is this true, no free dining this year?

[Mickeyherewecome123]

I'm chatting with a Disney castmember and I asked if they will be offering free dining again in November and he said the free dining offer ended December 2010 and will not be offered again this year. YIKES!!!
Can that be true? Has anyone else heard this?

 

[Luv2Roam]

The first statement is correct. The second statement is anyone's guess.

 

[PrincessTiffany]

I'm chatting with a Disney castmember and I asked if they will be offering free dining again in November and he said the free dining offer ended December 2010 and will not be offered again this year. YIKES!!!
Can that be true? Has anyone else heard this?

Yes, that's pretty much true. In the fall Disney released a number of free dining dates for 2011 and you had to book those offers by December 20, 2010. As of right now there are no other free dining discounts. They may come out with some other fall and winter offers, but only if their resort bookings are down.

 

[Mickeyherewecome123]

Has it been this way in the past years or is this a new approach for Disney?

 

[PrincessTiffany]

It's new. For the past 5 or 6 years they always released the free dining dates around April. But with last fall's big announcement, it's now anyone's guess as to when or if there will be other free dining discounts this year.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

Since the previous Free Dining offer goes until September 2011, I don't see WDW adding more dates for October, November and December 2011, because they could have easily added those months on the previous offer.

 

[SarahD]

Just no way to know.

 

[PrincessTiffany]

Since we are all speculating, I'm going to say I think that around July they will offer a free dining discount for October, November and December dates.

 

[gris gris]

actually if you look at the historical data on mousesavers they didn't announce free dining for the fall until July last year. I don't think I'd worry about it until the summer.

http://www.mousesavers.com/historicalwdwdiscounts.html#2010

 

[nooneshome]

No one has a crystal ball especially lately with WDW's approach to special offers. They say they are cutting back then bam lots more offers. I think WDW is addicted to special offers and eventually they will offer FD for October - early December. But hey I thought the Saints would beat the Seahawks.

A man has to have dreams.

 

[Linda T.]

I am hoping for free dining in July, 2011. Last year I booked the end of March and I had the free dining offer for July. I am crossing my fingers!!!!

 

[Danibelle]

No one has a crystal ball especially lately with WDW's approach to special offers. They say they are cutting back then bam lots more offers. I think WDW is addicted to special offers and eventually they will offer FD for October - early December. But hey I thought the Saints would beat the Seahawks.

A man has to have dreams.

Go Saints! I thought they would win, too!

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

I am hoping for free dining in July, 2011. Last year I booked the end of March and I had the free dining offer for July. I am crossing my fingers!!!!

Actually on the previous Free Dining offer which was the public one and the Bounceback one at the resorts, the whole month of July 2011 was blacked out for Free Dining. Plus on the brand new room only discounts July 2011 is also blacked out for that promotion, so we won't see Free Dining during that time.

 

[Sammie]

My crystal Mickey snowglobe says: that if bookings are down, free dining will come.

 

[lupp2217]

I am hoping for free dining in July, 2011. Last year I booked the end of March and I had the free dining offer for July. I am crossing my fingers!!!!

I am with you on this. We are hoping for a June free dining or a great room discount.

 

[chabs]

actually if you look at the historical data on mousesavers they didn't announce free dining for the fall until July last year. I don't think I'd worry about it until the summer.

http://www.mousesavers.com/historicalwdwdiscounts.html#2010

This is not true-we alway book our free dining around April, the same time the Southwest flights come out for the end of August. I think that they will end up offering free dining or something else for the end of summer/fall too. This is typically the slow season.

 

[dclfun]

This is not true-we alway book our free dining around April, the same time the Southwest flights come out for the end of August. I think that they will end up offering free dining or something else for the end of summer/fall too. This is typically the slow season.

It was already offered but then the promo ended on December 20th.---Kathy

 

[gris gris]

This is not true-we alway book our free dining around April, the same time the Southwest flights come out for the end of August. I think that they will end up offering free dining or something else for the end of summer/fall too. This is typically the slow season.

you have free dining for September? this is probably the current promo they ended in December. for October and November they announced later in 2010, according to mousesavers.

also last year we had planned to go 10/30-11/7, changed our dates to September to get free dining, booked our airlines, then they announced free dining ending 10/28 (somewhere around there) but we ended up keeping our dates. but, if we wanted to go back to October with free dining, we could have. they just didn't announce it until after we had already firmed up our new plans.

 

[chabs]

It was already offered but then the promo ended on December 20th.---Kathy

Yes I know this. I am talking about the past few years of free dining. We always booked in April-not July. The OP was asking if we thought they would bring free dining back again and I was stating that I think that yes I thought they would bring it back again in April for the late summer/fall months. We go Labor Day weekend every year-sometimes we do free dining-sometime the room only discount or a combination/split stay. I would think that they would either bring back free dining or something similar after the current room only and kids eat free promos end on March 27-which puts the time frame for a new promo to open up in early April-the same time Southwest opens their late summer/fall flights.

 

[chabs]

you have free dining for September? this is probably the current promo they ended in December. for October and November they announced later in 2010, according to mousesavers.

also last year we had planned to go 10/30-11/7, changed our dates to September to get free dining, booked our airlines, then they announced free dining ending 10/28 (somewhere around there) but we ended up keeping our dates. but, if we wanted to go back to October with free dining, we could have. they just didn't announce it until after we had already firmed up our new plans.

No-we didn't book free dining this year because we were waiting for the room only discount instead. We decided that we are going back to the WL CL and it saves us a lot more money than the dining plan would.