahead of time. I've never done that, but it seems pretty easy.

I am so glad our kids go back to school after Labor Day. Seems like most start so early!