To wait or to book ??

[princessjodiebo]

Hi everyone
I am finally finalising plans to book for next year and have been reading and catching up on the boards about 2015 and dining etc

It will be 4 years since we last visited when we return and i am aware a lot of things have changed - fastpass plus and also dining plan value for money but is there anything else park wise or planned for next year (parades rides etc)

In my opinion i probably wouldnt go for dining again as there are only a few table service meals we actually want to do and as we only will probably going for about 10 nights

My question is this

Would you hang on and wait for April for room discounts or fingers crossed dining offers ( Im not fussed either way but if its there obviously we would take it ) or as i am not that fussed would it be better to book sooner as i know some people have said free dining ends up normally bumping up the room price so you arent really saving ?

Last time we went with virgin but having read how easy it is to do diy i would probably do it that way now ( thank god for these boards )

Any advice as always gratefully recieved

 

[minimog]

Hi everyone
I am finally finalising plans to book for next year and have been reading and catching up on the boards about 2015 and dining etc

It will be 4 years since we last visited when we return and i am aware a lot of things have changed - fastpass plus and also dining plan value for money but is there anything else park wise or planned for next year (parades rides etc)

In my opinion i probably wouldnt go for dining again as there are only a few table service meals we actually want to do and as we only will probably going for about 10 nights

My question is this

Would you hang on and wait for April for room discounts or fingers crossed dining offers ( Im not fussed either way but if its there obviously we would take it ) or as i am not that fussed would it be better to book sooner as i know some people have said free dining ends up normally bumping up the room price so you arent really saving ?

Last time we went with virgin but having read how easy it is to do diy i would probably do it that way now ( thank god for these boards )

Any advice as always gratefully recieved

We booked early, you do get early booking discounts at some travel agents. We ended up going with Thomas cook which was a full £1000 cheaper for exactly the same holiday than virgin.

We werent bothered about the dining plan as we want to go to universal, islands of adventure, seaworld & busch so I felt it would work out cheaper to dine oop. I also plan to get cereal/milk/fruit for breakfast from a supermarket when we get there as we'll have a car.

Dont know if that helps, but with everything else it pays to shop around. Ive also been told that travel websites put cookies on your computer and bump up the prices if you keep looking at them! So wipe your cookies after a shopping around session

 

[2Tiggies]

I'm waiting. It's only a couple of months

I'm torn on the free dining. We did it with POFQ for this year and while it turned out to be the best discount for us, only marginally so. The actual resort price cost us £1000 more than it has in previous years. We have also rented points to stay at BLT and the rental rate worked out less than staying at POFQ so had I rented points for AKL, OKW, SSR and one or two others, we could have paid for the QSDP and stayed for about £10 more per night than we are at a moderate. Don't get me wrong, we chose POFQ and didn't want to do an entire stay elsewhere, but it did highlight the fact that free dining may or may not be the best discount for us at this juncture.

So in short, I would rather wait and see. I dont think waiting 8 weeks or so is going to prejudice me in any way in terms of options.

How many of you are going and where are you wanting to stay?

 

[princessjodiebo]

There will be me DH DD who will by then be 17 and DS 13
We stayed at POFQ last time but then it was with the dining plan rather than quick service

There are a few TS places we want to go to but not enough to probably warrant upgrading

AS for where we want to stay i like the look of AoA and also would love to go back to POFQ

I have read about renting points as DH would love to stay in the contemporary but not sure how i would incorporate it in a booking with disney or complete orlando

I am just so excited to finally be going back
I may even go in august depending on prices but we will see ......

 

[DLPDreams]

Hi everyone
I am finally finalising plans to book for next year and have been reading and catching up on the boards about 2015 and dining etc

It will be 4 years since we last visited when we return and i am aware a lot of things have changed - fastpass plus and also dining plan value for money but is there anything else park wise or planned for next year (parades rides etc)

In my opinion i probably wouldnt go for dining again as there are only a few table service meals we actually want to do and as we only will probably going for about 10 nights

My question is this

Would you hang on and wait for April for room discounts or fingers crossed dining offers ( Im not fussed either way but if its there obviously we would take it ) or as i am not that fussed would it be better to book sooner as i know some people have said free dining ends up normally bumping up the room price so you arent really saving ?

Last time we went with virgin but having read how easy it is to do diy i would probably do it that way now ( thank god for these boards )

Any advice as always gratefully recieved

I am not sure, but when pricing up recently for this August (to get an idea for next year when we go), there has been 35-45% off many of the room rates (including value resorts). Not sure if this has ended now, but it appears Disney do a quite large room discount rate at this time of year for that summer - iyswim. This might be better for you if you are willing to hang on until this time next year to book (perhaps book your flights but leave accom a while). Hope that makes sense. Someone on here might be able to give you a better idea about this type of offer.

On another board I sometimes read on (don't post), there are a few people booked for next year on this room discount offer as free dining didn't appeal to them. Couples in particular don't fare well on the dining plans for instance.

In addition, I think now FP+ and magic bands etc have all started - it appears more prudent to book direct with Disney if you can. Boards are littered with people stressed at organising their trips on MDE as they can't get the correct info from their 'high street' travel agents to match everything together . It has certainly put me off using the likes of Virgin or TC etc for my holiday .

 

[princessjodiebo]

To be honest i was thinking that i would rather book with disney because the thought of not being able to plan or get things booked would really annoy me

I have no idea how it works but am looking forward to finding out lol

 

[2Tiggies]

There will be me DH DD who will by then be 17 and DS 13
We stayed at POFQ last time but then it was with the dining plan rather than quick service

There are a few TS places we want to go to but not enough to probably warrant upgrading

AS for where we want to stay i like the look of AoA and also would love to go back to POFQ

I have read about renting points as DH would love to stay in the contemporary but not sure how i would incorporate it in a booking with disney or complete orlando

I am just so excited to finally be going back
I may even go in august depending on prices but we will see ......

With four adults in a room you'd be hard pressed to find a discount that trumps free dining for you.
This is what I would price up, based on the little info you have given:

Wait for April and see if FD is offered. If it is, book POFQ for the first part of your stay with QSDP. You must stay here first so that you can get the dining plan and have your tickets from the first day you are at WDW so you add length of stay tickets to your booking. Then book the second part of your stay room only at AoA. As a value, this resort does not offer free dining, or at least none of the values have for UK bookings, to date. Make sure you don't do any TS while you are at POFQ so that you are spending your OOP costs for those restaurants for the part of the trip where you were going to pay for them anyway. Also, I would only book AoA for the portion of the trip that you want to cover the TS days, if that makes sense, plus maybe the odd extra day or any days you are venturing offsite so you get the most out of your inclusive dining plan while at POFQ and minimise OOP expenses.

To be honest i was thinking that i would rather book with disney because the thought of not being able to plan or get things booked would really annoy me

I have no idea how it works but am looking forward to finding out lol

I can't fault you on that. There would have to be a massive incentive for me not to book with Disney now with all the changes of late. And I mean huge, lol.

 

[princessjodiebo]

so if i booked 7 nights at POFQ and 3 nights at AoA and booked 14day tickets would i get dining plan to cover my whole stay then ?

Or would it just be while i am at POFQ ?

 

[2Tiggies]

No, it would just be at POFQ. But if you booked AoA first, you would either have no tickets to go to the park for your first few days OR you would have to buy more tickets to qualify for the dining plan when you did check in at POFQ.

My logic was that if you want to do some TS but not enough to upgrade to DDP, then if you paid for those at AoA you lose nothing. We pay for TS OOP with the QSDP and have found that we consistently don't use our QS credits on days we have ADR's - usually just sharing one QS between us for the day.

So my theory is that you should use up what you can of your QS while you're able to use it and not pay for anything OOP and they pay what you were going to pay for in any event when you get to AoA. Does that make sense?

 

[princessjodiebo]

Got ya !!

Would also do a garden grocer delivery too to help a bit , i think it all depends on the offers in April tbh

So many people have already told me this is the last year for free dining etc but as my mum works for thomas cook and says they havent heard a thing and even if they did she would not be allowed to say even to me i think i will just sit tight , read through some menus and re aquaint myself with the dis

 

[2Tiggies]

These rumors surface every year. While it is possible at any time for Disney to cease to offer these, I think it highly unlikely that they will not have some sort of replacement offer in it's place; they would otherwise price out a large sector of their European and UK market.

Anyway, that is the reason I would wait if I were you. I think you stand to gain more than you stand to lose