OK, so I’m looking — just for fun! — at the Free Dining deal that’s just opened up for the UK. To qualify — and get a $200 gift card — you have to order the theme park tickets at the same time as booking the room.
I have a feeling there is some disadvantage to this, but I can’t remember what it is. Can someone enlighten me?
And does £2,399 for five nights at BC — plus regular dining plan, plus park hopper and waterpark tickets, plus memory maker, plus DME transportation, plus $200 gift card — sound like a good deal?
At least here in the US, “Free” dining requires paying rack rate for the room. This isn’t the best deal, though the more adults you have in the room the better a deal it is. For a solo adult traveler, it’s a ripoff
Well, he doesn’t want to sign up to a rip-off deal. But this particular deal doesn’t strike him as necessarily poor value. He thinks there’s quite a lot on offer for the money. “All” he needs to add is his flight and that’s pretty much it — entire trip paid for.
The same package with Virgin is £4,200 — which includes premium economy flights, but doesn’t appear to include the gift card or DME. It also requires a deposit of £175, with the balance due a month earlier than with Disney. That’s a much worse deal than £2,400 plus flight.
DME is complimentary, at least for us US residents.
Still I agree the other deal sounds better.
I was re-reading your posts from the other day, wherein you included photos. Your friend is right. You DO look like Daniel Craig. If I didn’t know better I’d think you WERE him.
I was suspicious as to whether the free dining is a scam, so I looked at dates that don’t offer it. I wondered if maybe they just add the cost of the dining to the basic room rate. It seems like they don’t. April, for example, was more expensive per night, with no dining plan and no $200 gift card.
Also, when I was looking at Virgin flights-only, it seems like they’re cheaper if you have a Saturday and Sunday night stay during your holiday. I guess because this excludes business flyers.
The risk of booking with Disney is there’s uncertainty about the flights, which my friend wouldn’t book until next year.
If you book a package, and then decide you want to arrive early. Or use the tickets earlier, you have to wait until you get to Disney to activate the tickets earlier. Therefore you can’t book FPs for those earlier days until you do that.
Oh, and Magic Express is a perk of staying onsite. All onsite stays qualify. I’ve seen discussion of this elsewhere, I think Virgin have just forgotten to include it. Hopefully people who book will find that out.
Clicked on the banner for the free dining deal page. Down at the bottom it has links to things like Disney Resorts, Theme Parks etc. Under Resorts and also Perks of Disney Resorts, the Magic Express is on those pages.
And of course, because you are a liner, you know you can phone DME direct and book it So you can tell your friend… oh, I see we’re past that little charade now!
Packages also have different cancellation policies than a room only booking. I’d guess that was the caveat you ran into when booking the single room earlier.