Category — e. What to Budget for Walt Disney World

DISNEY MILITARY DISCOUNT 2012

The military discount for Disney World in 2012 is up and detailed on Disney’s special offers page.

The Disney Military Discount for 2012 is in effect an extension and doubling of Disney’s military discount for 2011.

Eligible personnel may buy and activate a total of twelve 4-day tickets for $138 each over the period from the beginning of the 2011 program to the end of the 2012 program.

The 2012 program ends September 30, 2012.  There’s a different program that begins October 1 2012 and extends into September 2013.  Click here for more on the FY13 military salute.

ONE MILITARY DISCOUNT PROGRAM FOR 2011 AND 2012

There is in effect just one military discount program that covers the period ending September 30 2012.

So families that already bought some military discount Disney World tickets in 2011 can now buy more, up to a total of 12 including those already bought; families that have not yet bought any can buy, activate and use up to twelve between now and September 30, 2012.

However, only 6 tickets can be activated or used in any 7 day period.

The price is a savings of ~$100 per ticket compared to Disney’s normal 4-day ticket prices.

Those eligible to purchase these Disney Military Salute tickets include active and (career) retired members of the US Military, including the National Guard, Reservists, and the Coast Guard, and their spouses.

My friend Steve of MilitaryDisneyTips.com notes that permanently disabled veterans with military ID with a DAVPRM status are also eligible for this offer.

Valid military ID is required at the parks themselves to activate the tickets.

For more, see this page.

DISNEY MILITARY ROOM RATE DISCOUNTS

Disney World is also offering discounted room rates to service families.  See this page for more.

ANSWERS TO COMMON QUESTIONS

Steve’s MilitaryDisneyTips.com is a great resource for military families.  He answers frequently asked questions about these programs on this page.

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

DISNEY WORLD FREE DINING DEALS OFTEN ACCOMPANIED BY ROOM RATE DISCOUNT DEALS

Disney World currently has a free dining deal with dates into March 2012.

In the recent past, it’s been unusual for Disney World to have a dining deal out and not also have a room rate discount out for at least the first part of the dining deal period.

Disney World’s room rate discount deals are typically in the 15%-40% range, depending on the price of the hotels offered, and typically also have fewer blackout dates than the free dining program.

RUMORS SUGGEST A DISNEY WORLD ROOM RATE DEAL MAY BE ON THE WAY

Rumors are out that a new set of pin code deals are out–e.g. see Dawn Tinnirello’s article here.

It suggests pin code discounts of up to 35% for the period September 18, 2011 to December 22, 2011, excluding Thanksgiving week.

Deals available to the general public often first come out as pin codes or Disney Visa cardholder offers, and then to the rest of us!

There’s no guarantees, but keep your fingers crossed!

Disney World has a new free dining deal that covers many dates from October 2011 through March 2012.

The deal needs to be booked by October 29, 2011. Update: for 2012 dates, the book-by window has been extended to December 17. See this for more.

According to this post on the Disney Food Blog, available arrival dates are as follows (updated 8/26–those who have already booked the old dates will still get the free dining; new bookings must use the new dates)

2011 FREE DINING AT WALT DISNEY WORLD ARRIVAL DATES

• October 1-6
• October 22-November 3
• November 12-17
• November 26-December 1
• December 10-December 15
• October 2-8
• October 23-November 5
• November 13-19
• November 27-December 3
• December 11-17

2012 FREE DINING AT WALT DISNEY WORLD ARRIVAL DATES

• January 8-12
• January 21-February 2
• February 11-16
• March 3-8
• March 24-29
• January 8-14
• January 22-February 4
• February 12-18
• March 4-10
• March 25-31

Disney announced a while ago that it was extending into 2012 and adding tickets to its 2011 Military Discount.

Details have been…ummm…evolving, and only this week has the military ticket discount deal begun to show up on Disney World’s special offers web page.

As Steve at MilitaryDisneyTips.com notes here, some related Disney sites aren’t updated yet.

I’ll post more on this 2012 military deal later, but in the meantime MilitaryDisneyTips.com as usual has the hot scoop, here.

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

DISNEY’S 2012 PRICE SEASONS

Walt Disney World released its 2012 price seasons last week–for details on these 2102 Disney World resort hotel prices, click here.

Besides the usual flow of the seasons, several new or interesting things emerge:

• Disney resort hotel prices overall are up 2%-9%
• Value resorts, which used to be all the same price, are now in three different price bands
• The Value 2 price season–the late summer time when prices drop substantially–starts a couple of weeks earlier than in recent practice.

DISNEY WORLD RESORT HOTEL PRICE INCREASES

[Read more →]

Lots of important news over the last few days…

DISNEY WEBSITE OPEN FOR BOOKING 2012

You can now book most 2012 dates on Disney’s website.

This is a couple of months earlier than Disney has made this possible in past years.

You still can’t book Disney World more than 500 days ahead, so the website only lets you book (as of today) through late October 2012.

This means that most 2012 Disney World prices are out as well–I’ll update this site over the next few weeks based on these prices. You can see the new Disney World 2011/2012 ticket prices here.

YOU CAN BOOK THE ART OF ANIMATION RESORT

Disney’s Art of Animation Resort is open for booking, for arrival dates beginning May 31, 2012.

See this on MousePlanet.com for more details.

DISNEY MILITARY SALUTE TICKETS: UNLIMITED USE?

Update 7/7: only a total of 12 tickets can be used over the 2011-2012 period, wth no more than 6 activated at a time.

Steve at MilitaryDisneyTips.com is reporting here, based on new instructions to Disney ticket window staff that he has seen, that the discounted Military Disney ticket offer can be used multiple times–“unlimited” times–so long as no more than 6 tickets are purchased each time.

The details of the extension of this deal to 2012 are still not on Disney’s website; MilitaryDisneyTips.com has a lot of the specifics of them here.