Category — Disney Specials, Deals and Discounts

Several new Disney World deals for 2019 came out this morning, of which the two most important are a room rate deal (covered on this page) and a Play, Stay and Dine Offer which I will cover later.

The new room rate deal is complicated:

• It covers most periods between January 1 and February 14, 2019 and February 17 and April 27 2019
• However, during the first period (until February 14) at the value and moderate resorts, only the Sunday-Thursday night parts of your trip will be discounted–you can still stay on Fridays and Saturdays, but with no discount.
• At most resorts, stays during either period will be discounted more if they are booked by January 2, 2019

As always, there’s a limited inventory of rooms available, and not all resorts or room types are included.

VALUE RESORTS 2019 ROOM RATE DEAL

No resort is totally excluded, but at Art of Animation, as usual only Family Suites are included. Discounts are limited to Sunday through Thursday nights until 2/14, and are higher if you book by 1/2/2019.

MODERATE RESORTS 2019 ROOM RATE DEAL

No moderates are excluded, but the deal is less valuable at Port Orleans Riverside and Port Orleans French Quarter. You’ll face the same patterns as at the value resorts–no discounts on Friday and Saturday nights through February 14, and better deals (except at the Port Orleans Resorts) if you book by January 2, 2019.

DELUXE RESORTS 2019 ROOM RATE DEAL

No deluxe is excluded, nor do they have Friday/Saturday night exclusions from the deal, but you will find not as good a discount at the Polynesian Village, Contemporary Resort, and Wilderness Lodge. Except at these three, discounts are better if you book by January 2.

DISNEY VACATION CLUB RESORTS 2019 ROOM RATE DEAL

At the DVC resorts, the Villas at the Grand Floridian and Bay Lake Tower are excluded, and at the Polynesian Village, only the Studios are in the deal.

Moreover, the Polynesian studios are at a lower discount.

Like at the deluxes, there are no Friday/Saturday night exclusions from the deal. Except at the Polynesian, discounts are better if you book by January 2.

HOW TO BOOK THERE DISNEY WORLD DEALS

Full reviews of each of the resort options begin here.

Disney World’s page on this deal is here.  You can find the other deals that came out today here (scroll down to find the ones with a 2019 date).

Today’s set of deals for 2019 is complicated, especially for families aiming at a value resort. The long-standing travel agent partner of this site, Kelly, can figure out and book the best deal for you. Contact her by using the form below:

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While I was caught up in my day job—I just started up with a new strategy and management client, and it’s a lot of work to get it off the ground—a new Disney World deal came out, and another had its “book-by” date extended.

First, before getting into the details of the new deal—the “book-by” date for Disney’s popular Free Dining promotion has been extended to August 1, from its former July 7.

The new deal is a room-only discount that comes in two parts.

• For stays booked by October 7 that include stay dates October 8 through November 8, the discount applies to “most” Sunday through Thursday nights—that is, Fridays and Saturdays are not discounted.
• For stays booked by December 24 that include stay dates November 11 through December 24, the discount applies “most” nights—that is, Fridays and Saturdays are not explicitly excluded.

As always, there’s a limited inventory of rooms available, and not all resorts or room types are included.

VALUE RESORTS DEAL

No resort is totally excluded, but at Art of Animation, as usual only Family Suites are included.

MODERATE RESORTS DEAL

No moderates are excluded, but the deal is less valuable at Port Orleans Riverside and Port Orleans French Quarter.

DELUXE RESORTS DEAL

No deluxe is excluded, but you will find not as good a discount at the Polynesian Village, Contemporary Resort, and Wilderness Lodge.

DISNEY VACATION CLUB RESORTS DEAL

At the DVC resorts, the Villas at the Grand Floridian and Bay Lake Tower are excluded, and at the Polynesian Village only the Studios are in the deal.

Moreover, among those in the deal, the Polynesian studios and Boulder Ridge at the Wilderness Lodge (but not Copper Creek there) are at a lower discount.

HOW TO BOOK THERE DISNEY WORLD DEALS

Full reviews of each of the resort options begin here.

Go to Disney World’s pages on these deals– here for the room rate deal, or here for Free Dining.

Or the long-standing travel agent partner of this site, Kelly, can book it for you—and she will also check to see if this is the best deal for you among your options. Contact her by using the form below:

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DISNEY WORLD DEALS FOR LATE SUMMER AND EARLY FALL 2018

Today a Disney World room rate deal covering most nights from August 2 through October 7, 2018 came out.

Some hotels and room types are excluded.  For those that are in, overall savings range from 10% to 25%, with the most popular hotels seeing lower savings rates.

VALUE RESORT SAVINGS

At the Disney World values resorts, Little Mermaid Rooms at Art of Animation are excluded. The other value resort options are 20% off.

MODERATE RESORT SAVINGS

At the moderates, Port Orleans French Quarter and Riverside offer only 10% off.  Other moderate options offer savings of 25%.

DELUXE RESORT SAVINGS

At the deluxes, the Contemporary, Polynesian Village, and Wilderness Lodge have lower savings than the rest.

DISNEY VACATION CLUB RESORT SAVINGS

At the DVC resorts, Bay Lake Tower, the Villas at the Grand Floridian, Bungalows at the Polynesian, and Cascade Cabins at Copper Creek are excluded. Old Key West, Saratoga Springs, the Animal Kingdom Villas, the Beach Club Villas, and the BoardWalk Villas are 25% off. The other DVC resorts are 15% off.

The deal needs to be booked by September 7. Reviews of all these resorts are linked to on this page.

Disney’s page on this deal is here, and you can reach Kelly at KellyB@DestinationsInFlorida.com or 980-429-4499, or by using the quote form below.

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2018 DISNEY WORLD FREE DINING DEAL RELEASED

This morning Disney World’s fall 2018 free dining deal came out.

For 2018, Disney World Free Dining covers arrival dates of

• 8/20* to 9/29/2018
• 11/24 to 11/27/2018
• 12/7 to 12/23/2018

*Disney visa cardholders can also book arrival dates of 8/2 to 8/19/2018

Book by August 1. A four night stay is required, and four days of tickets, with one of the extra cost Park Hopper or Park Hopper Plus ticket add-on options.

Eligible value and moderate resorts offer the Quick-Service plan for free, and deluxe resorts and DVC spaces offer the Regular Dining Plan for free.

Excluded resorts:

• Value resorts excluded: Little Mermaid rooms at Art of Animation and All Star Movies
• Moderate resorts excluded:  Port Orleans French Quarter and Port Orleans Riverside
• Deluxe resorts excluded: Polynesian Village, Contemporary, Grand Floridian
• DVC resorts excluded: Copper Creek and Boulder Ridge at the Wilderness Lodge, Bay Lake Tower, Polynesian Villas and Bungalows, and Grand Floridian Villas

In addition, campsites (but not Cabins) at Fort Wilderness are excluded.

The Disney page on Free Dining is here; the Visa offer is here.

For more on Free Dining, see this, and to have Kelly, my travel agent partner, try to book the deal for you (depending on availability), contact her using the form below:

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“We’ve announced that already, right?”

–Bob Iger, Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference, 2/26/18

Free Dining may drop as early as Monday April 23, later that week, or as late as Monday April 30. The earlier dates (that is, the 23rd or 24th) are widely believed to be the most likely.

Update 4/23: No free dining today. Many rumors that it will come out tomorrow! Rumors also that the first eligible check in date for the general public will be 8/20.

The rumor I posted about last week had it coming out April 27. The source of that rumor—a post from a Brazilian travel agent—has been taken down.

There’s a couple of ways you can check to see if it’s out and what the details are.

• I’ll have it on the list of new posts on the home page of this site as soon as I can (my day job may get in the way)
• You can also go to Disney World’s special offers page (refresh it, just in case), or
• Go to your favorite high-volume Disney World forum. I’d suggest Josh’s forum but the earliest mentions are likely to be on this thread on Disboards*.

However, I can think of one reason why Free Dining might come out later than the common view of April 23 or 24th. Recall that when Disney raised ticket prices in February, it noted that “later this year” it would be shifting multi-day tickets to seasonal pricing—in effect, a ticket price increase, at least for certain dates.

I’ve thought since that announcement that one of the most sensible times for Disney to move to seasonal multi-day ticket prices would be after the Toy Story Land mania started, but before Free Dining was announced. That way, the new ticket prices would be in effect for many free dining packages.

Well, with the announcement of FastPass+ tiers at Toy Story Land earlier this week , I think we are in that period. So I would not be surprised to see the new set of multi-day ticket prices come out on Sunday April 22 or early next week, and Free Dining to come out in turn a few days after that—so that folks have some time to calibrate their free dining plans in the context of the new ticket prices.

I am posting this as speculation—it’s based neither on a rumor nor a leak. The Walt Disney Company has been—with one exception—pretty tight-lipped about its timing plans for the new ticket pricing other than “later this year.”

The exception was a comment by Bob Iger in late February at the Morgan Stanley Technology, Media and Telecom Conference that “we have talked about putting into place flex pricing on the multi-day pass, and that’s coming sometime towards the end of the year.”

The bald words make an introduction of multi-day pricing in April perhaps look unlikely, but there were a couple of times during this conference when Iger seemed not fully in command of his memory (see the quote at the head of this page). So it is at least conceivable to me that he misspoke…or that seasonal multi-day ticket pricing would go into effect for visits after, say, August 31, still “towards the end of the year,” but announced in April…

If something else happens, which I suppose is likely, you can complain to me in person on April 28 at Epcot.

*Note by the way that you can no longer link to this site from Disboards, because an inadvertent, but totally real and totally my fault, violation of its terms of service has led to my site being censored on it until the Second Coming. And don’t try to get around the filters, or the entire thread you are posting on might be removed—there’s a reason why the free dining thread there is now on its third iteration…

You can still refer to “Dave Shute’s site” with no link.

However, I’ve not yet been banned from Josh’s forum, so there’s that…

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DISNEY WORLD DEALS FOR SUMMER 2018

Today a Disney World room rate deal covering most nights from June 11 through August 1 2018 came out.

Discounts vary by booking date, with generally better deals if booked before May 22, and by resort and resort class.

Overall savings range from 10% to 25%, with the most popular hotels seeing lower savings rates.

Other, more complicated, deals came out today as well.  The best way to sort through your savings and choose the best is to work with my travel agent, Kelly B–she will do all the math for you.

Kelly B. has been the travel agent partner of this site for years. To book your vacation through her, contact her at KellyB@DestinationsInFlorida.com or 980-429-4499. (Tell her  Dave sent you…and she may take a bit to get back to you, as she’s busy this morning trying to get the best deal for the clients she’s already serving!)

VALUE RESORT SAVINGS

At the Disney World values resorts, Little Mermaid Rooms at Art of Animation are excluded. The other value resort options are 15% to 20%, depending on booking date.

MODERATE RESORT SAVINGS

At the moderates, Port Orleans French Quarter and Riverside offer only 10% off.  Other moderate options offer savings of 15% to 20%, depending on when you book and where you stay.

DELUXE RESORT SAVINGS

At the deluxes, the Beach Club, Contemporary, Polynesian Village, and Wilderness Lodge have lower savings than the rest. Note that pre-discount deluxe prices are (for them) already low in the summer, and drop even lower on July 6.

DISNEY VACATION CLUB RESORT SAVINGS

At the DVC resorts, Bay Lake Tower, the Villas at the Grand Floridian, Bungalows at the Polynesian, and Cascade Cabins at Copper Creek are excluded. Old Key West, Saratoga Springs, the Animal Kingdom Villas, and the BoardWalk Villas are 20% to 25% off. The other DVC resorts are 10% to 15% off.

The deal needs to be booked by either May 22 (for the best savings) or August 1. Reviews of all these resorts are linked to on this page.

Disney’s page on this deal is here, and you can reach Kelly at KellyB@DestinationsInFlorida.com or 980-429-4499, or by using the quote form below.

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