Category — e. What to Budget for Walt Disney World

PREDICTING FUTURE DISNEY WORLD PROMOTIONS, DEALS, AND DISCOUNTS

The Disney World deals, promotions, and discounts I know about are linked to via this Summary of Current Walt Disney World Deals and Discounts.

However, all the time I get search traffic, questions, and comments about the dates of future deals and discounts, like this one from Brandon.

These questions are hard to answer, as it’s to Disney’s advantage not to be too predictable on these promotions.

It doesn’t make much business sense for Disney World to incent people who are perfectly willing to pay standard resort hotel prices to hold off on their reservations so that they can get a predictable further discount later.

So just because a discount was available at such and such a time last year doesn’t mean it’ll be available at that time this year, or next year.

This is particularly true if the economy keeps improving, which will lead Disney to continue to cut back on the scope of its discount programs–which it has promised to Wall Street that it will do.

However, that doesn’t mean that there’s no pattern, nor that observations can’t be made. [Read more →]

 A couple of 2011 Disney World deals are scheduled to expire soon.

One Disney deal gives reduced resort hotel room rates, and another Disney promotion yields free theme park tickets for kids.

These deals cover 2011 stays from April 28 through June 14, and August 14 through October 1.

They need to be booked by March 27th, which is coming up soon!!

See this for more on these 2011 Disney World promotions.

ACT FAST TO CATCH AN EXPIRING WALT DISNEY WORLD PROMOTION

One of Disney World’s 2011 discount programs, with room rates up to 30% off, and covering travel dates through April 16,needs to be booked by February 13th.

You can find more details about this Disney World promotion on Disney’s website here.

Other 2011 Disney deals and discounts are available for much of 2011 through October 1.  Details can be found  here.

DISNEY WORLD DISCOUNTS GOING AWAY?

Interestingly, Disney’s Q1 earnings call–held on February 8–suggested a continued rebound in the Disney World parks.

Evidence includes growth in attendance and spending, hotel occupancy in Q1 up to 85% and Q2 hotel bookings almost 3 percentage points higher than last year–and the Disney Dream being already 89% booked!

This suggests to me that Disney will continue to scale down its recession-related discount programs, so grab what’s offered while you can!

OPPORTUNITIES FOR MILITARY FAMILY SAVINGS

My friend Steve at militarydisneytips.com tracks and posts on all kinds of stuff useful to military families considering a Disney trip.  I asked him to summarize the current state of Shades of Green discounts, and here he goes!

Shades of Green is striving to find the right discount combination to keep their rooms filled in the wake of Disney’s Armed Forces Salute room-only discount of 30 to 40% on Disney owned and operated resort rooms.

Some of Shade’s 2011 discounts are even better than this. This means the opportunity for military members and their families to save quite a lot on their next Walt Disney World vacation. [Read more →]

NEW ROOM AND TICKET 2011 OFFERS FROM WALT DISNEY WORLD

Walt Disney World has announced a couple of new discount deals to go along with the already announced spring discounted room rates.

They cover periods through October 1, 2011, but exclude the Easter weeks, and mid-June to mid-August.

One is really two deals in one–it provides room rate discounts at two different levels for periods in late spring, and in early and late summer.

The second is an offer for free tickets for kids between the ages of 3 and 9.

THE NEW ROOM RATE WALT DISNEY WORLD 2011 DISCOUNT [Read more →]

ACT FAST FOR THE BEST DEAL…

One of the current Walt Disney World offers has a discount off of room rates.

It is, however, a moving target–you get five percentage points more of discount if you book by 12/31 than if you book after.

So if you want the full value of this discount, book it soon!

For details of this Disney deal, see this.