Category — Disney Specials, Deals and Discounts

DISNEY WORLD PLAY STAY DINE AND SAVE DEAL ANNOUNCED

As expected, Disney World announced this morning two new deals for winter 2016—a room rate deal and a “Play, Stay, Dine, and Save Deal.”

The savings from the Play Stay Dine and Save deal are pretty hard to quantify.

However, based on how it worked last year (I’ll get started updating the numbers for this offer after I’m out of a two-day strategy retreat I’m facilitating today and tomorrow), Play Stay and Dine will be better than the room rate deal for most families aimed at value and moderate resorts—especially in January and February, when the room rate deal applies only to weekdays for those staying in one of these two classes of rooms.

Those staying in the more expensive deluxe and Disney Vacation Club rooms should run the numbers both ways. A good travel agent (like Kelly B, contact her at 980-429-4499 or kellyb@destinationsinflorida.com) can help you sort this out.

To be eligible for the Play Stay Dine and Save deal, you must book a vacation package with at least 3 nights, a dining plan, and at least 2 days of tickets.

This deal must be booked by 12/23/15 and eligible check-in dates for it are 12/13/15 – 12/19/15 and 1/2/16 – 3/7/16.

The following resorts seem to be excluded from this deal

• At the values: Little Mermaid rooms at Art of Animation
• At the moderates: Some have reported that Port Orleans French Quarter is excluded for the whole deal, and that Riverside is excluded in December. If you are able to book one of these, let me know in the comments!
• At the deluxes and DVC: the Villas at the Grand Floridian, Bay Lake Tower, and the Bungalows at Polynesian

Moreover, recently it’s been pretty hard for people to actually find rooms in these Disney World deals, so it’ll work best for those with flexible dates and flexible targeted resort hotels.

You can find reviews of all the Disney World room options here. (I’ve stayed in them all…)

BOOKING THE PLAY STAY AND DINE DEAL

As noted above, Kelly B can book this deal for you. Contact her at 980-429-4499 or kellyb@destinationsinflorida.com.

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest!!

DISNEY’S ARMED FORCES SALUTE IN 2016

Miltiary families and their friends will be delighted to know that my friend Steve Bell has broken the news at Military Disney Tips that today Disney’s Armed Forces Salute has been extended into late December 2016.

There’s two parts to the Armed Forces salute

• A steep discount on Disney World park tickets, and
• Discounts on eligible Disney World resort hotel rooms.

Eligible military families can select one or both, but can’t combine them with any other deal. You can also use the Military Salute tickets and stay at Shades of Green.

My friend Kelly B can book the room-rate part of this deal for you. Contact her at 980-429-4499 or kellyb@destinationsinflorida.com.

(The image, by the way, is of General Colin Powell, USA (Ret.) saluting Captain America at Disney’s Contemporary Resort!)

EVEN BETTER NEWS: WALT DISNEY WORLD FOR MILITARY FAMILIES

Eligibility for these and other Disney military deals has always been complicated, and the process for getting and using some of them even more so.

Steve’s Military Disney Tips has always been the go-to site for military families looking to make the most out of their Disney World vacations.

But like every other website (especially mine), finding exactly what you need to know, in the right order, sometimes isn’t as easy as you’d like it to be.

So the great news is that Steve has just published a Disney World guidebook for military families.

With entire chapters devoted to the 2016 salute, to Shades of Green, and to other deals and perks available to military families, I can’t recommend it enough!!

It’s available as a PDF–probably the most convenient format–here, and on Amazon.com here.

This book will be a great help to military families contemplating a Disney World visit in 2016!!

BOOKING THE DISNEY MILITARY SALUTE

As noted above, Kelly B can book the room-rate part of this deal for you–but not the discounted tickets.

Contact her at 980-429-4499 or kellyb@destinationsinflorida.com.

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest!!

In recent years, Disney World has offered deals most parts of the year.

The most common deal is discounts on its hotel rooms, but now and then it also offers package deals, such as the dining plan for free to those who book a hotel room and tickets at full price.

In 2015, however, several major deals in a row have been hard to book, especially for the least expensive “standard” rooms: the fall free dining deal (now closed), and room rate deals for early and later fall (both still open).

Why are these deals hard to book?  Because Disney is making many fewer rooms out of its inventory available for the deals.  And why is it doing that?

Because it can get really good occupancy and rates even without the deals.

A week and a half ago Disney reported its Q3 earnings and (in its earnings call) hotel trends for the current quarter.  In its 10Qs it also includes available room nights, occupancy, and per-room guest spending.

For Q3 2015 (basically April to June) it reported 2.6 million available room nights at 87% occupancy with an average spend of $310 per night.

Multiply them together, and that’s more than $700 million in domestic hotel revenue, Disney’s highest results ever, and nearing twice the worst quarter of the recession, Q2 2009 when hotel revenue was just a bit over $400 million.

Seasonality can muddle Disney’s trends, but using a four quarter moving average clears out seasonality.

The chart above shows the results of this analysis.

It combines the effects of available rooms, which vary from both new construction and rooms taken out of inventory for refurb…

…occupancy…

…which then results in booked rooms (multiplying available rooms by occupancy)…

…and is multiplied by guest spend per room to yield actual room revenues per quarter.

Disney is a public company–which means it has the job of increasing earnings. How do you increase earnings when your hotels are booked almost to capacity?

Well, one way to increase earnings when you don’t have a whole lot more rooms to sell is to cut back on the number of discounted rooms you offer…

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest!!

DISNEY WORLD ROOM RATE DEAL

A new Disney World room rate deal covering most arrival dates from October 4 through December 23 2015 was released today. (November 25-27 is excluded.)

This deal has

• Value resorts (except Art of Animation Little Mermaid rooms, which are excluded) at 10-15% off depending on the date
• Moderates at 15-20% off depending on the date (no moderates are excluded)
• Deluxes at a complex variety of discounts ranging from 10 to 25% off, depending on the hotel, the room type, and the date
• DVC resorts at 20-30% off, excluding Bay Lake Tower, the Villas at the Grand Floridian, and the Polynesian Villas and Bungalows

To book these discounts, contact Kelly at 980-429-4499 or kellyb@destinationsinflorida.com.

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest!!

Steve Bell is breaking the news that the Armed Forces Salute has been extended “to 20 December 2015 for Disney Armed Forces Salute Tickets and 23 December 2015 for Room Discounts.”

See Steve’s material here for important details!

Friend of the site Kelly B can book Armed Forces Salute room discounts. Contact her  at 980-429-4499 or kellyb@destinationsinflorida.com.

Kelly not only will book your trip, but also help you (for free) with

• Itinerary planning, including advising on and booking your FastPass+
• Dining suggestions and reservation planning
• Future discount searches – Ongoing searching for future discounts to apply to your vacation
• Free “Mouse Perks” – tips, updates, and fun freebies

And, for qualifying trips Kelly and her agency, Destinations in Florida, will get you a free copy of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit, the best-reviewed Disney World guidebook in history, after it comes out later this year!

Kelly cannot book Armed Forces Salute tickets–just the room deals.

Follow yourfirstvisit.net on Facebook or Google+ or Twitter or Pinterest!!

Disney in Your Day is running a giveaway of The easy Guide to Your First Walt Disney World Visit–the best-reviewed Disney World guidebook ever.

The giveaway is on this page, at the end of the review.

Good luck!!