Reservations (Hotel and Dinning)

[GleepingBeauty]

My DF and I are planning the wedding / honeymoon and had a few questions:

1. How much do we need to pay to make a reservation for the hotel? And when do we have to have the full payment?

2. When can we make reservations for dinning? And do you have any suggestions or must for dinning?


Thanks!

 

[erin.w]

I believe in order to reserve a room you pay for one night of your stay and the remainder is due when you check in.

Dining can be booked 180 days out.

 

[daisygirl902]

Normally when we book our stay it requires a $250 deposit, and the rest is due 45 days out...maybe that's because we're from Canada though....but that's always been the rule.

To figure out your 180 day mark for dining use the following site:
http://pscalculator.net/pscalc.php

Menus are available at:
http://allears.net/menu/menus.htm


A few of our favorites are: 50s Prime Time, Kona Cafe, Whispering Canyon, Teppan Edo, Rose and Crown, Kouzzina, and Chef Mickey's - if you are looking at more high end (Signature Dining) we love Yachtsman, Brown Derby, and also for a fun night Hoop De Doo Revue!

 

[2010_Bride]

The final remaining balance on your hotel is due on arrival UNLESS you have included the Disney Dining Plan then it is due 30 days out - I just learned this last week when I was sent an alarming e-mail from Disney that they were going to give away my Honeymoon reservation if I did not pay the full balance that they told me was past due.
I paid - and all is well, but I wasn't aware of the 30 days with the dining plan rule. When I reserved, the lady on the phone told me balance was due at check-in, (I even checked my notes!).

Dining Reservations are as others have said 180 days out - and I strongly recommend if there are a couple of places you really want to eat at - make the reservations early. DF and I have already been screwed. We figured a month or so ahead would be fine, but we can't get into the couple of places we wanted

 

[lurkyloo]

I believe in order to reserve a room you pay for one night of your stay and the remainder is due when you check in.

The final remaining balance on your hotel is due on arrival UNLESS you have included the Disney Dining Plan then it is due 30 days out.

If you make a room-only reservation, you pay a deposit equal to the cost of one night, and the remainder is due when you check in.


If you add *anything* to the room—Disney Dining Plan or Park Tickets—it becomes a package reservation, rather than a room-only reservation, which requires a $200 deposit and must be paid in full 45 days ahead of time. If you add a flight to your Disney package, the full price of the flight is due when you book.

 

[GleepingBeauty]

So you can get the dinning plan even if you aren't getting the park tickets? We went online and it looked like the only way of getting the dinning plan is if you get the park tickets.

Is the dinning plan worth it? And if so which on do you recommend?

 

[lurkyloo]

So you can get the dinning plan even if you aren't getting the park tickets?

They allow you to get the dining plan without purchasing tickets if you have an annual pass, and everyone else can purchase the dining plan as long as they buy at least a 1-day theme park ticket per person. Now whether you can really save money on admission by doing this and buying your tickets for the other days elsewhere will take some number crunching.

Is the dinning plan worth it? And if so which on do you recommend?

You're in luck! The DIS has an entire forum devoted just to Disney Dining Plans, and it's full of great info and debate about whether or not the plan is worth it.

You can find it here: http://www.disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=116

Once you start poking around the DIS, you'll find there's a wealth of info that will help you plan your trip. The Resorts Board can answer all your questions about hotel reservations, and the Theme Park Attractions & Strategies board has lots of info on tickets. And the main Restaurants board is the place to get the inside scoop on restaurants. I couldn't plan a WDW trip without this place!

 

[2010_Bride]

They allow you to get the dining plan without purchasing tickets if you have an annual pass"

I hate to disagree with you, (being the expert and all ) but I called 3 different times and was told that I still had to purchase at least one ticket per adult even though we get annual passes with the wedding. I argued with each representitative that we already had AP's but they said to include the dining plan we had no choice. The only good thing is that if we don't use them, they don't expire and we can use them in the future.
Unfortunately, the more I deal with Disney the more I realize that it really depends on who you talk to and how willing that particular representitave is to help you out

 

[lurkyloo]

Were you calling for free dining or paid dining? Because even Annual Passholders can't get free dining offers without meeting the ticket requirements (which they've now bumped up b/c we were all doing the one-day ticket thing ).

They also won't let APs add it to a reservation that has any other kind of discount (besides an AP discount) so if you are booking using your wedding room block discount, this is probably why they're saying no. Otherwise, you might want to call them back one last time and direct them to the official Annual Passholder website, which describes how the AP + Dining Package combo works http://disneyworld.com/dineupgrade.

On the other hand, having the 1-day tickets we had to buy to get free dining "forced" us to go back for our anniversary, so....