Thinking about a trip from early December next year and trying to figure out if getting and AP would save money. In doing a little research I see that a 20-30% room discount is usually offered at this time. Just wondering if there are blacked out dates in early December generally? If you book a stay before the discounts are announced and then get an AP, can you apply the discount? Are certain resorts not eligible for discounts? So many questions lol. Thanks for any help!
I have had an AP since last year. This year has been a good year to be a passholder. The addition of 20% off at so many restaurants has really saved us a ton of money. I have gone to WDW 4 times so far this year and was able to get 30-35% of room only reservations each time. However, I did schedule a trip for the 1st week of December this year and have not been able to get a discount. I looked the first day the sale was announced but there was no availability for my week.
To answer your questions, generally there are not block out dates in the beginning of December, but there are no guarantees that you will find the room you want available. Just like any other promotion Disney will not let you apply it to an existing reservation unless there is availability. Remember as they always say there are a limited number of rooms available for any given promotion. Finally, as far as I can tell most resorts are eligible. I have used it at AKL, BC, YC, POP, and BW.
Thank you for the reply. So the risk is more in no availability rather than blocked out dates. How early are discounts usually announced? Is it better to make a room reservation before they’re announced or after? Can you alter what yoyou have booked to fit availability of the discount if other days work?
Usually I make a reservation for the days that I am interested in. That way you have the reservation if you get a discount or not. Also you can make any ADRs or FPP that you want. If a better deal comes up I will then just make a new reservation. Sometimes I may need to adjust by a day or so, depending on what I can get. Then I just cancel the original reservation. You need to put down a deposit on each one but once you cancel you get it back. Not sure what it actually is but you need to cancel within a certain amount of time before your check in date.
Mousesavers has a great historical chart of when discounts were released. This will give you and idea about how far in advance.
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Thanks so much for the info.
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I had the same issue this year. I tried booking for June, September and December, went on as soon as the discounts were released but availability was horrible. I had good luck earlier in the year, but not for the second half. Luckily, I had booked with MVT for the dates I wanted so I still had some discount. But I was very disappointed that the AP wasn’t available.
I cant understand the sudden change, I too had better luck earlier this year. I did try to go thru MVT but they only offer standard rooms. I like staying in one bedroom villas, which they don’t offer. I thought of trying DVC rentals but the cancellation policy worries me. My wife travels a lot for work and we often have to adjust our trips.