Free Dining 2015: The aftermath!

[DisBuckMan]

Did you get FD on top of those other discounts??

I would bet not, Disney has not been one to allow stacking of discounts in the past.

 

[DisBuckMan]

Never trust a TA to do something that you can do yourself.

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.

 

[McGreezy]

I haven't seen it so bad with room discounts. However, those are offered more frequently and spread throughout the year. I have added the room discount to reservations for 3 trips now with maybe a 15 minute wait at most. The last one I had the Disney Visa, so I got to do it a little early.

I'm just nervous now because of this whole thing. I guess my TA has a regular full-time job in a call center or something, so she's really only able to sit by the phone and do anything until around 8 a.m. or 9 a.m. I really wish I knew how to navigate things myself, so if she had to go to work I could deal with it. I just hope that we don't miss out on the room discount as well.

 

[McGreezy]

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.

This is a great point. Next time I do things myself. I just have no idea how to navigate the online system reservation wise as this is my first year.

 

[nobellybutton]

I'm so excited I was able to add FREE DINING to my reservation and the difference was only $280

 

[Nebsky]

Did you get FD on top of those other discounts??

Somehow yes we did.

 

[DuckyMommy]

It was an interesting process for me Monday morning! I saw a fb post at 6 am but I didn't see it announced anywhere else so I waited. When I saw another announcement I started calling, busy signal of course. So I would call about 10 times every hour while at work. At lunch I buckled down and called till I got thru. The recording told me the wait time was about 2 hours so I worked and listened to the Disney music on my Bluetooth headset. I eventually was curious how long I was on hold and managed to hang up while trying to check ! After work I started calling again and it took me forever to get thru. Once I did I accidentally hit dining reservations and was connected immediately but to the wrong area but that worked out for the best because in less than 10 minutes I was connected to a reservation specialist who was able to modify my existing reservations to the CBR (Dec 16-22) that already included the dining plan, add the water park pass and I save roughly $650!

 

[DuckyMommy]

Oh, and after I accidentally hung up I was able to see that I had been on hold for 75 minutes!

 

[kels420]

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!!

Sounds like you need a new travel agent!

 

[Pollyanna652]

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

 

[GoldenLulu13]

Sounds like you need a new travel agent!

Yes! We have used her before for previous trips and have had our ups and downs with her! I believe she said she was only working on 4 families for this promotion! She booked our 1st Disney trip in 2013 and everything was pretty smooth, so we figured we would just have her do the trip and flights again...I did all the dining last time and planned on it again this time! I'm so glad I called Disney on my own when I did!! We are very happy with our choice and excited to check out Old Key West!! We also noticed that OKW is now unavailable too!

 

[pigletgirl]

It's amazing how one promotion killed their entire computer system. Why can't there be a separate line for FD folks and then another for people who have other inquiries? It makes no sense.

 

[monica31671]

I'm a travel agent and the travel agent site was down as well. I called 318 times throughout the day starting at 6:00 am. I was on hold for 108 minutes and was disconnected. There was a message at the beginning that said each agent could only be on the line for 90 minutes then they would have to get back inline in the queue again.
My client wanted a standard room at CB the last week of September but only pirate rooms were available. I snagged that at 5:55 am before the system crashed. This has been the worst round of free dining EVER when it comes to being able to service your clients...

 

[missbrooke06]

I posted this on the other thread but I rolled my eyes over using a TA for our big family trip. I woke up Monday at 6:30, saw the announcement, and texted my mom. She went to email our TA and she already had a message waiting! We moved from BC to YC, which might be the least significant move in all of WDW.

She's got my recommendation!

 

[Smiling72]

I already had a reservation in October at Wilderness Lodge. Since they didn't have the availability at WL, I changed to Animal Kingdom Lodge and had to make my tickets "park hoppers"(which we won't use). I saved a couple hundred dollars. It was very confusing and I am currently thinking I may just change back to WL without Free Dining. This was all done after a 2 hour wait....it was a stressful day at best. We love Disney and will go with or without Free Dining.

 

[kayemgi]

I just don't get the frenzy at all. I guess maybe it's tougher for people who need to be really firm about their dates or resort? But I'm looking on the website now, days later, and it looks like I can easily book a Free Dining room at most of the eligible resorts (I checked AoA, ASMu, POR, POP, CBR and BCR) for a week in mid-September. I think people just get it in their heads that they have to book RIGHT NOW as soon as the offer is released. I'm not sure that's actually the case...

 

[ModernArtist]

Really? I just checked again for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th week in September and all mods were sold out and the only value was ASM. Plenty of ridiculously priced club level deluxes though.

 

[zeekinator]

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.

Yup, free dining isn't really free. Hotel discounts are better.

 

[zeekinator]

It's amazing how one promotion killed their entire computer system. Why can't there be a separate line for FD folks and then another for people who have other inquiries? It makes no sense.

This happens all the time. Last time it was when ADR's opened for BOG. Every time DCL itineraries are announced it the same thing. It's amazing that they implemented MDE with such lousy software.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

Really? I just checked again for the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th week in September and all mods were sold out and the only value was ASM. Plenty of ridiculously priced club level deluxes though.

I booked our trip - 9/9-9/18 at CBR today at 3pm Eastern.