No Riverside included in fall free dining offer...

[Mommymarie]

I called my aunt who has a party of 5 booked at Port Orleans Riverside in November to tell her the good news about free dining......Riverside has always been included as far as I remember. I had to call her back today and break the bad news that Riverside is NOT included in this offer. I am not sure it will be cost effective to pay for a value suite and the upgrade cost from quick service to regular dining

 

[splinsky]

I am seriously bummed. We have a reservation for September that we need to change now....

 

[ellismom]

This happened to us last year too. We wound up at The Caribbean. It was really nice, we just wouldn't stay there again because the buses took forever.

 

[prudence64]

What about animal kingdom lodge?

 

[MakiraMarlena]

Following resorts are excluded from this offer:

Port Orleans (both FQ and Riverside)
Art of Animation (Little Mermaid section only, family suites are included)
All-Star Movies
Grand Floridian Villas (not the hotel)
Fort Wilderness Campsites (just the campsites, the cabins are included)
All 3-bedroom villas

No guarantee about how many rooms will be made available for the promotion at any of the other resorts though.

has the party of 5 considered moving to a Fort Wilderness cabin? They are considered moderates I think. there are not many of them, though.

 

[patsal]

Looks like Disney deosn't need free dining to fill some value and moderate resorts.

 

[supersnoop]

Looks like Disney deosn't need free dining to fill some value and moderate resorts.

Looks to me like Disney doesn't want to give free dining to 5 people on a single room reservation.

 

[aaarcher86]

Looks to me like Disney doesn't want to give free dining to 5 people on a single room reservation.

Well, they do. You just have to pay a higher price for a deluxe or family suite

 

[kaytieeldr]

Looks to me like Disney doesn't want to give free dining to 5 people on a single room reservation.

At least two thirds of the (excluded) Port Orleans rooms have a maximum occupancy of four.
All the (excluded) All Stars Movies rooms have a maximum occupancy of four.
All the excluded Art of Animation rooms have a maximum occupancy of four.

Guests booking on speculation of a/this promotion indicated to WDW Resorts that there wasn't a need to include these and the other rooms in this discount.

 

[MakiraMarlena]

Maybe that's the deal behind excluding Riverside, but the rooms for 5 are only a small portion of that resort. The other excluded properties are either very small, very popular, or both, with the exception of the campsites (which are probably excluded because of the possible larger capacity of a campsite)

 

[Random Ninja]

A likely scenario is POR is booked enough that Disney doesn't need to include it in the free dining offer. POR is really popular and people book it in anticipation of free dining. That tends to backfire as then it's not included as it looks (and technically is) booked up. If enough people change resorts due to no FD, then POR should be on the RO discount that usually comes out later in the summer.

 

[aaarcher86]

It's already included in the RO discount through 10/3 so I imagine it'll be included later in the year too.

 

[patsal]

Looks to me like Disney doesn't want to give free dining to 5 people on a single room reservation.

All star Movies sleeps 4, POFQ and Many rooms Riverside sleep 4 not 5, Little Mermaid Sleep 4...

 

[DisneyFive]

This is a BIG deal. It was so much more economical for us to get a five person room at POR, which included the regular dining plan! Our next best option is two 4 person rooms as a value and pay to upgrade to the regular dining plan. ...but that's still more expensive than the one room at POR!

We aren't going to Disney this year. (non-Disney family cruise instead) It we were, this would have bummed me out.

I'm hoping that they offer FD again next year, since my wife's parents plan to join us and we'll need two rooms anyway. Thinking about trying Coronado Springs...

Dan

 

[disney*mom*82]

I see this hasnt been posted on for a few days, but want to make sure OP knows that there are PINS going around for free dining at POR. I did not receive any notice that I had it, I just called and hoped I did and she said I did. It is good the same dates as the GP FD, maybe even a few extra days. We are a family of 6 (one under 3) and this was the only way we would go and now we are booked for 2 weeks over Christmas and New Years with free dining at POR. I say, if you havent called about this yet, do so.

 

[Kalea]

This isn't exactly what you need, but I got a free dining PIN and was able to book Riverside. The promo was limited to Royal Rooms w/ Garden View.