Free dining questions

Hi!! I booked a reservation for late August through the reservation line. Last time we went I used a travel agent to help me navigate the mess that is Disney planning. I had intended to use her again but happened to call Disney with a question and she informed me of the Free Quick Service promotion with the value resorts. The free meal per person is helpful because I have a large family. She told me that there was a possiblity that Free Dining would be offered and I have been reading alot of articles that predict it will be. My questions are 1) How difficult is Free Dining to get? Is is booked up within minutes? 2) How do I go about adding that promotion to my package? I am already paying rack rate for the room because of the Quick Service deal, so my room price should not increase. I am just wondering if I have to stalk the internet to get a heads up and be on my computer at that moment like you do with fastpasses. I, also, have never made or changed reservations online and afraid I will mess it up. Thanks everyone!!

First, if you want to use your TA again, most will be glad to transfer reservations made directly with Disney into their system, enabling you to use your TA at no additional cost while retaining the reservation you have.

As for your question, when Free Dining is available, it’s generally offered in a tiered manner - Value resort guests get the Quick Service plan, Moderate guests get the standard Dining plan, etc. So you may already have the plan that would be offered with the resort you booked.

Personally, if I were you, I would get in touch with my favorite TA, transfer my existing reservation into the TA’s system, and ask her all of my questions. I would also let her know that I hear that “Free Dining” may be coming, and that if it does show up, given that I’m currently already paying rack rates, I’d like it added. Knowing that I already have QS included, she might tell me that I already have the best deal that includes a dining package of any sort at my resort, but she’ll be the expert.

If there is free dining I suspect it will come after the period of time that the free 1 QS meal is offered. It seems odd that they would overlap 1 free QS with a different free dining promotion. You might want to check if that has ever been done before.

In recent years it has been QS at Value and Moderate and regular at Deluxe. You also have to have hopper tickets.

Dining promotions are offered when they need to fill rooms, so they don’t usually sell out real quick. If you read this site daily, you will know about free dining with plenty of time to grab it.

I will tell you there is a group on disboards and they have started a thread for this year’s free dining. I was part of the thread last year and we were all up all night waiting for it’s release.

It was released on April 24th at 5:20am and I know because I typed in my calendar so I could remember for this year. We got some good rumors it would be coming out at that time within a few days prior. The fastest to sell out were Pop and POR. Many had to modify their room selection to preferred or for POR only Royal rooms were left. They went fast!!

I say around the end of April there should be better guess as to when it’s coming out. The insiders we heard from were a Brazilian TA ( The Whisperer’s Guide to Orlando), a guy named dirtysteve, and then we were also hearing from Canadians regarding some travel packages that very closely matched free dining offer.

I hope that helps. Here’s disboards link if you want to join the crazy (I myself love the anticipation even I won’t use it this year):https://www.disboards.com/threads/official-2018-free-dining-plan-watch-wait-and-dream.3599732/page-57
:blush:

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I have gotten free dinning many times in the past. I do my own booking on-line. Free dinning is often included in a fall package. This is because kids are going back to school and vacationers are slim because of this. MYW packages now offer free dinning plans such as QS for Value and now Intermediate resorts. Deluxe resort get the free TS plan. It has never been a big deal to get the free dinning in the fall but resort selection such as PoR is hard to get if available for this special at all. CBR is usually a better bet. You can book all this via the WDW web site under special offers. Check frequently for these specials if interested.

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Thanks everyone! I would love to transfer to the TA but I would hate to ask her unless she would still get the commission. I already made my dining reservations because we are only having 2 TS meals. I will e-mail her and check. If they don’t offer free dining it’s not the end of the world. I wasn’t planning on it when I booked my trip. It would just be a nice bonus since I have 4 kids and it’s expensive to eat at the parks. We are staying at All Star Sports so hopefully it won’t sell out quickly. Thanks again!!

I don’t know if your aware of the TA by the name of Magical Vacations Travel. I had booked my March WDW vacation myself via the Disney site. I had booked this way looking for specials for 8 years. I found out about this agency out here from other liners. I thought there was no way they could beat my deal I already booked with Disney World. I thought what the heck, let’s find out what they can do so I asked for a quote. I was shocked! They were able to beat my price by $1000. I canceled my booking and lost the trip insurance in the process. Didn’t matter when I still saved $850 booking via MVT. I went to their web site and found they were going to have a Labor day special from August the 15th to mid Sept. I then asked Darcy at MVT for a quote staying at the Poly for 13 days and you would not believe the savings she came up with. Now being fair I am talking room rack rates here versus what she could get them for. Savings, $4500. Couldn’t turn that down so we are taking our grandson on the 15th of August. I have NO connection what so ever to MVT other than being a customer. The March vacation I just completed was exactly what I was promised and Darcy answered every question via E-mail that I had in a timely manor. This agency has been talked about many times out here by others and myself. If you should have an interest, simply go to MVT’s web site and ask for a quote on the times of your choice. The savings is in the room rental and a little on tickets and or DDP if offered.

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