Free Dining 2015: The aftermath!

[~Mommy&MeLuvDisney~]

First time poster here. Scheduled our trip last month for Dec 15-20 last month before DP dates came out. Based on rumors that I heard I did not think free dining would be available during our stay so we opted to stay at AoA LM room just to give it a try. To our surpise, free dining was offered during our stay but obviously not at the LM rooms. My wife and I debated changing rooms to POP yesterday to take advantage of the free dining. Ultimately, we decided to make to make an attempt to switch. I went online last night at 8:30 to try and switch but there was no availability at POP at all. We were a little disappointed but nothing really had changed. We still planned on going and enjoying our trip as planned. At 2:30am this morning our 5 month old decided he was hungry so I get up to feed him. After feeding getting him back to sleep I decided to take one more crack at trying to get a room at POP just on a whim. Lucky me, because at 3am a room at POP became available somehow. I scooped it up quickly and saved the family $500 bucks. Took all of 5 mins to switch everything. We are very pleased. Still a little disappointed to not stay at AoA but its our 1st time at POP as well so it should be fun.

We've stayed at POP three times now and really love it. We've stayed at POFQ before and we were afraid to make the change but we really liked it. We walked over to AoA on our last trip and it seemed strange and foreign but It's just because it was different.

 

[~Mommy&MeLuvDisney~]

I called at least 50 times yesterday in the early morning and never got past the busy signal. It was just too frustrating!

I hope you went online to make your reservations; so easy and quick.

 

[~Mommy&MeLuvDisney~]

I've done both room only and free dining discounts and no discount at all. Free dining is always about $1000 cheaper for us for about 10 days. $2000 MORE for free dining?? I don't see how that could be.

 

[4leobeans]

Ha! Not sure if it was different for Canadians..but the website was down pretty much all day Monday, and sporadically the rest of the days.

I was planning to book our trip, not realizing FD was coming out Monday...we wanted CS, but by time I was able to get online, there was no FD at CS, CBR or POR.

We got a quote of $4100 for CBR for one week with tix and dining. We went in 2013, and at POR, our stay was $2400. It boggles my mind of the price increase in two years.

Since we were going to spend that much, we are now booked at Fort Wilderness, with FD. It saved about $400 for us (2a/2k), especially now that you need to buy hoppers as part of the FD promo. I just got this today.

 

[quiverofadams]

I went online about 2pm and I was able to book 2 rooms at POP. Sept 20-Oct 3. I had no problems.

 

[angierae]

There's still availability at ASSp for the week I wanted to go with DH for Food and Wine, but he doesn't want to go. I'm half tempted to book a short trip for DD20 and myself, but we're going on a 10 day trip next year, so I could just add that money to next year's trip... can't decide.

 

[ThaddfromOhio]

we changed from French Quarter to Caribbean Beach, not a big deal. I am sure we will love it.

 

[emmamomma]

One word ...Disaster!! Our TA originally told us you could not add Free Dining to an existing reservation if it became available, so advised us to wait until early May when the promotion is typically announced! She emailed me yesterday at 9am...told me it was available for Visa holders now and general public on Thursday and that POFQ was included! I then found out through my own research ( Disney website and here!) that the offer became available somewhere between 4 and 6 AM, POFQ was NOT included, and our 2nd choice (Caribbean Beach) was also now no longer available (as of today)! Decided to call Disney on my own...had to try a couple times, once got through on hold but wait was over an hour. Hung up and tried again later and hold time was less than 5 mins!! Ended up booking a 1 bedroom villa at Old Key West for 4 adults with the Free Dining and actually worked out to be less than $100 per person more than doing 2 rooms at a moderate resort! I'm still waiting on a quote from the TA!! Lesson learned - next time I'll just do it myself!!

Whichever TA you are with, they really don't know their stuff! That advice was all wrong! I booked with a TA last year anc i wasn't happy but more because she wasn't as efficient as i was with ADR's so this year i am on my own. Even disney will tell you that you can change your reservation as discounts become available. It's no secret.

 

[disneydude365]

me and my friend stayed on the phone constantly calling we had over 400 busy calls each, got through 4 times waited two hours on hold with no music only to get cut off each time finally around 9:34pm we got through again and since we were in que they didnt cut us off after the closing time

we managed to switch three group reservations (as we are a large family going with three separate reservations) to the oct 25th-31st week we upgraded to the park hoppers, and we managed to get the free dining
we started at 8 am that day and finally hung up around midnight.. it was a long stressful day but we made it happen!

 

[verleniahall]

I happened to be awake since the DH leaves for work at 4:40 AM CST - I saw on disboards that free dining was availbe - jumped online, used the modify button, and we grabbed free dining. On Wednesday, we called and upgraded to the plan with 1 snack, 1 qs and 1 ts. We saved over all abotu 200.00 after the upgraded dining plan.

 

[rebornat33]

This was the first trip I have ever planned and I have to say this whole thing was a bit intimidating. We had reservations for Dec trip then found out we had to move it to Nov because of DH job. TA changed to Nov dates. The very next day I came on here and saw about the free dining so was hoping to get that so TA was on the phone all day/night. Very nerve wracking experience to go through, BUT we go the free dining so very happy it ended well. Next trip, I will have a little more experience lol.

 

[chart719]

Did anyone ever figure out why the "modify" button is not working? I need to make a change (5 day tickets, instead of 6) and it just keeps reloading the same page...

 

[5kidsmommy]

Did anyone ever figure out why the "modify" button is not working? I need to make a change (5 day tickets, instead of 6) and it just keeps reloading the same page...

Are you just changing tickets or are you changing the number of nights you are staying? If it's the latter apparently you can no longer do that. If it's only tickets all I can say is the website is a mess.

 

[chart719]

Just tickets. We ended up with an early departure flight.

And we'd like to upgrade dining, too. Probably...I guess I'll just call sometime.

 

[5kidsmommy]

Just tickets. We ended up with an early departure flight.

And we'd like to upgrade dining, too. Probably...I guess I'll just call sometime.

I called today, the wait was only 5 minutes. I was pleasantly surprised.

 

[HizMinnie2015]

We are booked at Pop Century a R.O. on 10/24 and a pkg from 10/25 to 10/31. We have standard room no frills.... I logged onto the Disney web right at 6am and modified our pkg to get the free dining. Even with our upgrade to deluxe dining it was still almost $600 off our original total. I'm happy with that!

 

[DuckyMommy]

I am not having any luck at Pop century for my mom's December reservations. They were all booked when I called last Monday and I double checked today and it is still not available

 

[disneyseniors]

The quote from my TA was $2000 higher than our magical deal so new free dining for us. There is no way two people would eat $2000 worth of food.

Yes, honeypots, we are paying OOP this time too. We always use the fdp, but find it is too restrictive and too much food for us now. We did manage to get a PIN and got our favorite resort at a reduced price! Yea!!!!! can't wait!

 

[disneyseniors]

Agree. Especially in a situation such as this, where there is the possibility of exremely popular limited time perks. Let's face it...YOU, in making your own reservations, have your own best interest at heart. A travel agent who may have 50-100 clients booked at Disney, all of whom want the same perk, has many people to look out for. Where would you fall in their "priority" list amongst their other many clients? I wouldn't want to take my chances.

I feel really bad that some of you had such bad results with your TA's. Mine is a certified Disney TA and she went above and beyond to make our reservations, including being on hold for 2 and a half hours. She also got us a PIN number. She was turned down at first while all the fd fiasco on the phones was going on, She just waited a few days and rechecked, and sure enough, we had a PIN waiting for us. Don't know what happened with the other CM? She always keeps after it til we get what we want. I thought she was the norm for a Disney TA's, but I guess not! She is now checking cheap flights out for us. Last year she got round trip for 2 for $259 with only one stop. We live way up north in Mn. I don't know if the difference is that my TA is Disney certified or not?

 

[To the honeypots]

Yes, honeypots, we are paying OOP this time too. We always use the fdp, but find it is too restrictive and too much food for us now. We did manage to get a PIN and got our favorite resort at a reduced price! Yea!!!!! can't wait!

Awesome have a great time!!