Room avail. & Free Dining...

[LegoMom3]

First of all, I apologize profusely for yet another thread on Free Dining...

However, the more I read, more the get confused I ! So, here's my question: we did Free Dining in '06. I booked it a month or so after it was officially announced, with no problems getting a room or the ADRs I wanted.

Now I'm reading in here again about the limited number of rooms that are set aside for such promotions (understand all that), but that these seem harder to come by every year (probably in part to the shrinking time frame for FD).

SO!....if I go ahead and book a package now, does it "reserve" a room for me so I can just add FD if it's offered in the spring, or doesn't it matter, and essentially I'd just be "cancelling" and "rebooking" in order to add FD?? (thus I'm back to square one with the room availability thing).

If it makes a difference, we would only be getting the dining plan IF it's the Free version.

I guess my bottom line question is, does it matter if I book now or wait until an official Free Dining offer comes out?? My only hesitation is in the "IF" factor of whether we are going this year at all or not. Free Dining will play a large part in that decision.

 

[Tiffany]

First of all, I apologize profusely for yet another thread on Free Dining...

However, the more I read, more the get confused I ! So, here's my question: we did Free Dining in '06. I booked it a month or so after it was officially announced, with no problems getting a room or the ADRs I wanted.

Now I'm reading in here again about the limited number of rooms that are set aside for such promotions (understand all that), but that these seem harder to come by every year (probably in part to the shrinking time frame for FD).

SO!....if I go ahead and book a package now, does it "reserve" a room for me so I can just add FD if it's offered in the spring, or doesn't it matter, and essentially I'd just be "cancelling" and "rebooking" in order to add FD?? (thus I'm back to square one with the room availability thing).

If it makes a difference, we would only be getting the dining plan IF it's the Free version.

I guess my bottom line question is, does it matter if I book now or wait until an official Free Dining offer comes out?? My only hesitation is in the "IF" factor of whether we are going this year at all or not. Free Dining will play a large part in that decision.

If you book a room and ticket package knowing that you will end up canceling if free dinning does not come out then you are defeating the purpose. Disney only releases discounts like free dinning to fill rooms. If they fill the number of rooms they want without offering free dinning then they will not offer free dinning. So I would say only book what you are going to be willing to pay for if free dinning is not offered this year. If that is a value then book a value if that is no trip that don't book anything and keep and eye out for discounts for the time frame you want. Good luck.

 

[pegryfun]

I asked my AAA TA and she said if we booked a package now we would have to include the dining plan and if it became free then they would give us the credit. We decided not to book, mostly because Sept. will not be a good month for us, and now we may go in Oct. like we did last year, not getting the dining plan because it was too much food and because of the changes of the plan.