Category — e. What to Budget for Walt Disney World

DISNEY WORLD FALL 2013 ROOM RATE DEAL

As expected, Walt Disney World announced today a room rate deal good for most arrival dates from August 15, 2013 through September 28, 2013. You need to book this deal by July 31.

Savings vary by resort, and not all are included in the deal.

Here’s the basics of what’s available:

Deluxes and Disney Vacation Club:

• 30% off: Animal Kingdom Lodge Standard and Pool View rooms; Beach Club and Villas; BoardWalk Inn and Villas; Contemporary Standard and Lake View rooms; Old Key West; Saratoga Springs; Wilderness Lodge and Villas; Yacht Club
• 20% off: Polynesian and Grand Floridian

Moderates: 25% off: Caribbean Beach, Coronado Springs, Cabins at Fort Wilderness, and Port Orleans Riverside

Values:

• 20% off: All-Star Music, All-Star Sports, and Pop Century
• 15% off: Art of Animation Family Suites

For more, see Disney’s page on this deal here.

Also today Disney World announced a free dining deal covering most arrival dates September 2 through September 25.  See this for more on this deal.

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FREE DISNEY WORLD DINING

Update 5/9/13: This deal is now out! See this.

The Chase Disney Visa Walt Disney World Free Dining offer for the fall of 2013 came out this morning.

It notes (see the bottom of the image, in the red square; click it to enlarge) that this Disney World 2013 Free Dining offer will come out to the general public on May 9.

Arrival dates include September 2-25 2013; as usual in recent offers, value resorts get “Quick Service” Free Dining, and moderate and deluxe resorts get the regular Dining Plan for free.

Some resorts are excluded–particularly the Little Mermaid rooms at Art of Animation.

A room rate deal for August 15-September 28 came out for Chase Disney Visa cardholders today as well, and this Disney World fall 2013 room rate deal also should open up to the general public on May 9.

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Update 5/9/13: This deal is now out! See this.

The mysterious “B” (a different person than the mysterious “J”) just messaged me that travel agents are beginning to receive their informational packets for “September free dining” at Walt Disney World…

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Frequent readers of my disclosure page 🙂 will have noted that over the weekend I inked a deal to partner with Undercover Tourist.

Undercover Tourist has all kinds of tools and tips, but they are best known for being one of the few legit sources of discounted Walt Disney World tickets. (They also have discounted tickets for other Orlando area attractions.)

The Disney World discounts often aren’t that big–Disney will discount hotels frequently, but very rarely tickets. But for larger families or those who need to squeeze every penny that they can, the savings can be meaningful.

Undercover Tourist reached out last week with the following kind words:

“We just recently discovered your blog over here at Undercover Tourist and we’re quite impressed with the level of detail and unique point of view you’re providing.  Looks like your consulting days at McKinsey are being put to good use as you are effectively solving the “first visit to WDW” enigma. ;)”

So after that, how could I not partner with them?

I’ve known about them forever–they are highly recommended by some of the writers about Disney World that I most trust. So I’m honored that we have a relationship, and we’re already talking about other stuff we could do together that would help all of you even more!

And as a result of the partnership, if you buy stuff from Undercover Tourist via a link from this site, then they share a little pixie dust with me, which helps compensate for all of the time I put into it…

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OVERSEAS ROOM RATE DISCOUNTS FOR WALT DISNEY WORLD HINT AT U.S. DEALS TO COME?

Update 5/9/13:  This deal is now out!  See this.

The mysterious “J” let me know this morning that room rate discounts for South American and European residents will come out May 9 as well–this on top of the Disney World Free Dining deal that she says also will come out on May 9, 2013.

Here’s the scoop so far as “J” knows now:

• Booking window: May 9 till September 15
• For stays: from August 15 till September 28
• Includes: all rooms except Little Mermaid and 3 bedroom villas
• Room rate discount amounts: Still no details about the percentage of the discount

I’ll post more as I learn more, but for now U.S. residents should view this as a hint about what might be offered to them.

SOME US RESIDENT WILL GET AT LEAST SOME DISNEY WORLD FREE DINING IN AUGUST OR SEPTEMBER!

Lots of feedback and concern continues to come in about Tuesday’s news that Free Dining may open for overseas visitors for visits in September 2013. I’ll catch up with the comments soon.

Perhaps most importantly, Dad’s Guide accepted my Free Dining SmackDown. He thinks there will be no August or September free dining for US residents, while I’m forecasting that there will be.

Whoever is right on this prediction will have breakfast at Disney World bought by the other–so at least one of the two of us will get at least some free dining out of all of this!

By the way, I’ve gotten a ton of private messages that split evenly into two claims: there will be no U.S. resident free dining in August or September 2013, or that I’ve already won my breakfast!  So nothing profoundly useful in the mail…and I’m sticking with my forecast.

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TRADITIONAL FREE DINING IN 2013: WILL THEY OR WON’T THEY?

Update 5/9/13: This deal is now out! See this.

My bud Carl Trent* has taken issue with my continuing forecast that we will see some free Disney World dining in the traditional August-September period–which for reasons noted here I repeated as recently as Tuesday. His post is here.

Well, only one of us can be right, so we’ll see!  I do have to note though that when Carl and I disagree on something…he’s right more often than I am.

In my “day job,” I’m a strategist, and so deeply study how to forecast.

The basic rule of forecasting is that tomorrow will be like today unless there are differences in structure, conduct or performance that will lead the relevant actors to do something differently.

I don’t see such enough such differences to agree with Carl’s call.

We both agree that Disney is (and, from a business point of view, should be) cutting way back on free dining compared to recent years.

But I see this cutback as related to coming out of the recession–and the August/September free dining program well precedes the recession. 

So actions related to coming out of the recession can’t on the face of it be related to August/September free dining deal…or at least that’s my call in making the forecast I’ve made!

So one of us will be right, and the other wrong!  Free Dining Smackdown 2013!

(*Carl runs Dad’s Guide to WDW, which has been on this site’s list of Recommended Sites for years.  Check it out if you haven’t seen it.)

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