Category — Disney Specials, Deals and Discounts

My buddy Joe Black  is reporting on disboards  that a new Disney World room-only discount for the summer will be out for the general public on Monday and available to Disney Visa holders today.

It will cover June 15 – August 28, and discounts will be higher for longer stays, and less for shorter ones.

Some resorts and room types will be excluded, and others likely will show up at just 5% off. For the rest, Joe expects deals in the range of:

• Values – 20%
• Moderates – 25%
• Deluxe – 30%

I’ll post more as the contours of the deal become clearer.

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NEW DISNEY WORLD DEAL INCLUDES LATER AUGUST AND SEPTEMBER 2014

Disney World has announced a combined room rate and photo deal for stays 4/27/14 – 6/15/14 and 8/15/14 – 9/30/14.

This is the earliest in the year it’s announced a late August/September deal for a while.

This deal needs to be booked by April 20, 2014.

It requires at least a three night hotel stay, and at least two days of tickets.

Those getting the deal will get room rate discounts:

• Value Resorts: up to 10% off (excluded: Art of Animation Little Mermaid rooms)
• Moderate Resorts: up to 15% off (excluded: Port Orleans French Quarter)
• Deluxe and DVC Resorts: up to 25% off (excluded: the Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian)

In addition, you’ll get Disney’s Memory Maker Photo Package for free. The Photo Package is a way of pre-paying for photos taken by Disney photographers.

Disney’s web page on this deal is here, or check with my friends at Destinations in Florida Travel–877-918-8941 or online here.  Remember to mention yourfirstvisit.net when you call! And then they’ll sprinkle a little pixie dust on me if you book with them…

SOME ODDITIES WITH THIS DEAL, AND WHAT TO DO ABOUT FREE DINING

The room rate discounts are slim compared to recent deals for this time period—about ten percentage points lower than last year. (Last year’s deal.)

It’s also unusual for Disney to announce a room rate deal for this period before it announces free dining—which has been available during at least part of the August-September timeframe for more than a decade.

This deal also follows a deal that’s also unusual—the current room rate deal that overlaps with the first part of this deal, but includes an extra ticket day free. We haven’t seen free ticket days for a while.

So what’s going on? Well, as usual I don’t know, and as usual I’m willing to guess.

• First, there’s an ongoing battle in Florida about the county hotel tax treatment of certain room discount transactions. By shifting what would normally be “room rate” deals into—with the addition of both required ticket buys and ticket or photo deals—“package deals,” these deals are, I think, protected from any negative fallout from that battle. So that may be part of it.
• Or it could be as simple as perhaps the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train opening later than hoped—I saw today rumors of the summer, though until today I’d been hoping for early spring—and Disney needing something to carry it marketing message until then.

Or it could be both, or neither.

Many have asked if they should take this deal or wait for a better offer—especially for free dining.

I have mixed feeling on this. First, whenever a new deal comes out–like free dining–you can always compete with everyone else to get it, and, if you are successful, cancel your old deal, keeping your new one.

On the other hand, if lots of people book up what are normally slow September days with this room rate/photo deal, then the odds that Disney will provide other deals in September are slimmer.

So here’s my advice:

• If you are going to go during the August/September eligible period regardless of free dining, then book this deal. At least you’ll have a deal…and can always try for a better deal later if one comes out…
• If you’d only go during the eligible period with free dining or a better room rate deal, skip this and wait for the hoped-for appearance of those deals…which I’d expect to see come out no earlier than late April…

What about you?  Gonna take this deal, or wait–and why?

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As expected, Disney World announced today a room rate deal of 15-30% off at selected Disney World resort hotels for the general public—and one with a new twist, a free extra ticket day for longer stays.

The deal covers most nights

• 3/14-4/12/14, and
• 4/20-6/15/14,

…and needs to be booked by 3/31. (There’s also some availability for 2/24 to 3/5.)

Reported resort savings are as follows (for links to reviews of these—I’ve recently stayed in them all– see this):

VALUE RESORTS DEALS

Art of Animation Family Suites—15% off

All-Star Music, All-Star Sports, and Pop Century: 20% off

Art of Animation Little Mermaid rooms are not in the deal; All-Star Movies rooms may be available at 5% off.

MODERATE RESORTS DEALS

Caribbean Beach, Coronado Springs, Port Orleans Riverside: 25% off

Cabins at Fort Wilderness: I don’t know yet if they are in the deal.  Port Orleans French Quarter may be available at 5% off

DELUXE RESORTS DEALS

Animal Kingdom Savanna View, Wilderness Lodge Courtyard View, Contemporary Resort, Grand Floridian Resort: 20% off

Other deluxe resort standard rooms: 30% off

DISNEY VACATION CLUB RESORTS (EXCEPT GRAND VILLAS) DEALS

Animal Kingdom Jambo House and Kidani Village Villas, Beach Club Villas, and Villas at the Wilderness Lodge: 20% off

BoardWalk Villas, Old Key West, and Saratoga Springs: 30% off

Bay Lake Tower may be available at 5% off. Villas at the Grand Floridian: not in the deal

DISNEY WORLD TICKET DEAL

Moreover for the first time since the recession there’s a ticket deal in here too!

If you change your room-only reservation booked under this deal to a Magic Your Way package that includes at least 4 days of tickets, each ticket booked will get an extra day free, so long as the initial ticket set is for 4 days or more.

For more on this deal, see Disney’s page on it here or check in with my friends at Destinations in Florida Travel–877-918-8941 or online here.  Remember to mention yourfirstvisit.net when you call!

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Hey, this deal has been released. See this!

ROOM RATE AND FREE DAY DEAL TO COME OUT JANUARY 6?

Expectations are high that a room rate and small ticket deal for April 20-June 15, 2014 will come out for the general public Monday January 6.

Reports this morning are that this deal is already available to Disney Visa cardholders.

The deal seems to include not only a room rate discount, but also one free ticket day after a minimum buy: e.g. buy 4 days, and get the 5th free.

I don’t have any more specifics, but as I learn them–or my buddy Joe Black tells me them–I’ll pass them along!

HOW TO SCREW THIS DEAL UP

Well-meaning but inept advice is showing up here and there that non-Visa people–that is, the rest of us–should book now to “lock in your room,” and then convert your room to the deal later.

Deals don’t work this way.  You are competing for the inventory of the deal with everyone else, whether or not you already have a room.

So booking before the deal does not help you one bit in getting the deal once it comes out.

Moreover, the more who book now, the less pressure there is to have a deal at all–so booking now may reduce the number of rooms made available, or even narrow the dates offered.

So don’t book now, unless you plan to go with or without the deal!!

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There’s three deals for Disney World right now covering various dates into April 2014.

These all have “book-by” dates of December 31, 2013, so if you are interested in one of these deals, you need to book now!

For more on these deals, see this.

I expect a new Disney World room rate deal covering late April, May, and perhaps longer to come out in early January 2014, but haven’t got any credible rumors to share about such a deal…

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