free dining for the fall

Bah.... as a DVC member... I hate Free Dining... especially when its going on when were there. Bah.... means more people.........

Ever since they started the free dining... the weeks surrounding Thanksgiving has gotten bigger. Now... don't get me wrong. Its still easily doable to get around the park, and less waiting times. It just seems like you get a different crowd almost? I don't know... lol

I got that email as well and we missed out but thats ok we've already paid for everything and I would be upset if they'd added that to my dates knowing everyone else is getting it cheaper..lol

Saw that too, but I can't go ANY of the dates it is offered. Gotta teach school.

According to the Disney Food Blog, this is expected to be offered to the general public on Thursday. Keeping my fingers crossed the dates don't change so I can take advantage of it this year.

Agreed

Is it actually free? Like 100% free or are they some sort of fee or deposit you have to make?

Yeah got that one too!

As luck would have it, we will be there from October 6 - 13 and that week is BLACKED OUT!! hahaahaaa!! I always hated free dining too....except for this year!

I'm only there one of those days that free dining is available...BUT since we're still not paid in full maybe I can get it for the one day we're there...lol...actually I don't think it would even be worth all of the trouble to change everything around for one day

You have to buy the dinning for the length of your stay. They probably would not give it to you anyway.

Dining is free, when you book a package with the hotel room at the rack rate. It's not like they're just giving away food, it's a discount on your package, but the way that they market it (as "free" dining) lets them control costs and reel in more people.

We booked our stay this November with Deluxe Dining since we like using the dining plan and they weren't offering any free dining plans for the length of our stay when we booked. The last time we went they broke our reservation into two. One of our days was outside of the free dining offer so they booked that day separate, and then they booked the rest of the stay using the free dining. I've always found the Disney agents really accommodating and nice.

We looked into changing our week and then upgrading it to DXDP, but it didn't help passholders very much- hopefully those discounts will come out soon.

If it had been early September, we would have planned another trip down there. Can't go after September!

Ditto better make sure you make your adr's or you may not get any there, happened to us once not realizing it was free dining, all we could eat was cs and f&wf which we love so we could make due, but would have been nice to be able to have a couple of table service meals

Yeah that I could see them doing, but yeah it would have to be two separate reservations.

Ya found tba out the hard way this was years ago before we knew what we were doing, never again, actually I believe it was the first time they did free dining or close to the first

Ya... We got our Adr's. Just waiting on beast catle to open up

I already booked without a dining plan. Am i able to add it on for free?

It depends on if you booked at rack rate or if you got another sort of discount. If you're booked at rack rate you may be able to. Give whoever you booked with a call and see what they can do for you.

FYI-on disney food blog it noted this about changing existing reservations

Note: Existing reservations can be modified to the Free Dining package by calling 407-W-DISNEY. It can not be done online. In addition, modifications to a package will result in WDW charging your reservation for the new (and higher) ticket prices that went into effect on June 3.

That sounds like a great deal.

Unfortunately It's not worth it to me this year. My friends are already on the deluxe plan, I'm on the regular but paid for two adults even though DW can't go...if we upgrade we have to pay the resort difference AND the increased ticket price for the "free" meal plan. I'll stick with our booked package. Besides i'm getting two-6day PH tickets for DW for future use.
Dee

Are you getting the no expiration tickets?

I read about that last night that the new ticket prices will be in effect if you change the reservation. I'll talk to my travel agent at AAA on Friday to see I save anything.

No mrhub I'm not...I won't be using the tickets at all. I'm a Passholder as long as the tickets aren't used in a turnstile At the front gates, then they aren't activated.The only time I'd do the no expiration dates is if DW was going to use 1 or 2 days but not all 6.
In this case I buy a normal package which comes with two (of whatever ticket days) I'll use the meals and snacks which also saves me on buying the deluxe package and later we have tickets for DW.
I've booked the AP+dine package for December and we'll use one of the tickets from my October trip. Disney isn't losing money because I've paid for the tickets. I just don't use them at the time of my package. As far as the meals go...I can use them in whatever combination I choose as it says on the official page. The meal plans dont count as the card being activated. When DW and I return in Dec. she can hand over one of the cards I get in October and they'll add the park tickets to another KTTW card. She uses that card for FPs and park entry and the Dec. card for the meal plan and room entry. We are normally together so really she doesn't have to carry the meal plan and room key card if she is going bagless
We've done it a couple of times. I tend to do at least one solo trip and pay full price just to get tickets for DW, it's not fiscally sound to buy her an AP because she doesn't go nearly as often during the year due to her school schedule. We buy a trip maybe once every two years and then we have tickets for each year she goes. Does that make sense?
It's pretty simple really. The first time we did it, DW wasn't able to make the trip. I was worried about losing the ticket money and was assured that as long as I didn't activate the park tickets at the turnstile then I could bring my cards back and get the tickets at a later date.

Dee