why are the middle 2 weeks of October blocked from specials?

[Polydweller]

I guess my point it that they could offer a different type of discount for the convention people.

In sure there are conventions going on all the time, it just seems weird that those two weeks are always subject to black outs.

I do agree that F&W is becoming very popular among the foodies. I think that will impact Free Dining eventually.

It isn't weird it's just a time when people go to Disney. With the holidays in two countries, events, and conventions etc. Conventions will always get room deals since that's the easiest thing for the convention to use as an inticement to attend.

And again, discounts are used to sell rooms. If the rooms are sold then no reason for discounts.

 

[PCFriar80]

This year, there was the "perfect storm" of Columbus Day weekend, the Children's Miracle Network PGA golf tournament and the Gartner Symposium (a large IT conference that takes up most of the Epcot resorts, Swan and Dolphin).

I was there the third week, during the golf tournament and the Gartner. (AP discounts were available at that time, but GP discounts were not.) IMO, the events had little effect on the parks; crowds were light in the parks, except of course for Epcot's Food & Wine festival events. But Disney gives discounts to fill rooms. If they have large blocks of rooms sold to non-park guests, as they did for these two events, they don't have to offer discounts.

Gartner conference again next year and golf tournament is in early November [11/8 - 11/11].

"Save The Date
Gartner Symposium/ITxpo will be held October 21-25, 2012 in Orlando, Florida at Walt Disney World resorts. With a robust agenda of the hottest topics in IT and business, industry defining mastermind keynotes, hundreds of solution providers and the opportunity to network with more than 6,000 peers Symposium/ITxpo is the world's most important gathering of CIOs and senior IT executives."

 

[Mary T in PA]

This year, there was the "perfect storm" of Columbus Day weekend, the Children's Miracle Network PGA golf tournament and the Gartner Symposium (a large IT conference that takes up most of the Epcot resorts, Swan and Dolphin).

I was there the third week, during the golf tournament and the Gartner. (AP discounts were available at that time, but GP discounts were not.) IMO, the events had little effect on the parks; crowds were light in the parks, except of course for Epcot's Food & Wine festival events. But Disney gives discounts to fill rooms. If they have large blocks of rooms sold to non-park guests, as they did for these two events, they don't have to offer discounts.

If that's the huge convention that took up most of the Boardwalk, I was told by the CMs at BWI that this specific convention comes every year at the same time, but the CMs didn't go into specifics of who the conventioneers were.

As for the crowds, we made a last minute decision to go down, got a room at BWI from Oct 20-23 and the only crowds we encountered was the F&W. The parks weren't bad at all and the weather was perfect.