e. What to Budget for Walt Disney World - 7/48

As has been expected for some time, Disney World yesterday announced that theme park tickets purchased October 16 or after will have varying prices based on the start date of the ticket.

The prices themselves were not announced—that’s expected on the 16th itself, although rumors, some accurate, will come out before then. Many were confused by apparent prices being used in an explanatory video—even though every image in that video had material like the following:

The way it will work is that ticket purchasers first select a ticket form or type.*

You choose from among the current ticket types: “regular” one park per day tickets, “hopper” tickets that allow visiting different parks in the same day (multiple visits in a day to one park are covered by “regular” tickets), or “hopper plus” tickets that also include pre-paid admission to the minor parks (waterparks, mini-golf, etc.).

The next choice you make is how many park days.

With these two choices in hand, you then pick your first possible day of use from a calendar that shows average daily prices by start day for a ticket of the already-selected form and number of days.

With a date clicked, the cost per day is highlighted…

…and the system will then show the total cost of the tickets…

…and also the days the tickets are eligible to be used.

Except for one day tickets, these tickets have eligibility ranges greater than the actual number of park days that can be used. Two and three day tickets have two extra calendar days they might be used; tickets with four through seven days of park admission have three extra days, and tickets with eight to ten days have four extra days.

This allows guests some flexibility for off days, visits to other Orlando attractions, or for working around family, illness, or weather issues. It also allows, I would guess, for a bit of start-day arbitrage for guests who are willing to give up some flexibility.**

For guests with calendar flexibility, the system will also let you seek low cost days…

…and for those who want to lock into a set of tickets and not worry yet about start dates, an option to pay more for flexible dates will also be available. This option also provides the longest date range of eligible use—fourteen days—regardless of the actual number of days in the ticket.

Disney has two intentions behind this change.

One is to shift guests from higher-wait periods to lower wait ones, thereby increasing the satisfaction of the shifted guests (though not that of those who had already planned to go those dates because they held the promise of be see lower crowds)
The second is to extract more value from those who, regardless of pricing, choose the more popular dates

Both these have already been in place at Disney World in some fashion for years. Resort prices have worked this way from time out of memory. And over the last three years, Disney World has restructured the prices of its various types of annual passes to shift many people into lower-cost pass options that block out many of the most popular dates—resulting, for example, in starkly lower summer waits the past three summers.

The new approach to date-based pricing is much less complicated than many had feared it would be. Yes, you need to pick a date or pay a premium for flexible dates—but you always have had to pick a date; this new approach will simply incent that choice to even earlier. And yes, you will pay higher prices for some dates than others, even if you have no real choice in your dates—but this has also always been true for hotel prices.

The impact on park waits is still to be seen, and will be partly shaped by the actual price differences among dates. Higher price differences will level out crowds across the year to some as-yet unquantifiable extent, making formerly bad dates better and formerly good dates worse, although the impact is yet to be seen and good daily planning will still pay off quite a bit. Lower price differences will have less impact on the flow of crowds across the year.

*All screenshots are from Disney’s video here.

**For example, say you plan to be in the parks for three days, on exact dates—e.g. February 3 through February 5. The two extra calendar days your ticket can be used on a three day ticket means your start dates could be February 1, February 2, or February 3. If you are willing to give up the option to use your tickets on February 6 or February 7, then picking February 1 or 2 as your start day, rather than February 3, in some scenarios might save you some money.

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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:

Name*
Where Would You Like to Go?*
Phone*
Email*
# of Guests by Age: Aged 18+
Aged 10-17
Aged 3-9
Aged 0-2
Hotel
Check In*
Date Format: MM slash DD slash YYYY
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I consent to my submitted data being collected, stored and forwarded to agents at Destinations in Florida*
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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.

Request a Quote

Name*
Where Would You Like to Go?*
Phone*
Email*
# of Guests by Age: Aged 18+
Aged 10-17
Aged 3-9
Aged 0-2
Hotel
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Date Format: MM slash DD slash YYYY
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I consent to my submitted data being collected, stored and forwarded to agents at Destinations in Florida*
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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:

Name*
Where Would You Like to Go?*
Phone*
Email*
# of Guests by Age: Aged 18+
Aged 10-17
Aged 3-9
Aged 0-2
Hotel
Check In*
Date Format: MM slash DD slash YYYY
Check Out*
Date Format: MM slash DD slash YYYY
Other Thoughts You'd Like Us to Know
I consent to my submitted data being collected, stored and forwarded to agents at Destinations in Florida*
- Yes

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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!)