Category — Disney Specials, Deals and Discounts

See this.

DISNEY WORLD FREE DINING DATES  EXTENDED

Disney World has added another week to the eligible December arrival dates for its free dining offer.

December arrival dates on offer for the free dining deal  now include December 10 through December 20. See this for more.

Updated 8/1/2012 with new December arrival dates!

FALL 2012 FREE DINING AT WALT DISNEY WORLD OPENED TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC

My friends at Destinations in Florida confirmed this morning that a free Disney World dining deal has opened to the general public for the fall of 2012.

Eligible arrival dates include:

• Sunday September 30 through Thursday October 4
• Friday October 19 through Thursday November 1
• Friday November 9 through Thursday November 15
• Friday November 23 through Thursday November 29
• Monday December 10 through Thursday December 20

These dates must be booked by September 29th, and include a three night stay minimum.

For more, see Disney’s Special Offer page here.

Update 8/6:  See this.

NO EXTENSION OF DISNEY WORLD ARMED FORCES SALUTE

Steve at MilitaryDisneyTips.com published here that the current Disney World military salute deal for military families will not be extended beyond its expiration date of September 30.

AN FY 2013 DISNEY MILITARY SALUTE OFFER IS STILL POSSIBLE

This does not mean that there’s won’t be a similar offer after September 30; it just means that if there is one, it likely will have different prices and perhaps other differences in the details.

Based on past performance, a new FY13 Military Salute offer, if there is one, could be announced anytime from next week until well after the current salute expires.

Steve’s discussion has more detail on both points.

LINKS FOR MILITARY FAMILIES AT WALT DISNEY WORLD

• Military Families at Walt Disney World
• Deals and Discounts
  • Military Discounts and Deals
  • Other Walt Disney World Discounts and Deals
• Shades of Green
  • Review of Shades of Green
  • Splitting Your Stay Between Shades of Green and Another Resort
  • Overflow Rates at Shades of Green
  • Shades of Green website
• Other Resources for Military Families
  • DisneyMilitarySales.com
  • Disneyworld.com/military
  • MilitaryDisneyTips.com

Walt Disney World is offering a free dining promotion for arrival dates from August 25th to September 29th 2012.

This deal must be booked by May 18, 2012–the end of this week.

So if you’ve been dawdling, book it now!

For more on the deal, see this.

Disney released and discussed its quarterly earnings yesterday, and its domestic parks shot out the lights, with increases in attendance, per-attendee spending, hotel occupancy, and hotel revenues per room.

Disney does not break out Orlando vs. California any more, but it did report that Disneyland had its highest attendance ever for the quarter (January-March) so it’s unclear how park attendance at Walt Disney World went. However, since the vast majority of Disney’s hotel rooms are in Orlando, clearly the Orlando Walt Disney World hotels performed well.

Hotel bookings for the current quarter (April-June) are running slightly above last year, and hotel prices for the quarter are showing “low single digit” increases–pretty good considering that the earlier Easter in 2012 compared to last year means a couple of weeks of high spring break rates are lost vs. last year.

All this suggests that Disney strategy of continuing to limit its discounting will continue.  

Based on its behavior so far, it’s not clear if it will offer fewer programs, fewer eligible dates, a smaller number of rooms/hotels eligible for discounts–or all three.  But however it limits its discounts, the net effect is that fewer vacationers will get them.

The economy is the wild card in all this.  A major economic setback will throw this up in the air, and the continuing struggles among those who want to have their euro but spend it too could have widespread ripple effects.

But so long as the economy continues to slowly recover, deals at Walt Disney World will slowly diminish.