TODAY’S THE (TOTALLY UNEXPECTED) DAY! Walt Disney World’s Free Dining Offer is officially coming back for an unprecedented second time and will be offered to guests this Fall and Winter 2019!
Disney World Free Dining FALL AND WINTER 2019 Travel Dates
The Disney World Free Dining offer is available to guests ARRIVING most nights from
- September 1 through September 18, 2019
- November 17 through November 27, 2019
- December 8 through December 23, 2019
(That means you can extend a free dining stay over CHRISTMAS OR THANKSGIVING, my friends!).
You may book NOW through September 29, 2019.
Requirements: It looks like the minimum stay for this offer is 4 nights (versus Disney’s advertised 5 nights), and your package must include park hopper or park hopper plus tickets.
(See below for participating resorts. Please note that the offer excludes several resorts this year, including 3-bedroom villas, campsites, Cabins at Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, Bungalows at Polynesian Villas & Bungalows, and Little Mermaid Standard Rooms at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort.)
Click here for answers to your Disney World Free Dining FAQs!
Disney Resorts Participating in the Disney World Free Dining Offer
If you stay at a participating Value or Moderate Resort, you’ll receive the Quick Service Dining plan for FREE. (Note that you can upgrade to the standard or deluxe dining plans by paying the difference in cost per night.)
If you reserve a participating Deluxe or Deluxe Villa Resort, you will receive the standard Dining plan for FREE. (You can upgrade to the deluxe dining plan by paying the difference in cost per night.)
NOTE: We’ve heard from some guests that they aren’t able to book Port Orleans Riverside with this offer. Disney notes on their website that the following resorts are not included:
- Offer excludes the following room types: 3-bedroom villas, campsites, Cabins at Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, Bungalows at Polynesian Villas & Bungalows, Little Mermaid Standard Rooms at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort.
Rooms can be VERY limited with this offer, and your preferred hotel could already be sold out. Or Disney could have made a mistake on their website (screen shot below). If you’re having trouble booking the package you’d like online, contact Disney directly to see if your dates and resort are available.
Free Dining Fall 2019 Offer Details per Disney’s Website
Join the DFB Newsletter to get all the breaking news right in your inbox! Click here to Subscribe!
Will Free Dining Save YOU Money? We Break Down the Numbers For You…
With more than 750 pages, the 2019 DFB Guide to Walt Disney World Dining is full of tips and planning tools developed by Disney World experts over 20+ years of visits. We’ve done the research for you, so you’ll know just which spots will uniquely suit your family’s needs!
With mini-reviews of every single restaurant, bar, lounge, kiosk and more; an entire chapter on the best snacks in Disney World; full Disney Dining Plan analysis (and how to get FREE dining); and a full chapter on discounts and deals; you’ll have everything you need to plan your best vacation yet. Click here to order your copy of the 2019 DFB Guide to Walt Disney World
Use code WDW2019 at check-out for a 25% off the cover price, start planning now!
Our guides are backed by a 100% money-back guarantee, so you have nothing to lose. 🙂
Disney Food Blog highly recommends using a Travel Agent to help plan your vacation — and we LOVE Small World Vacations!
Our favorite people over at Small World Vacations are ready to help you save time, headaches, and best of all, money, when you book your Disney trip or cruise.
(Why should you use a travel agent when you go to Disney? See what we think here! Or click here for a no obligation price quote today! And tell them DFB Sent You!
Get the Magic started with Small World Vacations HERE.
Important Details to Remember about Disney World Free Dining…
- The number of rooms allocated for this offer is limited.
- Theme park tickets valid for admission beginning on date of check-in and must be used within a limited number of days, depending on length of stay and ticket
- Advance reservation required.
- Some table-service restaurants may have limited or no availability at time of package purchase.
- Children ages 3 to 9 must choose from the children’s menu, if available.
- Gratuities are not included.
- Cannot be combined with any other discount or promotion.
- Everyone in the same room must be on the same package.
- Offer excludes the following room types: 3-bedroom villas, campsites, Cabins at Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, Bungalows at Polynesian Villas & Bungalows, Little Mermaid Standard Rooms at Disney’s Art of Animation Resort.
Pin it for later!
Our handy (and portable!) ebook guides make sure you get the best deals and can plan a vacation of a lifetime.
Why don’t the Disney dolphin and swan hotels particpate?
I am sad there are no dates for October.
If you have already booked these dates with no dining plan then would they had it on?
Mine says unable to show rates 🙁
I already have a trip planned with all my reservations made, if I try to get this instead of the full price package I have, will I lose all my reservations?
Port Orleans Riverside is not included in this offer. It should be cabins at Ft. Wilderness instead.
Do their phone lines often have an “all circuits busy” when a big promotion like this occurs? It seems to me that they don’t deal with high demand as well as I would think.
So upset!! Just spent an hour and 20 minutes on hold to get the free Disney dining plan for Port Orleans Riverside. We meet the stay requirements and dates. The cast member told me Riverside wasn’t included. But it’s specifically mentioned on your site.
I’m wondering the same thing as Lisa. We’re already booked from December 3-9th at the Contemporary with the Deluxe Dining plan and park hopper passes. I’m wondering if only being there on the 8th & 9th, where the FDP starts on the 8th, is enough time…I may have to shift our dates. But would it automatically be added on or do I have to look into that as well?
I don’t understand why Disney Vacation Club members . Cannot get the advantage of the free dining. You pay all that money to join the club and cannot take advantage of this offer.
Any ideas why October was left out of the free dining plan offer? Super bummed.
I called this morning and Port Orleans – Riverside is not included. Just Coronado Springs and Caribbean Beach. You also have to have a 4 day park hopper to qualify for free dining.
Oh nice! We always look for this offer when we book, the more dates the merrier!
Disney’s Port Orleans Resort – Riverside is NOT listed on Disney’s website as being eligible for this free dining offer. Please correct this.
Great news! We always try and check this offer out when we book, so the more dates the merrier!
does not include riverside
Nothing for October. 🙁 I was counting on SOMETHING. Reserved at package rack rate for everything since 6 months ago. May be time to cancel.
DFB, if I have an annual pass can I take advantage of the free dining plan?
The Disney site isn’t giving me any availability of rates for that package unfortunately…perhaps a “glitch?” We’re already booked for October, but if we can get a free Dining Plan and save some $$$ that would be awesome….
Lisa, Disney will never add any promotion automatically on to an existing reservation. Call and ask Disney to add it on to your reservation. If the availability at your resort is available its not a problem for a cast member to add it on. I have had success with this previously. If there isn’t availability (which is very possible) you may have to tweak your travel dates and or resort.. You can book a second reservation with free dining online then cancel the first. The only issue with that is you would lose any existing fastpasses you made with the first reservation. I believe your adrs would not be affected.
I have already booked for November, if I call can I get the Free Dining?
I too wonder why DVC members can not share in these promotions .. if not in total at least in some form to encourage the members to get out and dine in the Disney restaurants .. Most people agree the Disney resturants are over priced to begin with which generally has us staying in the unit using our kitchen for multiple meals or leaving the grounds to go into Orlando where there is a grand assortment of resturants to choose from and much more realistically priced.
So why not keep the DVC members in the Disney restaurants by offering us an incentive to purchase the dining plan.
Sabrina, you can call to see if reservations can rebook your trip with the DDP!
Jenn, Free Dining requires the purchase of a room and tickets package that includes Park Hoppers (or Park Hopper Plus). You could book a package to get Free Dining… then use your AP for entrance to the Parks and apply the Park Hopper price to a future renewal.
Ken, try calling if the option isn’t showing up online!
Melissa, you need to call Disney and have them edit your package (technically rebooking it) to get Free Dining added!
Rachel, no idea!
Hi, Polly. We pulled our info from Disney based on their exclusions list, unfortunately. We’ve updated our post!
Cori, they do often get overloaded when big news like Free Dining drops, unfortunately.
Janey, thanks!
Holly, if you talk to reservations directly, you should NOT lose all of your ADRs. But confirm with them.
Hi, Lisa! I think another reader answered your question, but I’ll chime in, too! Disney won’t automatically go in and add the offer; you’ll need to call them and request it.
Nancy, the Swan and Dolphin aren’t Disney-owned hotels (they’re Marriotts!), so that’s likely why they aren’t eligible for Free Dining.
We already had our hotel booked and dining reservations made, and we had already been signed up for the regular dining plan. We were able to go right online and change everything. The dining offer gave us a free quick service dining package, and we were able to upgrade, paying the difference. None of our reservations were affected.
All the free dining & room discounts make me think that they are trying to plump up attendance during that time!?
SOOOOO excited for this!! Had to change my dates around a little to make it work but I got the Free Dining for the week of November 17th!!!
As soon as they are done fixing yet another problem, I will get this added to our Dec. reservation. But their system has been down all morning. So don’t waste your time calling right now.
Magic Bands & now free dining certainly have not gone smoothly.
I do want to add thought that this was a very pleasant surprise. Did not expect them to do this back-to-back. We currently had the Deluxe Dining Plan booked & now will be saving some $$$ which is always a good thing.
We have an existing reservation at a participating resort within the period free dining is being offered. However, we bought our tickets through Undercover Tourist and they are for four days without park hopper option. Do we have to, and can we, upgrade our tickets to include park hopper and get the free dining package?
THANK YOU for your updates – you have not only saved us money here but also on the annual pass holder discount at Sam’s club. I check your website every morning for your excellent posts to get me excited for my trip! Thanks for staying so on top of these savings as we all know Disney is quite $$$. It’s so so so appreciated!
Do you know if it this offer will be in the UK? I’ve got a trip from 3rd December until 16th booked already but I wanted to know if I could change so I can get free dining.
Yikes…TWO hours on hold to be told both Port Orleans resorts…Riverside and French Quarter are not included. Something is not right with this…even the Value Resorts are included! So horribly disappointed. This morning they said Port Orleans was included then later said it wasn’t. My Triple A agent has been on hold for hours trying so hard to get through to get my son and I the free plan. Sad and frustrated…should have gone to a Value resort i guess.
Lucy, no word on an additional UK Free Dining this year, but we’ll update if we see anything!
Greg, you would need to buy tickets as part a package through Disney directly to get Free Dining. You might want to crunch numbers to make sure it’s worth switching!
Well, once again Disney does something that sounds wonderful (Magic Band upgrades & now this free dining) only to make people upset. If they can’t handle these requests they need to stop offering them. Instead of going forward they really seem to be going backwards in customer service.
I called right away in the morning as soon as this promo was released. Like all of you ~ got the recording that all circuits were busy. Kept trying. Got through to be on hold for 1/2 hr. only to be told their system was down. After several more attempts finally got an agent who’s computer was working.
Then came the news that my days were not available for the reservation/resort we have booked in Dec. (yes, during the time the program is going on). The first night is the only night not available ~ the other 5 they are. To just do 1 stand alone night w/the dining was a fortune! Completely took away what savings we would have received for the “free” dining on the other nights. How is this a deal? Oh & of course they try to upgrade you to another resort / room where it is available if you want to spend more money to get it. Again ~ how is this then getting “free” dining. They are just trying to get more money out of everyone.
I can’t stress how upset, frustrated & simply disappointed with Disney at this point. I really never thought I’d say that. Disney: I really hope you have someone that scans these posts & takes a good look at how you are managing things these days. You are losing Disney fans. I am thinking of cancelling my reservation & going to your major competitor there.
AJ, thanks for the update! It didn’t work on my stay 11/26/19-12/1/2019 at POP. I was on phone on hold for 1 hour before talking to a rep, just for them to tell me they didn’t have any free dining plans left 🙁 Maybe they will release more, fingers crossed!
I have to give an update. Disney has made things right so I’m back to being a Disney fan.
What a great deal. I too tried to call several times and got the all circuits busy on Tuesday but tried again this morning and got right through and was able to save serious $$$$$ on dining in December. Thanks for the pixie dust!
After a stressful morning of trying to get through on the phone and then holding an hour and then being told the offer was temporarily pulled and to call back two hours later I got to update my existing reservation and saved money and the benefit of park hoppers!
Shout out to the cast members / customer service team that had to deal with the craziness of the day when that offer got released! Both people I spoke with were awesome.
There are only 3 moderate resorts to choose from. Coronado springs, Caribbean and one other. I can’t get their website to load to confirm the last one. Their internet and phone capacity shows they either consistently underestimate demand and how many people will call/go on their site, or they just don’t care if we all waste our time… I had always felt like their customer service was great, but I’d rather have them prepared for the volume than just be apologetic and show good customer set after I have wasted my time.