Free Dining is Back for Fall & Christmas 2019
Walt Disney World has released a third of Free Dining for select November & December 2019 dates that include the weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas. Here we offer info, tips & tricks, and thoughts on booking this discount. (Updated September 23, 2019.)
We’ll cover all the details of the latest round of Free Dining at Walt Disney World here, what we recommend doing, and offer some speculation as to why this is occurring. This is truly huge, as these dates include some of Walt Disney World’s most popular travel times of the year, including the weeks leading up to Thanksgiving and Christmas!
Back when the 2019 Free Disney Dining Plan Promotion was released by Walt Disney World prematurely in January, we speculated that a ‘second wave’ of Free Dining would be offered at a later date. Exactly that happened back in April, which we covered in our 2019 Discounts for Disney World, Including More Free Dining! post. While we called that one, I’ll be the first to admit that I never expected a third wave of Free Dining for 2019…
Let’s start with a look at the dates for the Fall 2019 & Christmas 2019 Free Dining Deal:
- September 1 through September 18, 2019
- November 17 through November 27, 2019
- December 8 through December 23, 2019
This offer must be booked by September 29, 2019, and it follows the normal rules of Free Dining (which are covered in full detail here, along with comprehensive analysis and Free Dining tips). Most notably, Value and Moderate Resort guests receive the Quick Service Disney Dining Plan, while Deluxe and Deluxe Villa guests receive the standard Disney Dining Plan.
September 23, 2019 Update: It’s the final week that you can book Free Dining for 2019! We’ve been monitoring the promotion and running some test dates and numbers. From all of this, we have a few takeaways to offer that might be helpful if you’re trying to book Free Dining for a last minute holiday trip to Walt Disney World this year.
First and foremost, availability is bad–nearly nonexistent for some resorts. Thinking about early December at Wilderness Lodge or one of Walt Disney World’s other best resorts at Christmas-time? Think again. In some searches, we could only find a handful of resorts with any rooms reserved for Free Dining, and even then, they were more expensive room tiers. If you’re booking last minute, you’ll almost certainly have to upgrade unless you’re able to get lucky with scooping up someone else’s cancelled reservation.
One thing to watch is whether Walt Disney World will dump a final batch of rooms into the Free Dining discount right before the offer ends. Persistence often pays off, and it doesn’t hurt to keep searching for Free Dining room availability. (Disney only allocates a subset of rooms to each promotion, meaning the resorts often are not actually sold out, just sold out of the discounted rooms.)
Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge hasn’t been as hugely popular as Walt Disney World would like, and there’s the possibility that Disney will add more rooms to the deal in an attempt to push the occupancy rate to the max. We would not recommend checking multiple times per hour or even day, but giving it a try every morning around 8 am isn’t the worst idea if you’re wanting to do a Christmas 2019 trip!
Many readers who previously booked trips are reporting that you’re seeing minimal savings or, in rare cases, increased prices. While some are claiming that Walt Disney World spiked prices right before releasing this discount, that’s not true. It’s not to say prices haven’t gradually increased since you first booked your trip, though.
There are potentially two actual causes of this. The first is it’s not an apples to apples comparison–your room category or type changed. While the differences between some room types are insignificant, the price differences are not. Naturally, Walt Disney World tends to offer more promotion availability in higher priced room categories.
The second is that ticket prices increased since you booked your trip, and modifying a reservation effectively triggers paying the new prices for park tickets. This is another reason why we always recommend booking as early as possible, whether discounts are available or not. You effectively lock-in whatever pricing is at that time, and later have the option of weighing a discount against old prices. Best of both worlds!
That concludes the update–what follows is our original commentary about this round of Free Dining at Walt Disney World…
Note that this is not “Free Dining Lite” or “Half-Free Dining” as we’ve come to call Walt Disney World’s other marketing gimmicks that trade on the name recognition of the Free Dining offer. This is the real deal. Above is a look at resorts that are included in the offer, per DisneyWorld.com.
One thing we’d caution here before you get too excited is that availability for some resorts and dates is undoubtedly very limited. We’ve been harping on the reality that Walt Disney World resort occupancy is high for this December (it’s not for September), and this was and is accurate.
We haven’t yet had the chance to do a bunch of test searches to get an idea of availability–to the contrary, I’m having trouble getting this to work. This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, as it’s more or less par for the course on Walt Disney World discount release day. Things will only get worse as more people wake up and try to book (which is a huge reason why we recommend just using a travel agent.)
My guess is that what I’m going to find once I start searches is that entire room categories, certain dates, etc., are already sold out from day one. (If you’d be willing to help me crowd-source this data, I’d love to hear via the comments what dates and resorts you were able–or were not able–to book!)
This is to say you will want to book ASAP for the best chance at scoring the resort and room you want, especially if you’re traveling in November or December. It’s always possible that more rooms will be added to the promo at a later date, but I’d highly recommend getting something locked-in right now.
As for why this is happening…well, by now you’re probably sick of seeing us link to the Why Are Star Wars Land Crowds So Low? post. Disneyland’s disappointing debut of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is likely the best explanation for why this is happening. While Disney sought to control crowds there to ensure a positive guest experience, the low turnout is a case of ‘too much of a good thing.’
To be clear, we love Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and think the low crowds at Disneyland have been great for guests. While there’s a lot of ‘sky is falling’ commentary online, the positive word of mouth from those who visit and don’t encounter wall-to-wall people is invaluable for the long term.
However, Disney has made itself beholden to quarterly results, and any quarter that isn’t a year over year improvement by X% is deemed a failure. Irrespective of guest satisfaction numbers, this abnormally low attendance is undoubtedly being viewed as a problem by Disney’s upper management.
Obviously, Walt Disney World is an entirely different beast, with different guest demographics and all sorts of other variables at play. However, one big demo that sat out the opening of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge in California was out of state tourists, which is borne out by low occupancy rates at Anaheim hotels, and the reality that nothing Disneyland has done to entice visitors to come this summer has had an impact–tourists can’t change their summer travel plans on a moment’s notice.
If you look at literally any post about Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge on this blog, specifically the Opening Date for Star Wars Land Announced and Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance Opening Date posts, you’ll see that a ton of readers are upset about these debuts coinciding with their travel dates, and the anticipated crowds they’ll bring with them. Many commenters have openly contemplated canceling their trips because of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. It should go without saying that this is not Disney’s desired goal with Star Wars Land.
Speculating a bit, I’d say this release of Free Dining is being motivated by these two things. There’s the desire to make the last quarter and beginning of the next quarter as strong as possible from an occupancy perspective. Disney does not want Wall Street using the word ‘flop’ when it comes to its blockbuster Star Wars additions.
Second, while occupancy rates have been high for (literally) months for November and December, it’s entirely possible that new bookings have stagnated since the announcement of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. I’d be downright shocked if Disney has seen a net negative in terms of occupancy for the holidays since announcing the opening of Star Wars Land, but it probably has not moved the needle nearly as much as they projected.
Consequently, we have another Free Dining offer, to ‘pump up the numbers’ just a bit more and give the appearance that bookings are stronger than normal for September through December due to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge.
Even if these new promos have incredibly limited inventory and only result in a ~5% bump in occupancy numbers for next year’s first fiscal quarter (beginning October 1), that’s a big deal for Walt Disney World’s metrics. It also gives Galaxy’s Edge a greater perception of success in the eyes of analysts.
I know this is entirely unrelated to a post about Free Dining, but my personal take is that all of the speculation about Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge being a flop is overblown and misses the point. By and large, people are avoiding Disneyland–and wanting to avoid September and beyond at Walt Disney World–for fear of crowds, not due to the substance of Galaxy’s Edge.
There are some people, mostly those who haven’t been to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge and want to advance their own narrative about Disney’s use of Star Wars, who point to this being substantive failings of the land, its use of the original trilogy, etc. This might explain low numbers a bit, but it’s not the main explanation.
Fear of crowds is the biggest explanation by a long shot. Following that, the perception that Galaxy’s Edge is mostly retail and the reality that the flagship Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance is not yet open are also valid explanations. In the long term, once people experience the full land for themselves, I think most of this will fade away.
In the meantime, there will be growing pains and a lot of online handwringing. Nevertheless, I think we’ll look back on this period years from now, when Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge is crowded, and wonder how this anomaly ever happened. Of course, I could be wrong…it’s happened before!
Circling back to the topic of Free Dining, take advantage of this promotion as soon as possible if you’re thinking about a fall or holiday 2019 trip to Walt Disney World. While there should be a decent amount of September room inventory, we’d expect November and December to go fast.
You can request a FREE quote from our recommended Authorized Disney Vacation Planner and have them do the work for you, so you don’t have to wait on hold or struggle with the online system at all. Once we have more time, we’ll spot-check availability of the various promos released today for Fall & Christmas 2019, but our assumption is that inventory for these promotions is pretty limited!
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
What do you think about these new Walt Disney World discounts? Surprised to see Free Dining return? Think we could see even more discounts–possibly for early 2020 dates–if Disney is fearful about the ‘performance’ of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge? rHave you booked any of these new deals? Do you agree or disagree with our analysis? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
I have had my tickets and trip scheduled since approx last August and I had last years rates locked in. I will be there the week before Christmas and I was able to add this to my reservation. It did make my ticket rates go up but I crunched numbers and I will still save about $300 over the current pricing when I add the “free dining”.
*I noticed something when I was researching individual restaurant costs. The restaurants in Galaxies Edge note “dinning plan not accepted”. I confirmed this with a cast member. That may be another “reason” for this special. Those of us who will brave Batuu, regardless of free dining, will still pay out of pocket in that land..
I got my passholder discount reservations for October and the first week Rise if the Resistance opens in December! Can’t wait!
We just booked Coronado Spring Resort from December 22, 2019, to January 2, 2020 with the Free Quick Meal Plan Deal. Thank you so much for your post! We are from Canada, so the money we will be saving with the free meal plan will make up for the exchange rate.
Tom-we are planning a trip for the week of February 1, 2020. Do you have any insight on if there’s chance Disney will offer free dining then?
We are going on the 8th for my grandson’s 1st birthday. Paying full price for a room at Pop so I am hoping for the dining plan. All other value resorts are sold out due to the marathon and cheerleading events. I’m thinking attendance will be high and they won’t need to offer any incentives to fill up the parks. Hopefully I am dead wrong!!
They’ve never offered this promotion for February before. Until this year, it has only been offered from late August through December. This year, due to slow summer bookings, they also offered free dining for June and July. That was a first!
Anyway, I wouldn’t hold my breath for free dining in February. You will almost certainly be able to get another promotional discount, though, like a room discount, if you watch the Disney offers page.
You are always very helpful with the wealth of info you have and I thank you. We HAVE to be in Orlando for a wedding on Nov. 9, so we are obligated to the dates of Nov. 5 thru 13. We are EXTREMELY disappointed there are no discounts on anything at that time. This has been a highly frustrating year for us and Disney. By now we have our place booked and paid for, but not this year. I will wait until the bitter end if I have to because of the “no discounts”. May not even stay on Disney property and we ALWAYS do. We hope things are better next year. Thank you for always being so informative.
Thanks for the information ! But it look like a fake promotion 🙁
With the same travel (same hotel, days…), it’s 200$ less expensive to book on the UK website when you pay for the dining plan… The american website is more expansive with the “free dining”
We were already booked for a six night stay at Pop from Nov 17th- 23rd. I was able to catch the release at 5:40am (heard the possibility rumor and was watching intently) and logged on to change. My family traveling with us same hotel and days did theirs late morning with a long wait on the phone. It ended up saving us money from the package we had booked so we are all thrilled!
I am just curious where you’d heard the rumblings? We have a spring trip planned, and I want to make sure I am informed!!
Me to! Where did you hear rumors that it was coming that day?
We booked a reservation at Carribean Beach last December for Dec 1-6 this year for three rooms. We decided we would like to add an extra day so we have been trying for several weeks with no luck. Finally got one room with a different view, So it had to be a new reservation. Then added a night at Coronado Springs for the other two rooms. Tried to call today to apply the room only discounts and after waiting two hours was told the reservations we made last December were cheaper than the current discount being offered. We did get a discount on the Coronado rooms. We are concerned about the crowd levels as well, and I believe there is a cheerleading competition during our dates, but this is a big family vacation and we cannot change dates.
Between the cost of flights and the exchange rate, Disney World Vacations have become quite pricey, but we still go anyway LOL. Just have to cut a few more corners with the home budget. 🙂 and take advantage of any deals we can apply to our reservation.
Your post helped me realize free dining was available! We are going in September and I felt like I would have good results. Went online and Disney had no availability our week. I decided it might have been a fake promotion, and went to work. Decided to check back online that afternoon. Found we could upgrade our hotel from All Star Movies for Coronado, add park hopper for free, and get our typical upgraded dining plan, for just about the same price ($180 more overall). We are thrilled with the new additions. Also, mindful of the Star Wars opening, Park Hopper will allow us to try try again if the crowds are too high on our planned Hollywood Studios day. With the park opening at 6am everyday, we should be able to get our Star Wars fix. We can sleep when we get home from vacation!
We have been there numerous times during the football and cheerleading competition that happens early December. As long as you’re not staying at an all star resort, you should be ok. That’s where most of them stay. We have had the “pleasure” of staying at All Star Sports whole this was going in. Nightmare is an understatement. The cheerleaders were actually lovely. Well behaved and had chaperones that were not messing around. The football players on the other hand, appalling. Coaches and parents drunk at the pool bar, the pre teen kids taking up the whole pool using very colorful language and playing football. We were huddled into the corner of a pool with several other families because they were just throwing footballs and tackling each other and nobody else could enjoy the pool. My son got hit in the face with a football thrown by a coach no less, then when another adult kept to catch it, landed on my son and he went under. I pulled him up and made sure he was ok, neither of them apologized. They stole the basketballs out of the arcade game that had them and were just using them all over the resort. They had to put the refillable drink mugs in bags behind the registers in the dining hall because they were being stolen. Our entire row of rooms the parents set up lan chairs along the sidewalk, propped their hotel room doors open blasting music, had coolers outside their doors and process to smoke and drink all day. Many many non competition guests complained to management and we were all told the same thing, there wasn’t really anything they could do about it. Never ever book at a value resort during the Pop Warner football and cheerleading competition.
That’s the biggest problem. You have to jump on free dining as quickly as possible but when you try to book your flights the savings might be cancelled out.
Am I the only one that had zero luck? I’m staying 12/1-12/7. I just wanted to apply the fall and holiday room offer to my reservation. I tried since 6 am. No luck on the website, and the phone lines were busy. I finally talked to someone after hours on hold on the phone who said nothing is available. She said there are no rooms open discount or not. It’s at capacity. There is only a suite open at contemporary for over $1000 a night. I’m so upset. Also I’m so nervous. Why is it at capacity? There’s no free dining even offered this week. I can’t change my dates due to work. Did I pick the wrong week? Should I cancel all together? It’s not a good sign if there’s no rooms open. I’ve never been at Christmastime and was really looking forward to it. 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁 🙁
We’ve gone every year to WDW over Christmas week for 30+ years. This year I wanted to go the week you are going because the Christmas theme would be up. However, it’s majority rule in my house so we are going first week in October where there seem to be NO specials or freebies.
I would recommend calling your trusted travel agent and let THEM scrounge around for your travel plans. Maybe you can go one day later and hook into deals and your airfare won’t be too bad. Southwest is now having sales on their flights, but I know what you mean about getting a hotel deal that ends up costing alot more in airfare.
Whatever you do, DO NOT attend during Christmas week. The entire place is like an overcrowded night club. You can barely see the concrete under your feet, long lines and if you have a stroller forget about getting around or securing “good” fast pass reservations.
Hope you have a great trip!
Thank you so much for your post this morning! It got hectic really fast to try to book the Free Dining for the dates we had been sitting on the fence about it. When I had trouble with the Disney site kicking me back to the beginning after what I thought was completing the reservation, then calling AAA to see if they could get the reservation in, they couldn’t either. They told me there was no availability. After trying again myself with no luck, even not being able to book just a hotel room at All-Star Music I just gave up! After about an hour, my daughter (who was also trying to book the same dates with no luck) tried again and booked reservations for all of us with no problem. It was hectic, but so worth it. In the past we have always had to pay the full ride for the meal plan as we had already booked packages and the dates never coincided with our arrival date! So we are thrilled that we waited to book this vacation the week before Thanksgiving! Thanks again for such great information always!
I finally got my reservation squared away. I’m a little disappointed that our only option for Caribbean Beach was the pirate themed rooms. I didn’t want to be so far away from the main pool. But, I’m an adult, so I’ll just have to deal with the 10-minute walk. I do wish I would have shopped around, but I don’t want to deal with it anymore. I get the skyliner and I’m next to Spyglass Grill, at least. I do have to pay full price for a one night stay in the same type of room, since I couldn’t get any other discounts on it. The operator on the phone had a hard time getting the room to work, too, but eventually got it all squared away. Let’s just hope we don’t have to have the hassle of switching rooms, which would be kind of weird. We’ll see. It was thanks to your email that I was able to jump so quickly on the free dining plan!
Crazy! If I choose a full week, then I get plenty of offers to pop up, If I don’t its next to nothing. Also, having a hard time getting flights to match days.
I’m a little confused. Last summer I booked Music the last week of August for free dining. Then I booked my flights. Due to the ridiculously priced flights from the east coast of Canada it was cheaper to add another day to my reservation and pay the room rate for what I saved flying out one day later. We are planning again next August but if I book tentative dates and free dining is released, how do I modify my reservation if it says no rooms are available. I dont want to cancel the reservation to book the same with free dining as I am 100% confident someone in the queue will snag my room before I can rebook. I wouldn’t want to book longer than I am planning on both ends just to secure the room, only to possibly cancel a few days on either end once I secure my flights. Can I even do this? What is the best option for doing this?
Hi Annette. We are also from the east coast of Canada and feel your pain regarding the price of flights! We are on the lookout for cheap flights right at the moment for our November trip. Sometimes calling Disney to modify your reservation works better than online. And things tend to open up after the initial release of free dining. In the past we have made a new reservation to get free dining and then cancelled our initial reservation. Only works though if you haven’t booked your flights. Not sure if that’s any help to you LOL.
I booked last October for a December visit with the assurance that if free dining was added I would be able to modify my reservation. Found out today that it’s not true after being on the phone for SIX hours I was told that free dining was completely gone, even on different dates – I was told that there were over 700 people in queue this morning when they opened and there have been over 400 all day and there were only 200 rooms released. Very disappointed that I was misled as I specifically asked about free dining before I booked. Unfortunately your heads up didn’t help me☹ï¸
Keep checking. We have in past years had free dining dates open up after the initial deluge.
Thank you so much for this article! I was able to book the week before Thanksgiving at All-star Sports for $2k. Not my ideal hotel by far, but at that price it feasible to add on the holiday party and some firework parties or tours and still be under a normal trip’s budget without food (normally stay at Shades).
I’ve never been at Christmas time, so even if crowds are so bad I can’t set foot in Galaxy’s edge, I’m OK with that. But I’m hoping crowds aren’t horrible since Rise of the Resistance opens a couple weeks later.
Thanks again for such a great website, I really wish you’d try videos more.
Thanks Tom. I was able to change my November arrival by 1 day and got free dining, the option to change on line was not there. I got through on the phone in only 2 minutes, at about 7:15 am central time. I was also able to book, via phone, for Dec. 15-21. I wanted Dec. 8-15 , but not available at any value resorts. Another person posted Pop Warner is Dec.-6-14,
which would be why value resorts were not available. Don’t want to be at a value resort during Pop Warner week anyway. Thanks for all you do. Was totally shocked to get your email this morning that Free Dining was out again. Now hoping for Late September
Play, Stay and Dine release for my Late January 2020 trip. Thanks again.
Could it be possible that a lot of potential visitors, especially those with young children, are delaying their visits until the 50th anniversary celebrations? With all the construction of new and updated attractions, people who can’t afford multiple visits will wait until all the new rides are finished. If so, 2020 could also be less crowded than it would otherwise.
I’m booked for May 2020 and there are tons of rooms available for the week we are going. I know that is still a little bit out, but my TA was telling everyone to book 2020 as soon as possible due to high demand. I have heard and seen a lot of people are waiting until “all the attractions are open for 2021”.
I really think with these new discounts and everyone saying how dead DL Star Wars land has been that people are going to flood WDW now thinking it will be slow as well. But who knows. Hopefully I can add the free dining to my current pop booking. That would make me feel a bit better
Tom, Thanks to your post today we were able to save almost $100.00 on our November reservations by applying the Florida Resident Discount. I presume that since we had already made the room reservations, the free Dining is not available. Or did I misunderstand? No matter, as we saved and got the same thing we already requested last month. Again, thank you for the heads up post today,
I did the same as you last year, and you can go on the website and modify the booking.
I have been wanting to go in December for years. Booked this morning. So glad I receive your emails, I would have missed out. Thanks!