Those of you who are experts, anyone know if we miss making a reservation for free dining first week of March, are we out of luck for any other free dining offers during that time? I'm wondering if another offer will be made available after this Oct. 29 cutoff date? TIA!
So much for us self-described "experts." Disney just extended the booking window for early 2012 free
DDP until December 17. I don't think the travel dates have changed, but you now have more time to book your trip.
Unfortunately for those of you waiting for offers for trips that begin after March 29, this may mean you have a longer wait.
Or maybe Disney will surprise me again.
So based on this you're saying you can book your trip and then just watch and wait for deals? So if Free Dining or something else (25% off, etc) comes out, you can call and change the reservation for that? DH has agreed to go to Disney with me and I used to do the FD offer with my mom but we always booked bounce back so I can't remember when we actually booked it. Our dates are set for Disney whether dining is free or not so I guess I should just book now?
I was actually recommending that someone book free DDP before October 29 instead of waiting to see if a better offer became available after that. But in your case, since you're going regardless and your dates are set, I would go ahead and book it. If you would only go if there was a free dining offer, then I would recommend that you wait.
You're partially right about being able to change your reservation; the difference being it's not a guarantee that you could convert an existing reservation to a new promotion because it all depends on room availability
for that particular offer. Disney typically makes only a certain number of rooms (and room types) available at each resort for each offer. But availability can fluctuate a lot, probably depending on how full the resort is and cancellations.
For example, we just decided last week to book a spring break trip at POFQ using the free dining offer. At the time I booked, only a river view room was available. I took it, but wasn't thrilled about paying for the river view upgrade. A few days later, I noticed that a (cheaper) garden view room was available, so I called and switched my reservation to the less expensive room. When I checked yesterday, no rooms at all were available at POFQ for free dining.
This isn't to say that no rooms are available at POFQ for my dates. If I put in my dates without the free dining offer, I can get standard view, garden view, water view or river view. But I can't get free dining with any of those rooms because they've sold out of the rooms they had allocated for the free dining promotion. So you may or may not be able to add a new promotion to your reservation. You may have to change room types or even resorts to get the new offer. But you can always keep checking and maybe your first choice will become available.
Sorry for being long-winded, but I hope that helps!
