The Walt Disney World Resort announced a couple of new hotel discount offers, to entice people to book Disney World vacations for before its new Star Wars land opens this fall.
The "Sun & Fun Room Offer" discounts the price of select Disney World rooms by up to 30 percent for stays starting most nights between April 28 and September 30 this year. The "Free Dine Offer" delivers its savings another way — with a free Disney Dining Plan for those booking Deluxe and Deluxe Villa rooms and a free Disney Quick Service Plan for those staying at Moderate and Value hotels. That offer is good for arrivals most nights from July 5 though September 30.
No, you cannot combine the offers. It's one or the other. The Free Dine Offer is available only on otherwise non-discounted rooms and must be booked as part of a Walt Disney Travel Co. package (including Park Hopper tickets) before February 10. You can book the Sun & Fun Room Offer through March 24.
Disney's website is throwing errors on booking pages for these offers right now, but you can book the packages by calling 1-407-WDISNEY [+1-407-934-7639] or by contacting a travel agent.
Update: Web pages are up now. Here are the lins to book: Sun & Fun Room Offer and Free Dining Offer
If you missed the announcements about this year's new attractions at the Walt Disney World Resort, you can read about them — and a bunch more at other parks — on our What's new at the world's top theme parks in 2019? page. The big ones are the opening of Mickey & Minnie's Runaway Railway and Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge at Disney's Hollywood Studios in the fall, after the expiration of these room offers.
Disney doesn't typically publicize big discount offers for the summer season, as it has been years been trying to push attendance during its former slow seasons during the school year. But with Galaxy's Edge expected to flood the resort with visitors when it opens, it would make sense for Disney to move its annual free dining offer from its traditional fall slot, where it won't be needed to help keep the resort filled this year.
TweetGreat to hear! Congratulations on the savings, and I hope you have a wonderful trip. Please share a trip report afterward!
I would say this is somewhat unusual to see WDW offer a room discount promotion at the same time they're offering a free DDP promotion. Those who are not well versed on the DDP should probably go with the room discount, because the value of the free DDP is highest to those who know how to maximize the DDP.
Also, for those not wanting to splurge on a deluxe resort, you can pay a daily upcharge to upgrade from the QS DDP to the Standard DDP. The cost of the uncharge is usually half of the difference between a median counter service meal and the average table service meal. So you can stay at a Value resort, and pay an extra @$10/person/day to swap out one of your daily CS meals with a TS meal, instead of paying over $250/night to stay at a deluxe resort.
@Russell, they've been offering a room discount at the same time as free dining. We switched from the free dining to the room only about 6 years ago, when it became cheaper for us than the free dining.
Are you sure those weren't "bounce back" discounts? We have almost exclusively visited during the fall free DDP promotional periods, and I've never seen a room-only discount being offered for the same resorts and dates as the DDP. There has occasionally been some overlap (typically in the late August/early September periods), but I've never seen an either/or scenario where you could take a room discount or free DDP for the same date/room.
We haven't done a bounce back in many years. Definitely a room discount either during Jersey Week or the last week in August.
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Thank you so much for posting this. I had already made reservations at Grand Floridian for August but the Sun and Fun deal just saved me over $400. I cancelled and re-booked. The website is working now fine. Thanks again for the money saving post. :)