******Official 2017 Free Dining Plan Watch, Wait, and Dream

[Greg36]

Glad to hear so many people getting what they wanted. Hope others are able to have some luck in coming days/weeks... I think our dates (Nov 25-Dec 9) are going to be busy this year based on such low availability over the past several months... We went last year during the same dates and it was busy at times, but availability was much better then what I have seen so far for this year.

Was up for the drop this morning and ended up scoring a preferred room at music. Anyone ever stay there before? The price is pretty good (based on Disney standards!) even after upgrading to the regular dining plan. I have been considering AKL though, but this would add a significant amount to the trip. Looks really nice though. Any advice?

Thanks everyone! I have to say I have really enjoyed this thread over the past couple of months... Could not believe it when the FD offer actually showed up on my computer this morning after hitting the refresh button about 10 million times!!!!

 

[monorailrabbit]

Has anyone been able to get through in phones today? DH, myself & my friend have all been trying for many many MANY hours and cant get through - half the time I dont even get a busy signal. We have called a combined amount of over 800 times.

What time will this chaos die down & I can maybe get through?

i just got through, been trying since opening - keep trying!

 

[KimBean]

First, I am jealous of every one of you booking the "fancy" rooms lol

I am just trying to get to Disney for a week at this point.

I can do six nights at music with four days of tickets for $2095 and that includes dining.

However, I don't park hop. So now it looks like a room discount is $1709 for four days of regular tickets.

So that is $64.33 a day difference for three people. $386. We share meals, rarely order anything than water to drink.

I am thinking about avoiding free dining. Is that crazy? My husband just reminded me how miserably full we were last time we had free dining.

And does anyone know if certain weeks are cheaper? We home school, and can go anytime. I was looking at sept 5th.

Not crazy at all. Looks like RO would work better for you!

 

[agassizsmile]

Got Hearing impaired/ADA accessible at CBR room thankfully since Father in law is deaf. Anyone know how close these rooms are to buses, food court, and if they are decent? Worried.

 

[fishfam]

Is there a spot to list a Free Dining reservation you plan to cancel, so someone else can try to grab them? This forum gets so many posts I'm thinking posts here will be "buried" very quickly? I have a WL room for the week of 8/13-8/20 w/ FD that I'm going to cancel (sadly), if someone wanted to grab it they'd have to be a Disney Visa cardholder. If anyone sees this and is interested let me know and we can coordinate a time.

 

[PrincessKimmy]

I've had differences between what is shown on my MDE summary page and what was showing when I went into the reservation. Go to MDE and under Plan and Manage choose My Reservations and Tickets. Whatever is there should be what you have booked.

Yeah that's where I was looking.
Everything was fine tho... just took a little longer to show up properly.
I checked about an hour later and it looked the rest of ours.
Thanks

 

[vikkil70]

So as of right now no FD for us. Our TA e-mailed me pretty early saying that she could not get our dates at Pop but was seeing availability at some of the AS is we wanted to switch or she could check other dates. We are firm in our dates and we really don't want to move from Pop at this point. When we booked we did not want the PHs (we have never used them) but knew we would have to add them for FD. We have the Summer Savory offer, and doing some more number crunching and knowing how my boys and I do not eat a lot when it is really hot out I think we will be fine. We will save the CS meal for dinners and bring extra snacks with us in the park and eat light. We can even just snack in the park and eat lunch back in the room when we head back for a mid day break. I think the biggest thing we will miss will be the snack credits, but we do end up with a bunch at the end of the trip so even paying for a few snacks oop won't be too bad. I think when you add the PH for the three of us, plus the higher cost of the tickets from when we booked it would almost be a wash.

I told our TA to keep checking and if something came up to go for it, but if not we were happy with the deal we have. I still love my TA and know that she will keep checking for us and I will check myself to see if anything opens up but I am not as upset as I thought I would be.

Now onto the fun stuff, like itinerary planning. This is my first trip since FP+ and booking FP 60 days ahead came out, so that is a whole new type of stress for me. FD anxiety was actually a cake walk for me compared to stressing out over what times and what attractions to make FP over LOL

 

[Quigs11]

Oh my what a morning! I was on the phone for 4 hrs! Had to end up waiting on hold twice and finally spoke with guest services. She fixed the issue and said my reservation number would stay the same. However when i pull up MDE i dont see the reservation and so I tried to link it and it can't find the number. What do I do now? I have been up since yesterday .

Does anyone know the answer to this. I can't get back thru to Disney. Was on hold for 4 hrs (put on hold twice)

 

[monorailrabbit]

no luck. no availability for any of the discounts

 

[unwritten01]

Check. AoA Suite Dec 16-21. Can't wait - keep trying everyone!

 

[sladphie]

I'm wondering the same thing. I know earlier someone mentioned the distance from the main pool. But I wonder how far it is.

We stayed in Pirate rooms a while back. If you Google it, there are blogs out there that can tell you how many steps/minutes from each building to the bus stops, food court, etc. We had 2 younger kids (youngest one was just finished with the stroller) and I didn't feel that it was so far where we wouldn't recommend it. It's a very pretty walk and we enjoyed the scenery each time. That being said, we wouldn't consider staying there again unless they put Queen beds in... DH is tall and hates anything smaller!

 

[JadeDarkstar]

I just emailed my ta with a request for her to keep checking pop for my 9 nights. I'll keep checking too. If one pops up on my side how would I modify my music suit to pop?

 

[jwboucher]

no luck. no availability for any of the discounts

What are your dates?

 

[ShinyRedGloss]

Is there a spot to list a Free Dining reservation you plan to cancel, so someone else can try to grab them? This forum gets so many posts I'm thinking posts here will be "buried" very quickly? I have a WL room for the week of 8/13-8/20 w/ FD that I'm going to cancel (sadly), if someone wanted to grab it they'd have to be a Disney Visa cardholder. If anyone sees this and is interested let me know and we can coordinate a time.

I think this is a good idea as my husband and I are still debating DVC rental vs FD at Coronado Springs.

 

[robinb]

First, I am jealous of every one of you booking the "fancy" rooms lol

I am just trying to get to Disney for a week at this point.

I can do six nights at music with four days of tickets for $2095 and that includes dining.

However, I don't park hop. So now it looks like a room discount is $1709 for four days of regular tickets.

So that is $64.33 a day difference for three people. $386. We share meals, rarely order anything than water to drink.

I am thinking about avoiding free dining. Is that crazy? My husband just reminded me how miserably full we were last time we had free dining.

And does anyone know if certain weeks are cheaper? We home school, and can go anytime. I was looking at sept 5th.

The cost of a "free" dining package is based on the rack rate of the resort which changes depending on your dates.

I *think* if you book "free" dining with the 2-day park hoppers, you'll be able to upgrade them to 4-day base tickets for $97 more per ticket as long as you don't use the PH feature. FD with a 2-day PH is $1565, add $291 for ticket upgrades and you get $1856. That's a difference of $147 for FD over your $1709 RO discount. Could you feed your family of 3 for 6 days for $147 even sharing meals and drinking water? I don't think so!

 

[ALDSMD]

My TA was only able to get 3 of the 4 rooms we needed so now we are really feeling stressed. What is the likelihood that another room will open up. it is bad enough we had to move to deluxe to get the free dining but now with one family out we feel horrible and when we tried to switch back to POR all the preferred rooms were gone. Now I feel like we should have left it alone. Uggg. It made it too hard having to call because 4 rooms were needed. It took her 3 hours to get through and by then everything is gone. I never like leaving something so important in someone else's hands. Feeling very depressed and sad. What are the thoughts of room discounts still coming--that is our last hope. is there a room cancellation list?

 

[BuckeyeBama]

Does anyone know the answer to this. I can't get back thru to Disney. Was on hold for 4 hrs (put on hold twice)

I don't think that anyone could answer with certainty. A CM told you that you were fine, but you have no email verification, so you are worried. But MDE is a mess right now, so you are really worried. You could be fine - in fact, you probably are fine - but until you see evidence you will worry. I'm not sure what I would do in your situation other than keep trying to get someone on the phone.

 

[Kristen Saporito]

i just got through, been trying since opening - keep trying!

I finally got through at 12:00, have been trying since 7:00 am. I was then on hold for an hour. Staying at CBR 8/25-9/2. There are no standard rooms left for FD. Only Pirate rooms. I was unable to add FD to my existing reservation. I did book POP at 6:15 am this morning. Was really hoping to get FD with my GC. I could kick myself for last checking the website at 5:30am. Fell asleep until 6:00. ahhhhhhhhh

 

[mnmhouston]

Our TA has had to get very creative today and I appreciate all of her efforts. Could not have done it without her!! May end up having our last day without FD which is ridiculous they wouldn't let her add it (she will keep trying), but one day without is a pill we can swallow!

 

[MickeyPlanning]

How is it possible that Contemporary Garden View is available 11/16-11/25 but not 11/16-11/22?