Need advice for a December vacation

[virgo7598]

Hello everyone! This is my first post and I'm excited to hear what advice you guys have about my Disney World trip.

My friend and I are planning a vacation to Disney World in the beginning of Dec 2017. We know we'd like to go for 7 days/6 nights, sometime after Dec 3rd and before Christmas week. We'd like to stay at a Moderate hotel (we stayed at the Hilton last time we went to Disney in 2014, but we'd like to really have the Disney experience at stay on property this time). We booked our previous vacation through Expedia and we'd like to do the same this time around too. Since my friend and I live in different states, I'm going to buy the my flight with our hotel together and my friend is buying her own plane ticket separately.

Playing around with dates in our time period, we've found prices running $1600-1700 for hotels like Caribbean and both Port Orlean's. So my question is, should we wait to book until prices go down? I was reading that room discounts for this time period come out beginning of the summer/6 months out. And I know Free Dining just came out for this time period too, and we're not utilizing that, but will that cause prices to skyrocket? Is the construction going on at some of the Moderate's going to cause prices to go up or down?

Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[tink1970]

Welcome to the boards!

I haven't stayed on property in years (b/c I haven't gone to WDW in years) but I think there are some consistent truths to booking OP.

1) only book what you can afford because discounts are never guaranteed
2) only book what you will be happy with because while things may change they also may not
3) if construction has closed or decreased rooms at resorts then there will be increased demand at similar price point resorts -same number of people wanting rooms, fewer rooms available
4) discounts come out when/if there is a need by Disney to fill rooms...and from everything I've read this seems to be less frequent
(that said, free dining is always a good sign that rooms were going vacant but if you're waiting for a discount after that it might not happen since
free dining often brings in more people, which of course, is the point)

For your circumstance, I'd wait if I were a gambler. If I wanted prices and resort set in stone then I'd book now. Only you know what your level of tolerance for the waiting, waiting game is!

 

[virgo7598]

Welcome to the boards!

I haven't stayed on property in years (b/c I haven't gone to WDW in years) but I think there are some consistent truths to booking OP.

1) only book what you can afford because discounts are never guaranteed
2) only book what you will be happy with because while things may change they also may not
3) if construction has closed or decreased rooms at resorts then there will be increased demand at similar price point resorts -same number of people wanting rooms, fewer rooms available
4) discounts come out when/if there is a need by Disney to fill rooms...and from everything I've read this seems to be less frequent
(that said, free dining is always a good sign that rooms were going vacant but if you're waiting for a discount after that it might not happen since
free dining often brings in more people, which of course, is the point)

For your circumstance, I'd wait if I were a gambler. If I wanted prices and resort set in stone then I'd book now. Only you know what your level of tolerance for the waiting, waiting game is!

I think we're gonna end up waiting for prices to go down, but who knows...we may cave and just book it for fear of prices going UP.

Thank you for your input @tink1970 !

 

[katmatry]

It's not likely that the room rate will increase, much more likely that there will be a discount. The discount, however, may not apply to the resort or room type that you want. I would book tickets and room through Disney and flight through airline.
If you enjoy pool time I would recommend not staying at CB, the pool is being refurbished. Enjoy your trip, we'll be departing as you are arriving.