We decided last night...we want to go in September-HELP!!

[Twinkler]

We decided last night that we want to go to WDW this September. HELP ME!!!

My dh and I went ourselves (no kids) WDW in August 2007 and the love affair with Disney started. We stayed at GF and it was amazing.

This time we want to take our two children...our son will be almost 5 years old and our daughter will be 2 years old.

Is there free dining in September?

Any advice is appreciated.

 

[wilde_oscar]

IF there will be free dining, historically it is announced in April or May.

 

[Twinkler]

So, I'd have to buy my tickets, then find out if there is free dining??

 

[momsoftwins]

well we (me and my twin girls who will be 5 at the time of trip) are goin 9/9 thru 9/16 and stayin at pop. i am pretty sure u have to buy tickets to get the free dinning, but i could be wrong. i havent been during sept before and i hope it is a good time to go. well happy planning and enjoy

 

[PrincessTiffany]

We decided last night that we want to go to WDW this September. HELP ME!!!

My dh and I went ourselves (no kids) WDW in August 2007 and the love affair with Disney started. We stayed at GF and it was amazing.

This time we want to take our two children...our son will be almost 5 years old and our daughter will be 2 years old.

Is there free dining in September?

Any advice is appreciated.

Since 2005, Disney has been offereing Free Dining during the last part of August until the end of September, give or take a few days. It has already been offered to UK visitors for this September and to those of us who were there at WDW during Free Dining this past September for the dates of August 30 - September 27 2008. The free dining for this year should be announced during the first week of April, just as it has the previous three years. The first couple of days it will only be open to Disney Visa holders and then will open up to the general public. You can go ahead and book your package (yes, it has to be a package to get free dining - room, tickets and dining), and then when the discount code for free dining is realeased you have to call and have it applied to your reservation. The only thing about this is that there is no guarantee you will not have to rebook. Each participating resort is only allotted so many rooms. If your resort is already sold out you would have to rebook for another resort. Pop and All-Star Movies have historically sold out first and last year Wilderness Lodge was not even offered for the Free Dining offer when it was released in April.

Here is a copy of our trip report from last September:

We went this past Sept. from 9/14 - 9/22. Now, don't get me wrong, we did have a great time. Afterall, it is Disney World and we are Disney fanatics, but we will never (and I mean never) go in September again. It was very crowded and very hot (I don't mean a little hot. I mean sweltering. When you came out of an air-conditioned ride and walked out in the heat it would take your breath way hot). I live in Alabama, I know what hot is and it was hot, hot hot. Did I mention it was hot?

It rained at least a little bit every afternoon we were there. On one day, without any warning, no menacing clouds or noticeable wind change, the sky just opened up and poured. It poured so hard, it was like the sky opened up and dumped a bucket of water on your head. There wasn't even time to put our ponchos on. By the time we drug everyone's ponchos out and put them on the rain stopped. We then left for our Ohana ADR looking like someone had just thrown us in the hotel pool - literally socked to the bone.

We did have awesome food on our trip. We ate at Chef Mickey's, Liberty Tree, Planet Hollywood, 50's Primetime Cafe, Garden Grill, Cinderella's Royal Table, Ohana (best meal we had), and Crystal Palce. We had ADRs for all and always had to wait at least 20 minutes for our table. Saw them turning away walk-ups at all restaurants. Counter service was not too crowded, but we tried to eat early around 11:30 a.m.

I am a faithful fan of the UG and if it weren't for knowing about their touring plans and knowing how to utilize the Fastpasss system the lines would not have been manageable. There was the occasion that you walked up to something in the late afternoon and there was only a 10 or 15 minute wait, but most of the headliners kept 30 minute or more waits. At MK on our last day Space Mountain had a 75 minute wait at 3:30 p.m! Now, to you Christmas week, Easter week, or July 4th people that probably doesn't sound too bad, but we specifically booked these dates for low crowds, and there were not now crowds.

When we left we had every intention of booking the Free Dining bounceback for next September that they were offering, but after the terrible heat and crowds my husband said he would happily pay the $1300 we saved on this trip and put it towards a slower, cooler time to visit.

We have previously been at the end of January into the first part of February and have also been end of November into first of December and those are the times we will be planning our future WDW vacations.

I don't want to rain on anybody's September Free Dining parade (excuse the pun), but I wanted to be honest about the heat and crowds so others will know what to expect and not be disappointed.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

Here's the basic idea.

1. Decide where you want to stay. If you book now,and a discount comes out, Disney will let you have the discount so long as you are over 45 days out, and the discount is available at the resort you choose. Only so many rooms are available at each resort with the discount codes, and some may not ge the discount at all. For example if they have a big convention at CSR, they might not discount any rooms there during the convention. Book your room.

2. Start looking at airfare. For domestic September airfare, it's still pretty early. International, start looking soon. Domestic, if you've got a discount air carrier, start looking when they release their air for September.

3. Create a tour plan. You can start calling for dining reservations at 180 days out from your first day. You don't have to know every minute of every day until you are there, but it good to come up witha basic plan. Disney just released the August calendar, so September will probably be about a month from now.
You don't have to make all your dining choices at exactly 180 days, but CRT gets booked that early, and the most popular choices will start to fill up near the 180 day mark. Eventually, with free dining, most places will fill up, so it's good to try to book relatively early.
EMH - is Extra Magic Hours. REad up about them, and decide if you want to be a part or not. Generally crowds are lower during the EMH, since only onsite guests are allowed in the park then, BUT the EMH is early in themorning and late at night. If you know you are not going to be ina park past 9pm, then evening EMH is not for you.
If you aren't going to be in a park for the EMH, then it's best to skip that park for the rest of the day. If you think you want to take advantage of the EMH, then consider getting the 'hop' feature on your tickets so that you can 'hop' in during EMH, but spend the rest of the day in another park. Truthfully crowd levels in September were not all that bad when we went. The lines will be a little longer in the EMH park all day - but the difference won't be as dramatic as it is other times of the year, and getting from one park to another takes time.
So once you have your resort, and a basic idea of which park you want to visit each day (I make a chart myself), then pick a restaurant in each park that interests you, and call for a reservation. Don't worry too much about making a 'bad' choice, just pick somethign that appeals to YOU. REcently there was a poll of favorite and least favorite places and lots of places showed up on both the best and worst lists. If you like burgers, stick with burgers. If you want Japanese, pick Japanese. The character meals are fun, but one is probably enough, maybe two.

4. Once you have your basic schedule, room, airfare, and dining...picking which ticket options you want is a breeze. You'll already know how many days you want, whether you want to hop, and whether to add the water park feature.

You don't have to order your tickets for a while. If you get free dining, then you'll get your tickets via Disney a part of your package. If not, you can order them through a suggested vendor. Teh vendors lists on the DIS are pretty reliable, in terms of sending the tickets within a few weeks. So maybe order about 2 months before you go to be safe. REally though, then vendors' discount is only a few dollars, so it's no big deal to get them through Disney, and if you aren't getting a package, youcan even wait until you arrive and get them at your resort, if you choose.

5. If you are DIsney obsessed, then you can start thinking about what rides you most want to see, but you can also wait until you are there. Some people here really get into booking special events, park tours, etc. I've been many times, and have only done one tour. You've been before, so you know there is enough in theparks alone to keep you busy for more than a week. If somethign really gets your fancy, then do it, but I think some DISers go overboard with this stuff.

6. Oh - for fun, consider getting the free planning DVD from Disney. Their webpage is excellent too. but the DVD allows you to see the resorts on your tv, so it's probably a bigger image.

 

[Twinkler]

Why wasn't the Wildness Lodge part of the discount? That was one of the places we were considering.

What other resorts have bunk beds?

 

[PrincessTiffany]

Why wasn't the Wildness Lodge part of the discount? That was one of the places we were considering.

What other resorts have bunk beds?

They are trying to fill resorts, afterall it's hurricane season. They are going fill the resorts that don't already have a lot of bookings for that time period yet. My guess is WL already had enough bookings and they wanted to fill the other resorts. Free Dining has been a brilliant plan on the part of Disney to fill the crowds during what was previously their slowest season, and hurrican season to boot. And then having the bounceback for free food while the free diners are there in the parks, on their Disney high, well I would call that pure marketing genius. You have to remember UK visitors and the bounceback people were able to book months ago, so the resorts that are offered in April will be dependant on what resorts were not booked by the UK and bounceback visitors. I have seen a lot of people here on the Dis saying they bounced back at Pop, ASMo, Poly and AK. So I guess we will see what comes out in April.

 

[Twinkler]

Which resort is the one that you can ride the boat to MK and walk over to Epcot?

 

[brad3640]

for the past two years myself, dh, & 2 ds (5 & 2) have went in september. we absolutely love it. It is not extremely crowed. The wait times for the rides are great ( especially if you have impatient kids). yes it is hot but not unbearable. we have been twice the second week in september and only a couple of days we got rain but it only lasted for a little bit. and yes we have gotten the free dining and absolutely loved it. We couldn't have afforded to eat at some of the places we did without it. i have nothing but good things to say about disney world in september. hope this helps. Also the first time we stayed at movies and this past time we stayed at sports which they were redoing at the time my sister was down the same week we were and she got to stay in a newly renovated room and it was very nice. we will definately be staying at All star sports the next trip we take. my two boys loved it.
hope this helps