2018 Free Dining Watch Thread V3

[jkarnes]

So I had a res with a TA & had stressed to her how important FD was to us. She assured me that she could/would get it. I got up at 5am when my “Disney mentor” texted me & told me FD was live. I couldn’t access my original res but decided to see if I could get another one & I put it all in my cart. My DM encouraged me to go ahead & book it if I didn’t hear from my TA 7am. So at 6:57, I proceeded & got a new reservation. At 9am, I finally heard from my TA! Her words, “I’m trying to get through but lines are busy & site keeps crashing.” {insert eye roll}
I am so thankful for my friend’s advice or I would probably be sick to my stomach right now! When the chaos dies down, we’ll cancel the original & I will transfer the new one to my TA because she’s a family friend.
Here’s my only concern: I used an alternate email to book the 2nd res, will I be able to link it to my MDE acct that is under a different email? All my ADRs & dessert party are connected to it.
Thank y’all for ALL your help! You guys are the best!

You will most likely need the help of the Disney Internet Support phone line. They can move and attach things as needed.
This is their number ‭(407) 939-7765‬

 

[Nikciburd]

Now that I got free dining at lunch DH and I were talking and he was like "yeah lets go ahead and upgrade dining"

I’m upgrading one of our two rooms to deluxe I think. That way all three meals will be covered when we pool them together with the quick service in the other room. The appetizers and deserts will also be fun (I’m going to gain 15lbs that week). I don’t mind tipping out of pocket, but I don’t want to even think about prices the whole week I’m there.

 

[DisneyFever]

I've been trying to keep up with the posts and have seen yes and no to my question. I have reservations at POP for Nov 24 - Dec 2 and tried to add the FD promo this morning. When I try to modify my reservation, the FD promo is listed, but it will not add it to my reservation. In the past, as long as your arrival date was during the promotion, I know it would carry through for your entire trip. Is it different this year with Nov. 28-Dec. 6 being excluded? Should the FD promo be available for the Nov 24-Dec 2 trip? I plan on calling once the lines are less busy, but hoped someone could give me some insight. Thanks!

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

I am really surprised free dining isn’t sold out in December. Even Christmas week has values availabvility with a Dec 23 check-in.

I think it is because of how restrictive it is. If you are a family of 4 and looking at just getting anywhere with the deal, it is awesome but when you have set dates or a larger party or resort preferences and room preferences it gets really exclusive.

We are a family of 5 and only wanted certain dates in the first 2.5 weeks of December. We also wanted deluxe and club level, our availability shrunk by a lot. Lol

 

[Nikciburd]

I've been trying to keep up with the posts and have seen yes and no to my question. I have reservations at POP for Nov 24 - Dec 2 and tried to add the FD promo this morning. When I try to modify my reservation, the FD promo is listed, but it will not add it to my reservation. In the past, as long as your arrival date was during the promotion, I know it would carry through for your entire trip. Is it different this year with Nov. 28-Dec. 6 being excluded? Should the FD promo be available for the Nov 24-Dec 2 trip? I plan on calling once the lines are less busy, but hoped someone could give me some insight. Thanks!

Do you have 6 days of tickets? I’m not sure that’s it because the system prompted me to add dining when I didn’t have that option clicked on but since I already had park hopper (park hopper plus actually...I want total flexibility anyway so the park hopper option was not a hardship) tickets and all that I met the requirements in every other way.Something must be up. The first time I clicked through this morning at 5 am it wasn’t working. I realized I had to change the resort first then it showed up with that promotion later. Since Pop is included I’m not sure what’s up.

 

[BraveEeyore]

So I’m still worrying about the Canada thing BUT I think I feel better. I logged into my account and clicked on the offer that it says I have and the dates say August 20 availability and those are US dates, right? The Canadian dates are from August 2nd right. So I must have gotten the right offer.

It was just too easy this morning. I had no problems at all getting exactly what I wanted (well what I really wanted was POR but oh well). It just seemed too good to be true. My stomach was in my chest this morning. This “free” dining offer saves my family of 7 (paying for the in laws to come) so much money. It will also allow me to just relax when I’m there. Sigh. Hopefully I can sleep tonight

Those are the dates that show up for me as well (Canadian site) I felt the same way. I did 3 separate reservation changes in 3 different MDE accounts in under 10 minutes. I was impressed. I agree it saves us big time when you are staying 2 weeks!

 

[Zooey72]

I didn't get it so I canceled my vacation. This nonsense about (they run their company like a radio program contest "the first 100 callers win..."), 'we have only so many slots available' is fine. If in the long run they think they will make $ that way they are welcome to it, but it won't be my money they make a profit off of. I think the assumption is if you have already planned a vacation with them you won't cancel if you don't get it, and they may be right; just not in my case. There are too many other places to go and see in the world that will be more than happy to take my $.

I had Beach Club for a week the day after Labor Day. If anyone is interested my booking just became available. Have at it, I will be going on a cruise (non Disney) or Universal.

 

[Nikciburd]

Those are the dates that show up for me as well (Canadian site) I felt the same way. I did 3 separate reservation changes in 3 different MDE accounts in under 10 minutes. I was impressed. I agree it saves us big time when you are staying 2 weeks!

Your dates say August 20 or August 2nd? Because I then went into the site and clicked on Canada (English) and looked at the offer (I did that just now not when making reservation) and it had the delicious offer at August 2nd.

 

[WalkDisneyWorld]

It took us forever to decide on POR and now it isn't included. Debating between CSR or AKL...my heart says AKL but is it really worth the extra $$?

Wondering what you decided to do bc we had a similar situation last year for FD. We’d stayed at both of those resorts many times—really enjoying CSR as a mod, but really loving AKL best. Bc we’re a family of 4 “Disney adults,” when I calculated the cost of upgrading to regular DDP at CSR vs. it being included at AKL—bc we definitely wanted that—it was only about $200 more in all. For us, that number made it worth it. The slightly larger room, balcony(with animals in a partial savanna room!), proximity to restaurants we love & would visit anyway, lovely pool, short ride to AK & Pandora, & overall atmosphere of the resort were all major factors in our ultimate choice. We didn’t regret it once! As a matter of fact, we were reminded again just how much we love it & will be returning again this year in November. Whatever you choose, you’ll be at Disney & that’s what counts!

 

[Nikciburd]

I didn't get it so I canceled my vacation. This nonsense about (they run their company like a radio program contest "the first 100 callers win..."), 'we have only so many slots available' is fine. If in the long run they think they will make $ that way they are welcome to it, but it won't be my money they make a profit off of. I think the assumption is if you have already planned a vacation with them you won't cancel if you don't get it, and they may be right; just not in my case. There are too many other places to go and see in the world that will be more than happy to take my $.

I had Beach Club for a week the day after Labor Day. If anyone is interested my booking just became available. Have at it, I will be going on a cruise (non Disney) or Universal.

I understand to a certain extent. We’ve never done Disney before and this whole insanity sort of surprised me. Thank God I’m a researcher and managed to find out about it in order to get the free dining early. I was really counting on free dining when planning my dates and it was a lot of guesswork. We are going August 23-30.

 

[MAF]

That’s odd - I had ASMo booked from Dec 7 to 14th - I hit the “change reservation” link, then under resort, I selected “change” and chose a Pop STD room, then under Vacation offer: One Delicious Dining appeared, and I confirmed the change. It knocked almost $400 off (I only have two people in the room for now).

Maybe it added the full dining plan and is charging for the upgrade?​

Yeah I'm not sure. I went back to try again and now it's saying all rooms unavailable when I tried to update my reservation. Their site is honestly pathetic. I think I'm going to try later tonight and if not keep trying throughout the week.

 

[DisneyFever]

Do you have 6 days of tickets? I’m not sure that’s it because the system prompted me to add dining when I didn’t have that option clicked on but since I already had park hopper (park hopper plus actually...I want total flexibility anyway so the park hopper option was not a hardship) tickets and all that I met the requirements in every other way.Something must be up. The first time I clicked through this morning at 5 am it wasn’t working. I realized I had to change the resort first then it showed up with that promotion later. Since Pop is included I’m not sure what’s up.

I do have 8 day park hoppers added. This morning it prompted me to add dining too, but then charged for it without giving the FD promo. So, I should qualify?

 

[BraveEeyore]

Your dates say August 20 or August 2nd? Because I then went into the site and clicked on Canada (English) and looked at the offer (I did that just now not when making reservation) and it had the delicious offer at August 2nd.

I didn’t think it was the 2nd this morning so when I read you post I went back on to confirm and sure enough it’s the 2nd. Weird. Doesn’t effect me, we are going at Christmas, but thought I’d confirm what you’re seeing.

 

[Nikciburd]

Wondering what you decided to do bc we had a similar situation last year for FD. We’d stayed at both of those resorts many times—really enjoying CSR as a mod, but really loving AKL best. Bc we’re a family of 4 “Disney adults,” when I calculated the cost of upgrading to regular DDP at CSR vs. it being included at AKL—bc we definitely wanted that—it was only about $200 more in all. For us, that number made it worth it. The slightly larger room, balcony(with animals in a partial savanna room!), proximity to restaurants we love & would visit anyway, lovely pool, short ride to AK & Pandora, & overall atmosphere of the resort were all major factors in our ultimate choice. We didn’t regret it once! As a matter of fact, we were reminded again just how much we love it & will be returning again this year in November. Whatever you choose, you’ll be at Disney & that’s what counts!

Boo. I thought about doing that but since we have 2 hotel rooms, the cost differential was going to be about $2000 because of the way I split up the people in the two rooms (only upgrading one of the rooms to deluxe). I really was hoping that would be a viable option. CSR it is.

 

[scrappinginontario]

I've been trying to keep up with the posts and have seen yes and no to my question. I have reservations at POP for Nov 24 - Dec 2 and tried to add the FD promo this morning. When I try to modify my reservation, the FD promo is listed, but it will not add it to my reservation. In the past, as long as your arrival date was during the promotion, I know it would carry through for your entire trip. Is it different this year with Nov. 28-Dec. 6 being excluded? Should the FD promo be available for the Nov 24-Dec 2 trip? I plan on calling once the lines are less busy, but hoped someone could give me some insight. Thanks!

Sounds like you and I faced a similar situation. I had a Nov 24 - Dec 2 trip booked and attempted to modify by clicking the 'change' button. The problem was that even though it was showing the FD promo, when I selected it my price was $50 more and the only thing I needed to change was from a rack-rate booking to a FD booking as I had room, dining, park passes and ph on my original reservation.

I attempted to book a completely new reservation but it always showed that nothing was available at Pop for my dates. I ended up switching my dates to my Plan B and we're now going 2 weeks later on Dec 8.

I have a feeling there was an error in what we're being shown and that in reality there is no more FD offers available at Pop from Nov 24 - Dec 2 and rather than being shown that they just provide the higher price, hoping people don't notice.

I have tried a number of times throughout the day to look for availability of FD for those dates at Pop and always see the message that there is no availability for those dates.

It could change but I'm not counting on it as I initially tried updating my reservation at 5:05am this morning so was one of the first on the site after the FD offer dropped.

 

[Nikciburd]

I didn’t think it was the 2nd this morning so when I read you post I went back on to confirm and sure enough it’s the 2nd. Weird. Doesn’t effect me, we are going at Christmas, but thought I’d confirm what you’re seeing.

Thank you thank you!!!! You’re the best! You just gave me a big sigh of relief. Muah. I love you kind Canadians (hehe...my grandmother and mother were Canadian so I’m already a fan).

 

[scrappinginontario]

Your dates say August 20 or August 2nd? Because I then went into the site and clicked on Canada (English) and looked at the offer (I did that just now not when making reservation) and it had the delicious offer at August 2nd.

Not too sure of the original question but I can confirm that the Canadian offer starts on August 2nd.

 

[Nikciburd]

Sounds like you and I faced a similar situation. I had a Nov 24 - Dec 2 trip booked and attempted to modify by clicking the 'change' button. The problem was that even though it was showing the FD promo, when I selected it my price was $50 more and the only thing I needed to change was from a rack-rate booking to a FD booking as I had room, dining, park passes and ph on my original reservation.

I attempted to book a completely new reservation but it always showed that nothing was available at Pop for my dates. I ended up switching my dates to my Plan B and we're now going 2 weeks later on Dec 8.

I have a feeling there was an error in what we're being shown and that in reality there is no more FD offers available at Pop from Nov 24 - Dec 2 and rather than being shown that they just provide the higher price, hoping people don't notice.

I have tried a number of times throughout the day to look for availability of FD for those dates at Pop and always see the message that there is no availability for those dates.

It could change but I'm not counting on it as I initially tried updating my reservation at 5:05am this morning so was one of the first on the site after the FD offer dropped.

I agree with you. Something similar happened to me now that I think about it when I first changed to the SUmmer Offer back in March (just in case I didn’t get free dining I want some savings). I think that’s how that incorrect Canadian offer got in there. I was clicking around like mad trying to find out why it wouldn’t give me the offer at the right price. It never told me it WASN”T available but I knew because the price was wrong. I never did get it right because of the country mishap. The cast member I spoke to on the phone fixed it for me later though.

 

[MAF]

I'm just glad that I haven't convinced my husband that we're actually going on this trip. Less stress to make sure the FD actually goes through.

 

[Sharongal74]

I've been trying to keep up with the posts and have seen yes and no to my question. I have reservations at POP for Nov 24 - Dec 2 and tried to add the FD promo this morning. When I try to modify my reservation, the FD promo is listed, but it will not add it to my reservation. In the past, as long as your arrival date was during the promotion, I know it would carry through for your entire trip. Is it different this year with Nov. 28-Dec. 6 being excluded? Should the FD promo be available for the Nov 24-Dec 2 trip? I plan on calling once the lines are less busy, but hoped someone could give me some insight. Thanks!

I was on first thing and couldn't get anything at pop around those dates. I keep checking. There is availability for rooms now for just a room which wasn't like that earlier. They just aren't available for free dining,
Anybody here a few years ago that remembers the time rooms are added back into inventory. I feel like there was someone who mentioned it 2 years ago.
Im at sports but Im gonna keep trying! As of right now it says there is no resort available for my dates. Our dates are Nov 27-Dec 4.