Category — Disney World Price Seasons

(This is the second page of this article on prices and value at Walt Disney World in 2013. For the first page, see this.)

DISNEY WORLD 2013 HOTEL PRICE INCREASES AND EXTRA MAGIC HOUR CUTBACKS

Prices for Disney World’s resort hotels have also gone up in 2013—but, relatively speaking, when the additional value these hotels will offer is factored in, only a teeny bit compared to the massive 2013 dining plan and ticket price increases.

Moreover, I think that the timing of the January cutbacks in Extra Magic Hours—evening Extra Magic Hours, traditionally 3 hours, are shifting to 2—is less of a takeaway than it is a signal of when NextGen will kick in…and that NextGen will add value to being a Disney World hotel guest much more than the loss of an hour of evening EMH will take away value.

(Note that Disney has already tested, this summer, the effect of reducing operating and Extra Magic Hours—more on this widely unnoticed test below.)

The combined effect is that Disney World resort hotels, all in, and even with the EMH cutbacks, should be a much better value in 2013 than in 2012.

We should get a further hint about this soon.

The Disney Park blog used an unusual word for the Fantasyland expansion— it mentioned “previews.” I may be mis-remembering, but in the past, visiting a ride before official opening has been called a “soft-open,” and has not been advertised as a “preview,”, much less communicated with a date.

But for new Fantasyland, things are different—the official open has been set for 12/6, and previews are to begin 11/19.

I suspect Disney is using this language of “previews” so that it can schedule these previews using NextGen technology and processes, as a first step towards testing the whole NextGen system.

Moreover, I expect booked Disney World resort hotel guests to be among the first to be offered a chance to book these previews…

DISNEY WORLD 2013 HOTEL PRICE INCREASES [Read more →]

2013 DISNEY WORLD PRICE SEASONS UPDATED

Barring possible typos, I’ve got the Disney World 2013 price seasons updated, and so have removed the “projected” language.  Find them here.

For some commentary on 2013 resort hotel prices, see this. For an overall view of Disney World 2013 price and value, especially in the light of changes to evening Extra Magic Hours starting in January, see this.

AVERAGE DISNEY WORLD NIGHTLY PRICES BY ARRIVAL DATE AND LENGTH OF VISIT [Read more →]

ANALYSIS OF 2013 DISNEY WORLD RESORT HOTEL PRICE CHANGES

Walt Disney World’s 2013 prices came out last week, and as usual on average they’ve gone up.

The only big deal for first time visitors is the switch of the third week of December 2013 from Fall Season to the Peak Season, raising hotel prices that week 25-50%.

But there’s some other interesting and unusual features to Disney World’s 2013 prices (actual reductions; effective reductions; new seasons; changes in the traditional dates of old seasons), so what follows analyses 2013 price changes at Walt Disney World resort hotels compared to 2012 by resort price class.

VALUE RESORT 2013 PRICE CHANGES: POP CENTURY EXAMPLE

Across 2013 price seasons, at first blush Pop Century 2013 prices have gone up a lot.

However, when you adjust to this site’s 8 night itineraries, and back out the $10/night charge for refrigerators that’s now gone, for all major seasons prices are either barely up or lower than 2012. But three 2013 weeks have been re-seasoned compared to 2012, and as a result, their prices are peppered. [Read more →]

DECEMBER 2013 NOW INCLUDES PEAK SEASON PRICES

Disney World made most of 2013 available for on-line booking yesterday, and has also set its 2013 prices.

In recent years, December has had two price seasons: “Fall,” which is just a bit more expensive than the lowest prices of the year, and “Holiday,” the most expensive prices of the year, with the break between them around December 20.*

December 2013 is different. [Read more →]

DISNEY WORLD 2013 PRICES RELEASED

As of this morning, almost all of 2013 is now priced and bookable on Walt Disney World’s web site.

Bookable dates go out 500 days, so later November and all of December 2013 is still not bookable.  By my math, any arrival date in the year will be available by August 18, 2012.

If you neglect your real job and do a lot of test reservations, you can also infer the 2013 price seasons.

Having done so, it seems the projections on this site were dead on with a few exceptions:

• The regular season at the deluxes does not run from the week after Easter through mid-July.  Instead, it ends May 30, and a new deluxe summer season–with slightly lower prices–runs from then til mid-July
• The fall season at the values and moderates starts a couple of weeks earlier than I had thought it would–on September 14th.
• December 2013 now has a third price season–“Peak”–from 12/13/2013 through 12/19/2013, making this week much more expensive than I’d thought it would be.

This site’s 2013 price seasons page is still labeled as “projected,” because while the “x% higher than the lowest of the year” stuff, is pretty close, there’s still a lot of detailed slogging to do…which will take a while…Also there seems to be some weirdness still in the Disney World 2013 prices (e.g. Caribbean Beach being $190 some nights, and $191 the next).

DISNEY WORLD 2013 PRICES TO COME OUT NEXT WEEK

Multiple sources, including crack commenters Brandon and Terri, have noted that Disney World will begin online booking for 2013 visits next week, on July 11.

This means that the full 2013 Disney World resort hotel price schedule will be out by then as well. (2013 Disney World ticket prices were announced in June, and will be good until Disney raises them, likely in the summer of 2013.)

THE 2013 VALUE SEASON AT DISNEY WORLD TO BEGIN JANUARY 6TH?

We won’t know for sure until Disney release the prices itself, but it looks like the value season for 2013 won’t begin until January 6.

You can currently book into January 2013 if your arrival date is in 2012, and the 2013 prices Disney shows when you try to book, as I write this, are sky high January 1st, drop like a rock the 2nd, then go up again for the 3rd, 4th and 5th, and then on January 6 drop to what looks like value season levels for the rest of the month, other than the Marathon and holiday weekends.

This may change next week–the 2nd looks especially odd–but is consistent with the thought that the week beginning 12/29/2012 will be much busier than I had earlier forecast.

WHERE ARE THE JANUARY 2013 ITINERARIES?

Usually by now I would have published suggested itineraries and To-Do Lists for January 2013, and published an overview of the month (like this one for December 2012).

However, Disney’s calendar for January 2013 is incomplete–it’s still missing Extra Magic Hours.  These affect the itineraries, so I won’t publish material for January until they are up. Josh at easyWDW.com suggested last week that the delay is because Disney World is sorting out how to schedule and price for the crowds the week of the 29th, and perhaps also for the Marathon.

If Josh is right–and he usually is–then the January schedules should be sorted out by the 11th as well, and I’ll get the updates out as soon as I can after the Extra Magic Hours are posted.