Editor’s Note: The Free Dining promotion has been extended until December 20, 2012. Source: MouseSavers
Disney World’s Free Dining Promotion is back for Fall 2012! The promotion is available for the following dates and is currently for Disney Visa Cardholders ONLY. The package is expected to be available to the general public on Thursday, July 12th.
Disney World Free Dining Fall 2012 Dates
Book the free dining package if checking in on the following dates. Guests must book by September 29, 2012, and availability is limited. Book by calling 407-W-Disney.
9/30/12–10/4/12
10/19/12–11/1/12
11/9/12–11/15/12
11/23/12–11/29/12
12/10/12–12/13/12
A 3-night minimum stay is required (14 nights is the maximum stay). A minimum 2-day park ticket must be purchased for each guest in the room, and a $200 deposit must be paid with your Disney Visa Card at the time of booking.
The Free Dining promotion offers guests booking a vacation package the opportunity to add a Disney Dining Plan on to their vacation package for free as long as they’re booking their room and tickets at standard rack rates. Does not apply to reservations made through the Disney Vacation Club. Excludes standard rooms at Art of Animation.
Note: Existing reservations can be modified to the Free Dining package by calling 407-W-DISNEY. It can not be done online. In addition, modifications to a package will result in WDW charging your reservation for the new (and higher) ticket prices that went into effect on June 3.
As per usual, Value resort guests would receive the Quick Service dining plan for free. Deluxe, Villa, and Moderate resort guests would receive the Standard dining plan for free.
Dining Plan upgrades would be available for a fee.
To be notified of more great Disney food news/updates like this free dining promotion, be sure to sign up for our Disney Food Blog Newsletter here!
Wondering if Free Dining is a good deal for you? We have a detailed analysis in our DFB Guide to Walt Disney World Dining e-Book, available here.
Our handy (and portable!) ebook guides make sure you get the best deals and can plan a vacation of a lifetime.
Thanks Kim our fingers have been crossed since we got home last January! We have taken advantage of the free dining for the last 2 Januarys so hopefully we will get lucky again! Thanks again!
Any idea when Jan/Feb dates will be announced if any? I finally got my husband talking about going in Feb! 🙂
Jusy called Disney and modified our res to get the free dining. It is now open to the public! They just charged me another $200 dep and cancelled my old one.
I currently have a reservation October 21-27 and Just called requesting a quote on free dining for the AoA Little Mermaid room same dates. I was told the standard rooms at AoA are excluded from the promotion….. I see that a few lucky people were able to book the free dining with the standard Little Mermaid room, how did they do that… can anyone provide a link to where the free dining info is posted on WDW website.. I would love to be able to take advantage of this offer…please help… thank you
Here is the direct link to the free dining plani nfo on the disney website: http://bookwdw.reservations.disney.go.com/ibcwdw/en_US/specialOfferDetails?name=Promo&promotionCode=fy13q1dine&market=fy13q1dine
But it says its for stays at least 6 nights long – is this really true?
Did anyone who added the dining plan to an existing reservation have to pay extra money for the difference in park ticket prices? I don’t want to add the plan if its going to cost me any money.
Katie – I got the discount applied this morning and wasn’t charged the park ticket difference.
Thanks Jen. So it cost you zero dollars to add the plan? Are you staying at a value resort?
Just a heads up, free dining is not offered at Port Orleans French Quarter. I had to switch my reservation to Riverside.
Katie — The “6-night” thing is just a “suggestion” from Disney. The minimum number of nights is 3. 🙂
I woke up at 5 am (Denver time) this morning and starting calling to secure the free dining. We had existing reservations for 6 nights at the Port Orleans French Quarter and were going to pay for the dining plan, so we just needed to change those.
I was on hold for 1 hour and 15 minutes, but I was able to keep our existing reservations at Port Orleans French Quarter (sorry, Kaylyn) and save my family $1,035! I am so excited about the free dining plan and want to thank those who post here regularly who told me to make my dining reservations FAR in advance, with or without the free dining. Not only are we getting the free dining, but I also secured reservations at O’Hana, Crystal Palace (at 8:10 am before the park opens), a Candlelight Dinner Processional Package at Via Napoli, Boma and the 50s Prime Time Cafe. I will try and get a reservation at the Be Our Guest restaurant (in August?!?!) and our trip will be complete.
The reservation agent did tell me that there are limited number of rooms available that Disney designates as rooms that have free dining, so if you didn’t secure your reservations, you may not get the hotel you want. For our family, we decided that it was more important to get the free dining than to stay at a particular hotel. Fortunately, it worked out for us, but we were prepared to go to any Moderate Hotel that had availability.
Thanks AJ and everyone for your help. I will be calling Disney tonight to firm everything up!
“Seems strange that the only week in December that isn’t free dining is the first week, which is usually a slow time. Wondering if they are planning on opening something new that week, like Be Our Guest or another part of Fantasyland …..”
Mike – The first week in December, there is a huge gathering of high schoolers for the Pop Warner Football and Cheerleading Championships.
Disney offers the Free Dining as an incentive to get people to the parks during slower times. Since there will be a few thousand kids/families/coaches etc there the first week of December, they don’t need to add an incentive.
Because you can get the free dining for up to 10 days of your stay, Disney only offers the Free Dining through the 13th of December (which excludes those who are coming to Disney for Christmas).
I got free dining staying at Pop and upgraded it from the QS plan to the basic plan, and so now my food is going to cost me 16.50 per day :). Not totally free but I’m thrilled! 🙂
Great news, Tina!
Kristina – great deal!!
Tina – is the Pop Warner Championship a for sure event? I have tried searching for it and have not found anything on it for 2012. My family and I have booked our trip from 11/29 – 12/4 and would hate for it to be super crowded during that time. Thanks in advance for any response!
From trying to book on the website, it does not appear that Swan & Dolphin are included in this offer. Do you know if that is true?
My AAA travel called and modified my reservation for the free dining. She left me a message yesterday and said “it saved a little bit”. It was over $100.
I called Disney yesterday and added the free QS dining to our reservation at Pop in November. It cost us $44 total though because we made our reservation in February before ticket prices increased. Adding the dining plan was considered “modifying” the reservation and thus we had to pay the current fees. Interesting, since last month I changed our entire reservation to a different week all together because of work commitments and wasn’t charged a dime by Disney. Oh well. $44 for all that food is a great deal nonetheless!
Louise – this is correct. While the Dolphin and Swan are located on Disney property, they are not Disney owned resorts. The Disney Dining Plan is not available to guests staying at these resorts.
I see that the week we are going is not included (Oct 15 – 19) and I was wondering if it is due to the Epcot Food and Wine Festival or if there is some other additional event I should be aware of. I am thrilled to be going to the festival but it would have been wonderful to save the additional fees!
I just read the December dates were extended to the 20th.
Kim – My family and I were just at WDW for Pop Warner week in December 2011. We rarely had to use a Fastpass for anything, it was great! There is one night that HS closes early (5pm) because they open it for the PW group. We did see kids on random days but it was never terrible at all. They are busy during the day with their games, so they mostly come in the evenings. The only issue we had was the filming of the Christmas parade was our first day in the MK, which was a Saturday. Main Street was crazy and they had a lot roped off for parade go-ers. It was busy, but we just went the long way around and it was fine. Have a wonderful trip!! 🙂