Category — e. What to Budget for Walt Disney World

DISNEY MILITARY SALUTE RENEWED FOR ANOTHER FISCAL YEAR

Steve at MilitaryDisneyTips.com has broken the news today that the Disney Military discounts have been renewed for another year, into September 2014.

I’ll update the various material on this site related to this new deal shortly!  But for now–and always for the full details–see Steve’s post and its links here.

DISNEY WORLD PIN CODES FOR 2014 ROOM RATE DISCOUNTS

I’ve been getting lots of cards and letters over the last 48 hours about a wave of new Disney World pin codes for 2014 going out—especially from the “Mysterious B.” (Not the same person as the “Mysterious J” of Monday’s Free Dining post!)

Here’s the story: pin codes with room rate discounts well into April 2014 are going out, with the following details:

For most dates from January 5 – March 2, 2014 and March 16 – April 12, 2014

• Save 30% at select Disney Deluxe Villa Resorts
• Save 30% at select Disney Deluxe Resorts
• Save 25% at select Disney Moderate Resorts
• Save 20% at select Disney Value Resorts

One of my sources has the “Book By” date as July 28.

For what a pin code is, and how to see if you have one—or even talk your way into getting one!—see the second half of this.

Now frankly, I find the dates on offer here curious.

They include the wildly busy Presidents Day week, exclude the pretty low-crowd first week of March, but then include the first day of the unbelievably busy week before Easter.

So maybe—and I’m thinking of the week before Easter in particular here–these are inclusive dates, rather than, as is common on these deals, arrival dates?

Or maybe I’m just thinking too much.

…and thanks again, “Mysterious B”!

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FREE DINING AT DISNEY WORLD FOR THE REST OF 2013

Crack insider the “Mysterious J” emailed me last night to let me know that a free dining deal for the rest of 2013 at Disney World for visits booked from Europe and South America will come out on August 1st.  

This deal will have book-by dates of November 15, and will cover arrival dates of

• September 29 to October 2, 2013
• October 18 to November 2, 2013
• November 11 to November 23, 2013
• December 12 to December 22, 2013

At or near the same time, a room rate deal will come out as well.

The “Mysterious J” has given me the heads up on such items weeks before they appear before, and has never yet been wrong.

Moreover, what typically happens is that these deals come out outside the US first, and then soon get released for the North American general public.

So this news bodes really, really well for general public free dining to come out in early August as well!

I’ve been frankly skeptical about such a deal and am oh so glad that it appears that my forecasts of no more general public free dining in 2013 might be wrong!!!

NEW LOGO; UPDATED 2014 STUFF; NEW PRICES; FREE DINING RUMORS

The top-secret “Lipstick on a Pig” team has been busy the past week or so developing the new logo at the top of the page.  Hope you like it!  The good bits came from a crack designer I’ve been working with and the weak parts from me.

Also over the weekend the final data set for 2014 school calendars at 180 US public school districts came in from my crack research staff—the older Test Niecelet (on the left). I’ve converted these into databases, and will be analyzing and reporting on the forecasted crowd results over the next week or so.  Based on this analysis, I’ll make any needed adjustments to the 2014 Disney World Crowd calendar.

Meanwhile, it’s widely expected that 2014 prices will come out mid-week from the crack Disney World revenue management team.  Based on these I’ll revise and finalize the 2014 Disney World price seasons, and will use both the revised price seasons and revised crowd calendars to finalize the 2014 Disney World week rankings.

Finally a number of crack observers have been predicting that Disney World will release free dining for October through December this week.  I still quite doubt it, but it is of course possible.  Major macro-economic indicators (especially bond markets, developing country currency markets, and the Lone Ranger) do suggest slight headwinds against overseas visits to the US and a slight increase in Disney’s need to more strongly drive later 2013 earnings…

And let me know what you think about the logo!!!!

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MORE FREE DINING FOOLISHNESS

My post last week where, inspired by my conversations with the Mysterious “B” about the recent flood of free dining pin codes, I inched back a bit from my prediction that we won’t see general public free dining in 2013 after September, has gotten a lot of reaction.

See for example this disboards thread starting at the bottom of the page on post number 2055, and of course the comments on the page itself, most fascinating, a few foolish.

I still don’t think we’ll see general public free dining after September, but I am not so firm on it as I had been, thanks to the delay in MyMagic+ and the resulting shortage of anything interesting for Disney World marketing to talk about to engender bookings in the non-holiday weeks of the fourth quarter of 2013.

What we are seeing, though, is a spate of pin codes, with word of more rounds of pin codes to come, a lot of hints dropped by Disney World cast members about upcoming deals (these hints could be referring to room rate deals, or free dining, or both), and some really interesting ways that people are getting pin codes.

HOW TO GET A WALT DISNEY WORLD PIN CODE

[Read more →]

MORE FREE DINING AT DISNEY WORLD IN 2013?

So I’ve forecast a number of times—most recently here—that I don’t expect to see any generally available free dining in 2013 beyond the current deal for September.

But the possibility that we won’t see Fastpass+ until January 2014 has me re-thinking this a little.

Not much.  Just a little.

There’s several possibilities, all framed around how well bookings for October to mid-December are already going:

• Bookings for October to mid-December are going fine (which is still my guess, based on how strong attendance has been so far this year): if so, then no more free dining
• Bookings for then are running a little behind expectations: then expansion of the current individualized pin-code offer, probably around 8/1
• Bookings for then are running a lot behind expectations: then expansion of the pin-code offer, possibly well before 8/1, and also a limited general public free dining deal, probably after August 6th

Here’s why I think this.

THE LOGIC OF MORE DISNEY WORLD FREE DINING IN 2013 [Read more →]