******Official 2017 Free Dining Plan Watch, Wait, and Dream

[KimBean]

I think you are correct, last year FD was blacked out from 10/2-11/14; pretty sure there were RO discounts for some parts of October. I do remember the first RO discounts for Fall ran until ~ 11/5,people were waiting for the next bunch of dates to come out.

I'm obviously not communicating very well this morning. I'll just go back and read the hub bub from last night.

 

[sharonabe]

Sorry I only have about 30 minutes this morning and it appears no one on this morning knows what was said 4 pages back - me included!! Last night while I was trying to shut off my addiction to the DIS and go to sleep someone posted that Dad said that FD blackout dates worked exactly as RO blackout dates. He stated this was how it worked last year as well. I don't believe this to be true so I'm just confirming - we are ignoring this and moving on right?

YES! DAD'S INFORMATION ON BLACK-OUT DATES IS FALSE! Too many people on this thread and others were able to check in on the last day of any given period and extend beyond. Someone needs to go debunk his myth on his forum.

 

[KimBean]

YES! DAD'S INFORMATION ON BLACK-OUT DATES IS FALSE! Too many people on this thread and others were able to check in on the last day of any given period and extend beyond. Someone needs to go debunk his myth on his forum.

Thank you. No one on the board or ******* seemed to know what I was talking about. I was seriously just thinking I might have dreamed the whole thing.

 

[FinnsMom7]

I pm'ed you. If you can give me just a few details I can give you the numbers to compare.

if you are bored and want more math to do I can send you my info to ease my mind LOL - I feel like the more I check and look the more confused I make myself - end point I am going regardless so why i keep stressing myself out I dont know, DH says I enjoy the mental punishment LOL

 

[KimBean]

if you are bored and want more math to do I can send you my info to ease my mind LOL - I feel like the more I check and look the more confused I make myself - end point I am going regardless so why i keep stressing myself out I dont know, DH says I enjoy the mental punishment LOL

PM me.

ANYONE who wants to I can do it. I might not be on too much today (shocker) but I will respond.

 

[VillainFavs]

Am I the only one still holding out hope that FD at mods will be the regular plan and not just QS? Is it just the South American deals that that's based on? Or is there something more pointing in that direction?

UK has had QSDP with mods for some time now. Couldn't the South American deal just be matching up to that and not necessarily carry over to the US?

My family will be there in August either way. And if we don't get DDP at a mod, we're actually moving up to a deluxe! But I'm still of the mindset where I'd like to save as much as I can. So I still have this glimmer of hope that we'll get regular DDP at the moderates.

Who wants to come and squash my last bit of hope???

 

[TeacherInNeverland]

Am I the only one still holding out hope that FD at mods will be the regular plan and not just QS? Is it just the South American deals that that's based on? Or is there something more pointing in that direction?

UK has had QSDP with mods for some time now. Couldn't the South American deal just be matching up to that and not necessarily carry over to the US?

My family will be there in August either way. And if we don't get DDP at a mod, we're actually moving up to a deluxe! But I'm still of the mindset where I'd like to save as much as I can. So I still have this glimmer of hope that we'll get regular DDP at the moderates.

Who wants to come and squash my last bit of hope???

I have hope!

But if it's not I'm bumping down to POP and upgrading to DDP myself. It'll save me a good $300. We lose the GC deal at CBR but it works out.

 

[techboss]

Canadian Question:

First post on this board. I know for the deal to get FD requires Regular Room Rates. Will Canadians still be able to use the Theme park discounts + Regular Room Rates + PH and get Free dining?

 

[ParryOttertheChosenBoy]

Question for those booked at Pop -- Have you seen any "preferred pool view" rooms available? I am booked for a standard pool view and was crunching numbers assuming I may have to use a different room type to get FD, but then I noticed no matter what ranges I selected in December I was not getting any available rooms for that room type. Wonder if WDW is holding those back for FD? Or are they just that popular?

Curious, curious...

 

[Elsaalltheway]

Alright I need some opinions...
My friend and I are taking a trip in September. Very excited as I have never been down there for Halloween or F&W and want to get the most out of it. Debating between QSDP and DDP. We already have an ADR for H&V for Minnie's Halloween dine, but the other TS meals we could do without if we had to. My only dilemma is if we get QSDP for free for our 4 night stay it would only cost us EACH $84 to upgrade to DDP and H&V would cost us around $65 including tax & tip each OOP. So essentially we're saving $20 by not upgrading, if we upgrade we would include a meal at Via Napoli and keep our ADR for character bfast at TH with ROL package. Do you all think we might as well upgrade to DDP considering the meals we could include for that price? Also, anyone have any info about Minnie's Halloween dine they'd like to share? Did you like it? Was it worth it to see the characters dressed up?

If only one meal is important to you I would keep the QS. The problem with DDP is that its three meals and you will probably want reservations for two of them a day, but if you are going down to enjoy the F&W and MNSSHP, then you will be missing out because you will have lets just say two hours for ever meal, that's 16 hours dedicated to just meals, then you have to make sure you are there, so that will dictate you make a schedule and pretty much try to keep it. You lose any freedom you really have with the QS meal plan.

 

[FinnsMom7]

Question for those booked at Pop -- Have you seen any "preferred pool view" rooms available? I am booked for a standard pool view and was crunching numbers assuming I may have to use a different room type to get FD, but then I noticed no matter what ranges I selected in December I was not getting any available rooms for that room type. Wonder if WDW is holding those back for FD? Or are they just that popular?

Curious, curious...

I did same thing, I am assuming that by December they plan to be into those rooms for renovations so pulled them from inventory, I have no facts in that but only thing that made sense to me.

 

[Elsaalltheway]

Question for those booked at Pop -- Have you seen any "preferred pool view" rooms available? I am booked for a standard pool view and was crunching numbers assuming I may have to use a different room type to get FD, but then I noticed no matter what ranges I selected in December I was not getting any available rooms for that room type. Wonder if WDW is holding those back for FD? Or are they just that popular?

Curious, curious...

Sometimes they hold them back, sometimes they require specific rooms if the others are sold out. I know that one year for us to do a bounce back they said we had to have a preferred room, well most of the preferred are pool facing rooms and we have never used the pool so for us that was not a bonus. We paid for a preferred but asked for a specific standard. We got the area we wanted and loved the view. Fireworks every night from right outside our door. Sorry got off track, but unfortunately this could be a case of multiple bookings hoping to get free dining, remember if you can't get what you want on day one, wait a few days because people have a tendancy to have mutliple reservations in the hope of getting free dining and then they start dropping reservations.

 

[Icicles]

Canadian Question:

First post on this board. I know for the deal to get FD requires Regular Room Rates. Will Canadians still be able to use the Theme park discounts + Regular Room Rates + PH and get Free dining?

No, you can't combine the Canadian ticket discount and free dining. The ticket discount can be combined with a RO though. FD has to include full price rooms and tickets- likely also PH or PH+

 

[tilir]

Question for those booked at Pop -- Have you seen any "preferred pool view" rooms available? I am booked for a standard pool view and was crunching numbers assuming I may have to use a different room type to get FD, but then I noticed no matter what ranges I selected in December I was not getting any available rooms for that room type. Wonder if WDW is holding those back for FD? Or are they just that popular?

Curious, curious...

I just got through looking at POP with preferred pool view rooms available for December 18th - December 28th for 2 adults 2 children from the website.

 

[4HOLIDAYS]

Is the visa Free dining out yet?

 

[gemologygal]

I think you are correct, last year FD was blacked out from 10/2-11/14; pretty sure there were RO discounts for some parts of October. I do remember the first RO discounts for Fall ran until ~ 11/5,people were waiting for the next bunch of dates to come out.

If this year's blackout dates are similar to last year's then that's a bummer for us because we would be traveling at the beginning of November. Keeping my fingers crossed though, just in case.

 

[techboss]

No, you can't combine the Canadian ticket discount and free dining. The ticket discount can be combined with a RO though. FD has to include full price rooms and tickets- likely also PH or PH+

Thanks. My understanding of them lowering the ticket prices for Canadians, was due to the horrible exchange rate. FD would be costing more for Canadians in this case.

If that is the case I will create my own FD aka OOP. Prepaid USD Visa and load amounts to match QSDP or even DDP, and see how we would do at the end of the trip.

 

[mikesteffen]

also need to figure out your tickets too. it's probably cheaper to buy 10 day tix with your FD package rather than 4 day tix with the RO ressie and 6 day tix with the FD package. You can activate and use the tix from the FD package early; I know you can do this 3 days early hopefully someone else will post if they have been able to activate and use tickets 4 days early. If you buy all the tix with the FD package you need to go to Guest Services to activate the tickets; you will not be able to make FP+ 60 days in advance for 11/10-13 with this option. Once the tix are activated you could then make FP+ for the days you have the RO reservation.

10 days early you can use them.

 

[Disney Ron]

Has anymore clarity been leaked if it will be park hoppers or park hoppers plus that’s required? I’ve heard it both ways.

I believe it's going to be park hoppers OR park hopper plus.

 

[goldnvalli]

We have a 4 night/5 day at Yacht Club on 8/16. If this falls under a potential Free Dining date, can this be added to our reservation? We booked under a 30% off promo code.

Where did you find a 30% promo code for yc. I'm reserved for yc on 8/24-9/1 and only got 25%.