2016 Free Dining Watch

[Jannephotog]

....well, you are in luck, because typically, a good portion of the F&WF offers free dining!

I am so hopeful! We don't have to worry about school schedules (I left my job in the school system last fall & moved elsewhere) so we can go during non-holiday times, so fingers crossed! DH loves Epcot the most & F&W would make us both oh so happy to finally attend!

 

[P&L@WDW]

I booked with the hope that free dining comes out. With the Canadian dollar being what it is, we need all the help we can get!

 

[howaboutme]

Does anyone know from past experiences if free dining is available during the last couple of weeks of August? If so, does FD mean any plan or a specific one like the cheapest/QS? Are there any specific resorts (for example, the values) that are not part of any FD plan historically?

Thanks!

 

[kimmar067]

Does anyone know from past experiences if free dining is available during the last couple of weeks of August? If so, does FD mean any plan or a specific one like the cheapest/QS? Are there any specific resorts (for example, the values) that are not part of any FD plan historically?

Thanks!

...we've gone to WDW during that time and got the free dining....Florida pretty much goes back to school the 3rd week, and so do a lot of other states....

 

[scard192]

Does anyone know from past experiences if free dining is available during the last couple of weeks of August? If so, does FD mean any plan or a specific one like the cheapest/QS? Are there any specific resorts (for example, the values) that are not part of any FD plan historically?

Thanks!

recent years FD dates:
2014:
August 31 – October 3, 2014
October 26 – November 1, 2014
November 9 – 20, 2014
December 12 – 23, 2014
I think POFQ, All Star Movies, Little Mermaid rooms and a few other resorts were excluded.

2015:
August 28-October 2
October 25-31
November 8-19
December 15-21
Excluded Resorts:
All Star Movies (excluded after August 30)
Port Orleans French Quarter (excluded after August 30)
Port Orleans Riverside (excluded after October 2)
The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney’s Polynesian Villas and Bungalows, Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, Disney’s Art of Animation Resort – The Little Mermaid Standard View Rooms, campsites and 3-bedroom villas all excluded
Requirements:
Addition of Park Hopper or Water Park & More

Value resorts have had QS plan, Mods/Deluxe DDP

 

[dmc6469]

keeping fingers crossed it's during my October stay

 

[ml sumner]

keeping fingers crossed it's during my October stay

Me too could really use it for a family of 5.

 

[howaboutme]

recent years FD dates:
2014:
August 31 – October 3, 2014
October 26 – November 1, 2014
November 9 – 20, 2014
December 12 – 23, 2014
I think POFQ, All Star Movies, Little Mermaid rooms and a few other resorts were excluded.

2015:
August 28-October 2
October 25-31
November 8-19
December 15-21
Excluded Resorts:
All Star Movies (excluded after August 30)
Port Orleans French Quarter (excluded after August 30)
Port Orleans Riverside (excluded after October 2)
The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney’s Polynesian Villas and Bungalows, Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, Disney’s Art of Animation Resort – The Little Mermaid Standard View Rooms, campsites and 3-bedroom villas all excluded
Requirements:
Addition of Park Hopper or Water Park & More

Value resorts have had QS plan, Mods/Deluxe DDP

Thanks!

Can someone confirm if it's true that you only need to at the resort one day of the FD to quality for your entire package if your vacation period straddles either the beginning or end of the period? As of right now, we would missing the late Aug FD unless we adjust back our tentative schedule.

So the AoA 1 bed suites were PART of the FD plan?

 

[vrajewski10513]

Thanks!

Can someone confirm if it's true that you only need to at the resort one day of the FD to quality for your entire package if your vacation period straddles either the beginning or end of the period? As of right now, we would missing the late Aug FD unless we adjust back our tentative schedule.

So the AoA 1 bed suites were PART of the FD plan?

Your CHECK-IN date has to be within the free dining dates.
Yes, AoA suites are included. Only the little mermaid rooms are excluded.

 

[may12th]

I am planning on a Disney trip this October and so I remember looking up the free dining option during October 2015 to see offer details to help me plan. I feel like that while most of October was offered the weekends were almost all blocked out, so you would need to have a M-F check in to be available for FD. Can anyone confirm? I'm hoping for something different this year.

 

[vrajewski10513]

I am planning on a Disney trip this October and so I remember looking up the free dining option during October 2015 to see offer details to help me plan. I feel like that while most of October was offered the weekends were almost all blocked out, so you would need to have a M-F check in to be available for FD. Can anyone confirm? I'm hoping for something different this year.

There was no free dining from 10/2 all the way to 10/25 last year... If you're hoping for free dining in October you'll have to more than likely travel the first or last week of the month.

 

[howaboutme]

Your CHECK-IN date has to be within the free dining dates.
Yes, AoA suites are included. Only the little mermaid rooms are excluded.

Thank you! Bummer as it seems like our tentative dates fall at the beginning of the FD period so we may catch it on check out but not check in....

 

[kimmar067]

recent years FD dates:
2014:
August 31 – October 3, 2014
October 26 – November 1, 2014
November 9 – 20, 2014
December 12 – 23, 2014
I think POFQ, All Star Movies, Little Mermaid rooms and a few other resorts were excluded.

2015:
August 28-October 2
October 25-31
November 8-19
December 15-21
Excluded Resorts:
All Star Movies (excluded after August 30)
Port Orleans French Quarter (excluded after August 30)
Port Orleans Riverside (excluded after October 2)
The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa, Disney’s Polynesian Villas and Bungalows, Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, Disney’s Art of Animation Resort – The Little Mermaid Standard View Rooms, campsites and 3-bedroom villas all excluded
Requirements:
Addition of Park Hopper or Water Park & More

Value resorts have had QS plan, Mods/Deluxe DDP

...thanks!

 

[kimmar067]

Thanks!

Can someone confirm if it's true that you only need to at the resort one day of the FD to quality for your entire package if your vacation period straddles either the beginning or end of the period? As of right now, we would missing the late Aug FD unless we adjust back our tentative schedule.

So the AoA 1 bed suites were PART of the FD plan?

...the last time we stayed [during F&WF], it was a 2-day minimum of park passes that had to be purchased....it used to be one, but apparently they upped the ante`...AND, your day of arrival had to fall within the FD dates...

 

[vrajewski10513]

...the last time we stayed [during F&WF], it was a 2-day minimum of park passes that had to be purchased....it used to be one, but apparently they upped the ante`...AND, your day of arrival had to fall within the FD dates...

I think they added that it had to be a park hopper last year... But I could totally be making that up lol

 

[Funfire240]

I think they added that it had to be a park hopper last year... But I could totally be making that up lol

In the fall of 2015 they did add you had to have either the park hopper or water parks option or you could choose to upgrade to the combination.

Remember for those booking now in anticipation of a discount - the more rooms that are booked, the less incentive Disney has to offer discounts...,

 

[Funfire240]

We have done free dining 5 out of last 6 years, each time in October/November. Have very actively monitored the threads and booked on the day the promo was released, never in advance.

The only reason for booking in advance is if you are completely set on a particular resort and/or room type that may generally be tough to get if you wait, which I have never seen as an issue for any of the moderates anyhow. Even last year when the promo was first released and you could not get a standard at a moderate under the free dining plan there were still plenty of standards available just not under free dining. We ended up booking a pirate room on the date the promo was released and then within a few days they released some standards and we switched over, but we would have been happy either way since we got the dining plan and the room cost was not that much higher for the pirate room. A few things to keep in mind regarding booking in advance that folks encountered last year that they were reporting on the boards....

1. Having the room booked in advance does NOT give you a leg up on getting it converted to free dining. The CM can only convert it to Free dining IF that same room type is still available for Free Dining at the time that you try to convert it. In other words if you have a standard that you want to convert to Free Dining then there would have to be a standard in the Free Dining inventory available at that time for anybody to book. They CANNOT just change your standard to free dining if there are no standards left available in the Free Dining inventory.

2. Booking in advance requires you to call Disney, or have your TA calling Disney, to convert over to the Free Dining. You cannot switch it online. Of course you can go online and book a new reservation and then just call later to cancel the original but that kind of defeats the purpose.

3. Last year in particular, getting through to a CM on the day the promo was released was absolutely insane and not only for the general public but for the TA's as well. Several TA's and customers of TA's commented on how much of a nightmare it was trying to get through to make the changes.

4. The promo has generally been getting released overnight and made available online at that time. Last year was at 3am and the year before that was between Midnight-1am. At that time, neither the phone lines or TA's are able to contact Disney to make changes to an advance reservation. The only option during the first several hours of the promo is to book a new reservation online.

So as mentioned if you are dead set on a particular room type at a particular resort and free dining is not a major concern then book in advance, but if free dining is important and you are open to various resorts and/or room types then my experience has been it works out better to wait.

In 2015 for our reservations I was able to add free dining online. There was the modify reservation button. I went on about 5 a.m. and chose to modify my reservation and I don't recall exactly how offhand but I was able to go in and select the free dining offer. I also had to select a room category, which the one we wanted and were booked in was available. I was able to do this on 3 separate reservations without any problems before all the craziness started later in the day.

We originally were going to book at a different resort in a standard room. If we would have, I would have had to change that one because the week we were going there were no standard rooms available with the promotion.
I mentioned above about booking early. I can say that we were booked to go and didn't really care about a promotion (although it was nice to add on) as we had set dates when we could go and were planning on it with or without any discounts. That and I was booked in advance to get my preferred dining and activities which mean a lot more to me than the actual discounts

 

[kimmar067]

I think they added that it had to be a park hopper last year... But I could totally be making that up lol

....well, we definitely did NOT have to purchase a PH pass, but it did have to be a 2-day one....in fact, we still have those 2 days on our Mickey bands, because, months before that trip, we had purchased 3-day passes through our friend who works at AAA. With the additional 2-day US/IoA passes, we never even used the ones that were bought to obtain the FD plan....

 

[kimmar067]

....suffice it to say, since I also won 4 PH passes at a Tricky Tray event this past December, we really don't need to buy any other passes for whenever we visit WDW...

 

[schriverl]

....well, we definitely did NOT have to purchase a PH pass, but it did have to be a 2-day one....in fact, we still have those 2 days on our Mickey bands, because, months before that trip, we had purchased 3-day passes through our friend who works at AAA. With the additional 2-day US/IoA passes, we never even used the ones that were bought to obtain the FD plan....

For the Fall 2015 Dining Promo you had to purchase either the park hopper or the water parks fun and more option with you tickets.