Question about free dining/arrival date/magical express

[ponyboy]

Ok, tell me if this would work or not.

We were planning on going around Christmas but plans have changed. We're now going around Thanksgiving. Planning on arrival 11/25 and departing 12/6. Those dates are so the kids miss the least amount of school.

There will be 10 of us and according to my rough calculations the total for rooms, dining plan and tickets will be $18,374

Last year free dining ended on the Saturday before Thanksgiving which if that corresponds to this year will be 11/22.

Could I book for 11/22-12/6 and then arrive early myself and check everyone in, take the rooms with the rest arriving on 11/25 so that we could take advantage of free dining if it's offered? Would I need 3 adults to arrive early, one for each room?

Even with buying extra 3 day tickets for 3 adults for the extra days I'd be saving roughly $3,000 for the trip by getting the free dining package. If that works, would that screw up the magical express for everyone that arrived later?

I'm trying to figure out if it's doable, if they even offer free dining, and worth the hassle to save the money. Plus the fact that I'd get an extra 3 days there.

Thanks for any help.

 

[momto3pirates]

In the past, Disney has required everyone to be present at check-in for free dining. They may or may not enforce that. I do not think one person can check in for 3 rooms. Also, that seems like a lot of wasted money for 3 nights in 3 rooms that are not used.

 

[ponyboy]

In the past, Disney has required everyone to be present at check-in for free dining. They may or may not enforce that. I do not think one person can check in for 3 rooms. Also, that seems like a lot of wasted money for 3 nights in 3 rooms that are not used.

It's not really wasted, it would save $3k on the total bill if it worked out correctly.

The more I think about it the more of a hassle it sounds like even if it would work. I'll probably just take the kids out of school longer and arrive on the 22nd instead of the 25th. That way if they offer free dining then we can take advantage of that and save $6k and if not then it didn't really matter anyway.

 

[jezebel73]

If free dining is offered and restarts a couple of days into your trip (like on 12/2), you can book a split stay - basically stay with dining out of pocket or with a full paid dining plan for the first couple of days then you check out, check back in to a new package with free dining for the remainder of the trip. I have not done this myself but I see it mentioned all the time on these boards. You should find it easy to get more information on that.

In your scenario, I know all package members must be booked for the same things in the package. Like you all have the same number of nights in the room, the same number and type of park tickets, the same dining plan (or lack thereof). So if you book extra days to get the free dining, you'd be booking the package for EVERYONE. That doesn't mean that you all need to arrive together. I have done it twice where one member of the party came a day later than the rest and it was no issue at all. If only a few of you went down earlier, you could buy separate park tickets for the extra days, but it would be pricey since you're not adding on to your other tickets. Or you could just relax at the pool and explore resorts and DTD and have some meals and save the parks for when the rest arrived.

 

[jezebel73]

Oh and you can change date for the Magical Express, too. I think you have to call them directly to change the reservation for whatever people are coming later but you are entitled to it with a room reservation either way. When we had a person come a day later, he did exactly that and it was no problem.

 

[ponyboy]

So if you book extra days to get the free dining, you'd be booking the package for EVERYONE.

Yeah, I factored that in and it would still be cheaper in my scenario.

We have 10 people and the dining plan would be roughly $525 per day or $6k give or take for the whole trip. So even adding on the 3 additional days with 3 adults going early to secure the 3 rooms with additional 3 day tickets would only add $3k to the bill. If that allowed us to get free dining then I'd be spending $3k to save $6k for a net savings of $3k.

In addition, that would be 7 people not using their dining plan for 3 days which would give us 21 additional sit down meals to use during the rest of the trip so I could book reservations for places that take 2 dining credits for a couple of dinners and maybe the kids wouldn't run out of snack credits like they have every other trip.

After thinking about it though, I just don't know if it would be worth the hassle when I can have the kids miss a couple of extra days of school and save the whole $6k. I'd miss 3 extra days in the park with my wife and no kids but is that worth $6k, especially when a big part of the fun for us is being there with the kids?

I'll probably just have us arrive earlier and hope that they offer free dining and that it lasts until the Saturday before Thanksgiving. It's not a make or break thing, it would just be nice to save a little on an already expensive vacation.

 

[caselaw3]

would you get to have the free dining AFTER the offer was over?
I thought that once it ended it ended - like if free dining ended on the 24th you wouldn't be able to have free dining after that? When we went in December they had free dining for part of our trip but not all of it and we were not able to have free dining for any of it.....

 

[maxiesmom]

would you get to have the free dining AFTER the offer was over?
I thought that once it ended it ended - like if free dining ended on the 24th you wouldn't be able to have free dining after that? When we went in December they had free dining for part of our trip but not all of it and we were not able to have free dining for any of it.....

As long as your start date falls within Free Dining, you can have it for your whole stay. But you can't go backwards with the date--if Free Dining starts on the 24th and you check in on the 20th, you can't have it for the 20th, 21st, 22nd, or 23rd. In order to have it you would have to have 2 separate reservations, on that goes from the 20th to 23rd, and check in again on the 24th.