Disney World Cancels Free Dining & DDP, EMH, FastPass+ & Restaurant Reservations
Following the big announcement that Walt Disney World will begin the phased reopening of its theme parks in July 2020 and Disney Vacation Club Resorts would open in June 2020, it’s been a roller coaster couple of days for a variety of WDW reservations that have been cancelled or temporarily disappeared.
First, the online booking system closed to new resort, dining, FastPass+, and experience reservations. Then, existing bookings disappeared from My Disney Experience…before reappearing. Next, Walt Disney World removed verbiage from its website that its non-DVC hotels would reopen on June 15, 2020. It was believed that many of these were glitches occurring as Walt Disney World did IT infrastructure updates to prepare for the roll-out of the online advance reservation system.
During the first phase of Walt Disney World’s reopening, this reservation system will require guests to pre-book theme park visits online (if you’re sitting on pins and needles waiting for this, sign up for our free email newsletter as we will send out a notification immediately when the online reservation system for visiting the parks goes live). The new system is going to cause big changes, and now we have official confirmation that Walt Disney World will be cancelling a range of reservations, from FastPass+ to Free Dining…
Beginning May 28, 2020, all dining reservations, experience bookings, Disney Dining Plan, and FastPass+ selections will be automatically cancelled. Guests with existing resort hotel reservations will have priority access to the new park reservation system when it becomes available.
The FastPass+ service will be temporary suspended, and Walt Disney World will use additional queue space to manage capacity at our attractions and maintain physical distancing. Also upon reopening, Extra Magic Hours will be temporarily suspended.
Walt Disney World will reopen dining and experience bookings with more limited capacity closer to when the theme parks reopen. Disney will also shift from a 180-day booking window to a 60-day booking window for dining and experience bookings going forward to allow guests to make their plans closer to their visits.
Additionally, when restaurant and other experience reservations resume, guests who had existing bookings will receive priority access to rebook.
Guests who purchased a Disney Dining Plan and tickets for travel dates between May 28, 2020 and September 26, 2021 will receive an automatic cancellation and refund of their Disney Dining Plan. (That’s not a typo–cancellations of the Disney Dining Plan are being made through next September.)
Guests who booked resort hotel reservations with a Free Dining package for dates between May 28, 2020 and September 26, 2021 will receive an automatic cancellation of their Disney Pining Plan. These guests will be able to rebook their vacation for a later date with a 35% room discount instead.
(UPDATE: Disney has since removed all mentions of the 35% room discount, as well as an end date for cancellations. It’s unclear why the verbiage has changed, and whether the 35% discount will still be offered.)
When Walt Disney World’s theme parks reopen, park attendance will be managed through a new park reservation system. To enter a park, both a park reservation and valid admission for the same park on the same date is required. More details about this new reservation system will be available soon.
At this time, Walt Disney World is temporarily pausing new ticket sales to focus on guests with existing tickets. Existing ticket holders and Annual Passholders will be able to make reservation requests in phases before new tickets are sold; Walt Disney World will be reaching out to these guests soon to provide additional details. New ticket sales will resume after that period of time.
Florida Resident Discover Disney Tickets may be used through September 30, 2020. Guests who have purchased tickets for Disney After Hours, Disney Villains After Hours, Disney Early Morning Magic and Disney H2O Glow Nights through the end of the actual closure period will be automatically refunded.
Unexpired multi-day theme park tickets with unused days, or date-specific theme park tickets with a valid use period beginning March 12, 2020 through the end of the actual closure period will automatically be extended to use any date through December 15, 2020. If you are unable to visit by December 15, 2020, you may apply the value of a wholly unused ticket toward the purchase of a ticket for a future date.
In terms of commentary, the cancellation of the Free Dining bookings for over the next year is the big surprise here, and what’s likely to cause the most outrage. This is far and away Walt Disney World’s most popular promo of the year, and it was recently being offered as a recovery deal to those who rebooked trips during dates that were cancelled.
A lot of Walt Disney World fans put tons of effort, research, and telephone time into securing the Free Disney Dining Plan deal, and we can’t imagine they’ll be completely understanding. Nor do we blame them–this is a big blow that really stinks.
The silver lining here is that 35% off room-only discount being offered as an alternative. As we’ve long stressed, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, which is to say that you always need to do the math on Free Dining.
For most parties, a room-only discount on a Deluxe Resort was superior to Free Dining. That usually was not the case on the lower tiers, as the room-only discounts were lower for Value and Moderate Resorts. Getting 35% off those less expensive rooms could bridge that gap–many parties may even come out ahead with the hotel deal. Still, not everyone will be so lucky.
The most likely explanation for the cancellation of Free Dining is significantly reduced dining capacity. We covered this in our last post about a potential second wave of Free Dining (which now seems highly unlikely…at best).
Walt Disney World will reopen with less than half of its normal dining capacity, and that’s assuming that all resort restaurants, Disney Springs locations, buffets, and character meals reopen. It’s likely many of those locations will not reopen or will do so in a modified form, leaving Walt Disney World with 35-40% of its normal dining capacity.
In such a scenario, Free Dining would be difficult to navigate. This announcement goes a step further than that, suggesting Walt Disney World will temporarily suspend even paid forms of the Disney Dining Plan for the next year-plus.
The other big development here is the cancellation of FastPass+ reservations. This isn’t nearly as much of a huge surprise. About a month ago, Walt Disney World started seriously limiting the daily allotment of FastPasses, which didn’t make a ton of sense given that heavy use of virtual queues was already rumored at that point.
Even then, it was safe to assume the options were leaning even more heavily on FastPass+ or moving to a Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance-style virtual queue and boarding pass style system. From a social distancing perspective, the latter offers advantages in being able to dynamically make adjustments and pulse guests through queues at a better-managed rate. Based on tonight’s announcement, it would seem that this approach won out.
One downside to this is it all but eliminates the benefits of staying at on-site Walt Disney World hotels, aside from transportation and proximity to the parks. As we covered in “Is Walt Disney World’s On-Site Advantage Disappearing?” this has been a gradual erosion.
Now, without Extra Magic Hours, the Disney Dining Plan, or priority booking windows, there’s even less of a point to paying a significant premium to stay in a Disney resort. Unless you really value the transportation, theme, or location. (Or, unless Walt Disney World starts releasing some really good discounts to lure guests back!)
If you’re looking for an upside to all of this, it’s probably easier to see one if you didn’t take advantage of the Free Dining deal or aren’t a fan of the Disney Dining Plan.
In our view, the main advantage is the return of spontaneity in the Walt Disney World park-going experience. We’ve long decried the degree to which planning is necessary, noting repeatedly that we aren’t spreadsheet or binder people. (See our Being Spontaneous at Walt Disney World post.)
We far prefer the Disneyland approach, and all of these changes are basically making Walt Disney World more closely align with that. What we love about this is that it doesn’t require knowing where you want to eat 6 months in advance or planning your day down to the minute. It allows making day-of decisions without being shut-out of marquee or popular experiences.
With that said, it still offers plenty of room for planning strategy and using various tips & tricks to see and do more than the average guest. Essentially, it’s a new approach to master–and one that requires far less homework and months-in-advance planning. We suspect that once the initial shock of the change wears off, many Walt Disney World fans will likewise come to prefer the temporary, Disneyland-style strategy.
These are just some of our initial takeaways from these announcements. As we said when the park reopening plans and dates were announced, it’s likely that there’s a lot more to come, and that policies will continue to be tweaked. While we’ve stressed patience and flexibility throughout this, we also understand that this is frustrating for many of you who have poured considerable time, energy, and emotion into the planning process. We wish there were some reassuring words we could offer here, but the reality is that ‘certainty’ in vacation planning is going to be in short supply for the coming weeks or months.
One thing we will stress is being kind to Cast Members if you call to voice your frustrations, rebook, or cancel your vacation. The phone reps with whom you interact have literally zero say over Walt Disney World’s policies, and you’re not going to change anything or magically get Free Dining back by being rude to them. It’s one thing to calmly voice your displeasure, it’s another entirely to verbally berate or take your frustrations out on someone who did not cause the problem. If that doesn’t convince you to be nice, remember: you catch more flies with honey than vinegar…
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Do you have a reservation that has been cancelled as a result of the policy changes? What do you think about Walt Disney World cancelling Free Dining for 2020 and instead offering a 35% off room discount? Upset that your plans continue to change? Optimistic that things will be “back to normal” at Walt Disney World sooner rather than later? A variety of viewpoints are welcomed here, but we will not tolerate insults, arguing, or politically-charged comments. Additionally, please do not debate the efficacy of health safety policies—all such comments (for, against, otherwise) will be deleted. Those arguments are played out and isn’t the appropriate forum for that. (Saying you will or will not visit in light of certain measures is fine.)
Any idea how they will deal with the trams and monorails / boat transportation to actually get into the magic kingdom? I’m
Disgraceful cancelling free dining and fast pass. I will be cancelling my end of July holiday immediately and will not be returning in 2021 either. They have got it massively wrong.
We just got our email stating our free dining is no more, but they did write they would adjust the resort portion down 35%. That’s off the current reservation. So far, I think we’ll keep the booking. Whiles it’s not everything we wanted, it’s something.
Same here. Originally thought we would lose our reservation but we did not. It doesn’t quite work out even for us but I would consider this acceptable.
I got the same thing. It takes a bit of the sting out of losing free dining. We recognize the inconvenience this poses and we’re deeply sorry. We will be modifying your package to remove the dining plan. As an accommodation, the price of the package will be adjusted to reflect a 35% savings on the room portion. This modified package and price will be provided in a new confirmation. You will receive a refund of the difference in the package price if you have already paid in full or a reduction in amount due if you have not yet made final payment.
There’s nothing you need to do at this time. We will be contacting you shortly with more details on reservations.
IT infrastructure updates? Did a switch or router change the verbiage on their website? Want you meant is that the web developers haven’t fully deployed all their changes, hence leaving out additional information. Also, in speaking with a WDW executive, they are going month by month on what will stay closed and what will open. So, the character dining and other character meet and greet is not closed for the remaining of the year.
I received the email and they are giving the 35% off the current reservation. But we are a family of also staying at a value resort and the 35% off doesn’t even nearly make up for the cost of the free dining plan. Sadly we were hanging on barely with the loss of many perks, only because of the free dining, not that it is gone, we’re canceling our trip.
Emails concerning the Disney Dining Plan and Free Dining cancellation should’ve just started going out tonight via Disney. Check your spam folder if you haven’t received one and you’re impacted. (Also keep in mind that these sometimes go out in waves, so you may not receive anything right away.)
For the Free Dining cancellation, the price of the package will be adjusted to reflect a 35% savings on the room portion. You will receive a refund of the difference in the package price if you have already paid in full or a reduction in amount due if you have not yet made final payment.
I literally just came on here to say this email just popped up in my inbox. No idea how this would work for our trip since it is scheduled to begin July 7th and that doesn’t seem possible. Hopefully they extend this offer to people for rebooking who have a reservation during the closure. Thank you for keeping us all updated!
We are “empty nesters” from Indiana (I can’t believe we haven’t ran into you, Tom). We have made more than a dozen trips to WDW over the past 15 years with each trip usually two weeks in duration. We were last at WDW in September, 2019. While there, we made 2 bounce back reservations….one for May 28 and the other for September 8. Both offers had free dining plans associated with them.
Obviously the May 28 (yesterday) reservation was cancelled and we thoroughly understand. We just received an email that cancels the free dining offer on the September reservation. I understand canceling fast passes and dining reservations, but canceling the dining plan makes no sense. Regardless of whether you have a dining plan or not, you still have to eat.
I thought when an offer was made, it was like a contract…..they give me what was promised and I give them $6000.
I know these are unusual times, but this has gone too far. I think we will cancel our September reservation and look for other options to dump our hard earned cash. I think Disney has gotten the last dollar from this Indiana couple.
I just got an e-mail alerting me to the 35% discount that they will automatically apply to the room portion of my June 27 trip (before they cancel it entirely in a few more days, I suppose?). What savings!
Any word on whether Swan and Dolphin hotel reservations will also have priority access? I know they aren’t technically Disney, but usually come with many of the perks. 🙂
Ok…
This is ridiculous. Come on Disney! Stop doing the Curly Shuffle and make a decision.
Either Open or don’t.
What will be opened and what won’t be? What will you be providing us… a discount, and then take it away?
Figure it out … Get your Donald Ducks in a row and let us know!
We can’t make decisions until we know what exactly will and won’t be happening.
It’s like Disney dangling a carrot in front of Rabbits face and then pulling it away.
Enough of the bits and pieces of information.
Get it together, 100% and stick to it.
I would expect a much better and a more prepared action plan from Disney.
Disney cast makers make less then $15/hr and need people to come to the parks so they can keep their jobs. My GF is a cast member and can confirm that. They r not scared. Lots of changes and some takeaways, but it is still Disney.
Universal has a different game plan and i wish Disney followed their lead with an earlier opening date. They r still keeping their early hours for resort guests. Not much of an advantage to staying on property now. Curious on the transportation.
Well said
Totally on the button
Was going to take our four Grandkids in June. Now it looks like next year at the earliest. We always got the Deluxe Dining, but I guess that will no longer be available. I can’t imagine walking around in that heat with a mask, it’s hard enough to make it through a trip to the grocery store. And I heard no parades, firewoks, and some show cancellations. It just won’t be the same. Maybe next year.
My original trip was planned for a June 13th arrival. Not only were we not offered free dining- we were offered no discounts at all. None. This brought our rescheduled Disney trip in Nov nearly 4K higher. Super disappointed
Just a thought about little incentive to stay on property…Could they be hoping for less hotel guests during this time? Easier to manage all the restrictions for a while.
Since we love the memories made staying in Disney hotels with grandchildren, we will wait to return. We will plan our next trip when there are benefits to being on property besides memories.
We have reservations in November to stay at an WDW resort with meals included before we board the Fantasy. I think we will be cancelling everything. It won’t be the same experience and it appears we will get less magic for the same amount of money paid pre-covid. No thanks.
Simple dont go …..I’ve canceled…to many restrictions to much BS if you at all dont think this will be enjoyable on any level then hold off on going …..expensive enough with out closing a level of enjoyment you are used to. Dont let anyone try to convince you otherwise even the man that runs this blog
I’ve got resort reservations for November and all my adrs still show in my experience. But got email from Disney they were cancelled?!?
I don’t think he’s trying to convince anyone to go. As a matter of fact, he basically insinuated that Disney will operate at a loss for some time. You have to understand, the die hard fans represented on this and other blogs represent a very small percentage of Disney goers. And many many if not most die hards, including me, are agreeing with you wholeheartedly. When you factor in one and done people who definitely aren’t going , I don’t think Disney will be remotely busy by any sense of the term. People are staying close to home and waiting for the big box vacations. There’s a reason rv sales are up and home improvement stores are sold out. Don’t even get me started on State Parks. Disney has some dark days ahead for its bottom line.
I’m kind of annoyed that they are cancelling my free dining plan (I did pay for the upgrade). My reasoning is we still have to eat & some restaurants will still be open but now I’m going to have to pay completely out of pocket for food. I was not budgeting this into our trip. So now I have to pay MORE money for even less entertainment & less food options.
I just feel completely screwed because Its not like I even have the option to upgrade to a resort with a kitchen (we could cook our own meals, while it would still cost money, I think it may be cheaper than eating in the parks) since it would be considered a new reservation.
So if I do decide to cancel my trip, do we have 30 days to cancel before losing money? Which would be absolutely pointless for me since our first day would be 8/15 & all the parks would just open 30 days prior so we couldn’t even get a feel of how this would all work.
I’m ready to take all this money & put it towards a new boat.
Simple dont go …..I’ve canceled…to many restrictions to much BS if you at all dont think this will be enjoyable on any level then hold off on going …..expensive enough with out closing a level of enjoyment you are used to. Dont let anyone try to convince you otherwise even the man that runs this blog
Wow. The chaos and uncertainty increases even more! Good point: The advantages of staying on property just took a MAJOR hit, and that includes DVC owners. No one bought those DVC properties thinking there’d ever be this level of restrictions.
But for me, this really just about eliminates 2020 as a viable possibility. I’m now concerned about the September, 2021 listing now about 2021 being viable.
OTOH, this teardown of just about everything gives WDW the max flexibility for bringing things back.
I thought I’d share an interesting update. While none of my other dining reservations have disappeared yet for our Oct 28 – Nov 3 trip at CBR, both my dinner and breakfast reservations at Topolino Terrace have disappeared. Interesting to me since Riviera is a DVC resort? Nothing else has changed on my reservation so far (I’m sure it will eventually) and I have yet to get an email from Disney reaching out about these cancellations. I’m sure there’s an overwhelming amount of emails to send out though so I will just keep an eye out for it.
our Topolino’s Brunch reservation for Sept 5 was there this morning but it is also now missing. It’s the only dining reservation for our Sept 3-7 trip not there but we are waiting for the e-mail….
Same thing here – oct 16 start date
Our Topolino breakfast is absent from our reservation as well as Beaches and Cream. Our trip is scheduled for November. So far- no email and nothing else on the reservation page has changed.
F-bomb, F-bomb, F-bomb
We had booked the free counter service dining plan for September. We also have three Table Service meals booked, with a plan to pay out of pocket.
With the new table service rules, from the government, I can understand the loss of the regular and deluxe dining plans, but how, in the name of all that is fast food is my QSDP a problem? I can understand the need to limit the number of table service reservations, but they will have counter service up and running. There will be snacks, there will be pizza.
The only reason to cancel my dining plan is taking back a promise in effort to squeeze more money out of me. They know we need to eat. It isn’t negotiable, so they think they can force another thousand dollars out of my pocket.
Nope.
I can live with the masks for the sake of others, even in horrific heat. I can forgo my fireworks and my parade. I can make do without meet and greets. I can stomach losing my reservations to Ohana, Sci-fi, and Be Our Guest, but take away the QSDP?
Seriously
To that, I say, Avarda Kadavra, Disney. The Magical World of Harry Potter is calling.
Just price checked at Universal. Still having early entry. Front of the line pass for almost everything and costs less than Disney.
I am a giant Disney Fan. In January 2019 we went to Disneyland and stayed at the Grand Californian, then we visited Aulani for our 25th anniversary. We stayed in Boardwalk in May to celebrate our son graduating from college, and we had a week in a two bedroom at Saratoga Springs in December.
To say we are hardcore is a bit of an understatement.
This is the straw that breaks the Camel’s back. It isn’t the money, but rather the feeling that we have been lied to, manipulated, and disrespected.
It has been a tough year for Everyone. We want to support Disney financially, but unless they honor their word, when possible, I don’t think we are Disney people any longer.
I had the free dining for Sept 2020 and I’m staying at a value resort, are they not doing any discount or reimbursement for the Sept 2020 trip for removing the free dining, only giving a discount for a future trip? I paid to upgrade to the regular dining plan. I can understand removing that but people have to eat somewhere, why couldn’t we at least keep the quick service plan or give the 35% discount on the current trip?
Our email actually stated they would take 35% off our current reservation or at least the resort portion of it.
Well, Disney just crushed our 5 year old son.
He was so excited. We were scheduled to be there for 10 days starting August 17th.
Shame on Disney. This is an absurd overreaction.
How did Disney “crush” your 5 year old son? They will be open during your trip! Did he have a dining reservation he was really looking forward to? I think restaurants will open up again, but they are modifying them to have fewer people. My guess would be that they’d also modify the buffet restaurants to be service restaurants. I don’t know if there will be meet and greets, but maybe there will be a little character show or something to watch. When I went to Storybook Dining at Wilderness Lodge, we watched as Snow White ran around and played games with Grumpy and Dopey. It was still fun and delightful.
How can it be an absurd overreaction when social distancing limits the availability of dining space to 35 to 40%. It just is not feasible to accommodate free dining. Period. There will be a lot of other changes including limited menu choices and digital menus on your phones.
Yes Becky, my son did have Several dining reservations he was looking forward to.
Chef Mickey, Winnie the Pooh lunch, Cinderella’s Royal Table, and Storybook Dining with Snow White. Which unfortunately none of these will probably take place.
We’ve been talking to him about this and planning for this over a year. This why he will be crushed.
Kathleen,
The social distancing limits are CDC recommendation not a law.
I believe the absurd overreaction is from the CDC and the decision makers at Disney.
I know we all have different opinions and feelings about this situation. But, that’s my take.
Bob B. – state and local governments here in Florida do have orders in place regarding social distancing and restaurant capacity, so it isn’t just the CDC recommendations they are dealing with.
Amanda,
I understand the local governments there in Florida have orders in place regarding social distancing and restaurant capacity,
I think these orders are an overreaction.
I also understand people have different feelings and opinions on this.
Uncle Walt has always had his hand on our wallets. Now the mouse needs a little more pay for us to play at the park. 🙂
One thing I’ve found over the years is the mouse don’t like to under-deliver on promises. I see all this as them doing all they can to reduce expectations. I anticipate it’s going to be an all out wonderful experience in the parks and can’t wait for December.
Though… this is prob the year we go off Resort as I have Marriott top tier so I’ve always chaffed at stuffing the fam into the little cracker box rooms when I could be concierge lounge at a real hotel. Unless they come up with some other incentive to stay on Resort which they may well do. Mickey likes those who stay at his house more .
I agree. It would actually be a nice change for my family to stay off Disney property and make it like a completely new trip. We always stay at AoA, have dining plan, pre-plan our trip for hours and hours before we go. This could actually make for a more relaxed, slower-paced trip. Maybe see more of Florida rather than live in the Disney bubble?
Does anyone know when prices & availability will be out for January 2021 bookings?
Normally, it’s available in June each year. However, right now, they’ve stopped all new ticket sales. They also sent out an email to people with existing tickets and let them know they’d have priority on reservations before tickets go on sale to new people. So… I think new ticket sales aren’t going to be happening for a while. That’s my guess, anyway!
I called disney to cancel reservations – with free dining for August. Disney said they are NOT offering a 35% room discount for a future reservations. Nothing was offered at all for future bookings. It was confirmed that dining reservations have been hauled for the remainder of the year.
So we get nothing? This is twice now that hours of planning just gets flushed down the drain. The first time I understand, and thought I was going to be fairly compensated with the free dining offer – so I rebooked. Now they’re straight up reneging on their commitment and throwing up the middle finger. If this stands, my family is done. We go yearly and spend a small fortune each time, but not with this worse-than-Walmart or Applebee’s level customer service. We’ll give our theme park money to Universal.
They originally said that people with free dining plans would receive the discount when they reschedule. Now they are just applying to their existing reservation on room rate only. Got the email today. This is what they should have done all along. Now are they going to do something with the prices of tickets if they are closing shows, fireworks, and more?
G’Day! Our family is Big on WDW and been visiting yearly for decades. We’ve seen things get better and not better over the years.
With all the restrictions, I am not even considering visiting this year. I have my Christmas reservation but fully expect to be canceling I enjoy this blog to read all the goings on and changes made every day by WDW. And I will be reading how
People are making out over the next few months. Should be interesting.