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!
In searching today, I found it interesting that for November 25 arrival and December 2 departure (same amount of days as my wife and I stayed last year and same timeframe — Monday to Monday), standard room at All-Star Sports with park hopper tickets and free quick service dining, the total package price this year is $2,380. This is an increase of $383 (or almost 20%) from the $1,998 we paid last year for the exact same time period!
Last October Disney World announced ticket price changes such that the final cost would depend on the dates of a vacation. So, it’s interesting to see the package price changes based on arrival dates shown below. All assume 7-night, 8 day park hopper at All-Star Sports (standard room) with free quick service dining. To be at Disney World over Christmas would cost anywhere between $350-$700 more than being there over Thanksgiving!
• $2,273 — Tue, Nov 19 — Tue, Nov 26
• $2,336 — Wed, Nov 20 — Wed, Nov 27
• $2,400 — Thu, Nov 21 — Thu, Nov 28
• $2,452 — Fri, Nov 22 — Fri, Nov 29
• $2,468 — Sat, Nov 23 — Sat, Nov 30
• $2,433 — Sun, Nov 24 — Sun, Dec 1
• $2,380 — Mon, Nov 25 — Mon, Dec 2
• $2,317 — Tue, Nov 26 — Tue, Dec 3
• $2,253 — Wed, Nov 27 — Wed, Dec 4
• $2,496 — Fri, Dec 13 — Fri, Dec 20
• $2,513 — Sat, Dec 14 — Sat, Dec 21
• $2,518 — Sun, Dec 15 — Sun, Dec 22
• $2,578 — Mon, Dec 16 — Mon, Dec 23
• $2,655 — Tue, Dec 17 — Tue, Dec 24
• $2,738 — Wed, Dec 18 — Wed, Dec 25
• $2,811 — Thu, Dec 19 — Thu, Dec 26
• $2,888 — Fri, Dec 20 — Fri, Dec 27
• $2,918 — Sat, Dec 21 — Sat, Dec 28
• $2,935 — Sun, Dec 22 — Sun, Dec 29
• $2,953 — Mon, Dec 23 — Mon, Dec 30
I booked my original reservation back in August 2018 for staying December 7-14 2019. Had all the qualifications booked for when “free dining” was released in the spring. Had a bad feeling about that due to Stars Wars hype and ended up doing a spur of the moment weekend getaway with my husband back in October and booked a bounce back and was able to add free dining to my reservation back then. However when I added bounce back offer my Preferred room was taken away and I was given a pirate ship themed room (insert eye roll emoji here). I have been desperately trying to change my room for months calling pretty often and have had no luck at all! I’ve been holding out hope waiting for free dining hoping that would open up more rooms for me to change. Since then, my mom and niece also decided to come along and they had their own reservation booked since January also hoping for free dining to be released for our dates. Well I’m sure you can imagine we tried over and over again since the release and had absolutely zero luck. I was basically told Caribbean Beach is “sold out” for everything December related and I would practically need a miracle to happen for me to change my room and my mom to be able to add free dining to her reservation. I guess because we booked so early before all the price increases I would need someone who’s in the same boat I am in to cancel and then me takeover their room?? And someone also said if they added the new free dining plan to my moms reservation most likely her price would actually increase. Not really sure how true any of that is since I’m told something different every time I call and speak to someone. Still hoping for the best that maybe at the 30 day mark some people will cancel before making final payment. If not worst case scenario my 6’2” hubby is going to have to squeeze into a double pirated themed bed!!
I booked my vacation back in August 2018 and scheduled it for December 7 thinking I would be within the free dinning dates. I was one day off. My travel agent was unable to find any availability around my dates. She said availability was extremely limited for free dinning. She made it sound like there may have only been a few rooms available at each resort for free dinning. This year has been the most limited its ever been. She said she would keep checking for me in case something becomes available. Because I booked so early if I applied the room discount I would actually be paying more. It seemed like they weren’t going to release free dinning for fall so I had already accepted that it wasn’t going to happen so its not the end of the world. This will be my first time at Disney World and I’m so excited!!
Thanks so much Tom for your announcement about the Free Dining. I read it at 9 am and spent a few hours online trying to book Christmas week trip and was very frustrated. I tried calling but kept getting ALL CIRCUITS ARE BUSY. Finally, we were able to book Free Dining package with arrival on December 22 and stay for 6 nights. You are right about persistence paying off! We had 3 computers hitting WDW site at same time in order to get through. Wasn’t planning on going this Christmas but we had a great time last year and couldn’t pass up the huge food cost savings! Good luck to everyone trying to book their Free Dining trips!
I already had a vacation booked for October. I have been waiting for fall discounts to roll out in hopes to save at least a few hundred. In my experience it has been easier to book well in advance and then grab the discount When it rolls out. When I read my email with this blog post, I called Disney yesterday (7/17) to see if I qualified for anything, even if that meant changing from the moderate resort I had already booked. I was on hold for an hour and half and to my dismay, there were no discounts for the week I’m going. I’m a sad panda. I could have switched to a different moderate resort that was participating in the fall saving special, but the price ended up being the same, so the fall special isnt that special I guess.
Oh, thanks.. I thought you said that there is a “DISNEY VISA CARDHOLDER” discount available that i wasn’t aware of. I didn’t see one and I usually get an email about it and I didnt. Exact same thing happened with our trip – We have an existing Reservation in October as well and i was on the phone for almost 2 hours yesterday morning and the discount did not apply to us either…We tried switching resorts for the discount dates but it didn’t make sense for us to switch in the end because what we are paying to stay at Pop with Dining and Memory maker, turned out to be more expensive with the “discount” to stay at a moderate resort so, we left it alone. This will be the first time ever that we are going without any discount at all. Just last year (March of 2018) A trip that cost us (2 adults) around 4000 with a Moderate resort – Is now costing us a little over 4000 again.. but to stay at a Value resort for 10 days. That proves just how expensive it has gotten. We had all the same things included (pref. room, dining, memory maker) In 2016 We paid around $3000 for a value resort with a discounted package (POP, dinning, Memory maker) it is just becoming too expensive to stay at the Disney Resorts for us. This might be the last Disney Resort Stay we have, Sadly. I will go to Disney but will consider stay off property next trip after this one.
We had an existing reservation for AKL Dec 20-29th. I received this Blog email that discounts and Free Dining had just been released. I hopped on the phone at 8:30 am EST and held for just a little over 2 hours. Once the rep answered, she was able to modify my existing reservation and apply both the resort discount and the Free Dining. I did not have to change resorts or my room selection. She was able to do this in about 15 minutes and it saved us $2000.00 from the original price our vacation package cost. Don’t know if it makes a difference but she specifically checked my existing reservation for: Travel Dates, Resort, Length of Stay and whether or not we had included park hoppers in our original reservation (we had selected park hopper passes for our entire stay) She then told me my existing reservation met all the required criteria for the discounts and gave me my new price. I was very pleased with the amount of discount and I did not have to change anything about my original reservation and my price did not go up. 2 hours wait was well worth my $2000.00 discount!
It was awesome waking up on Tuesday and seeing that my travel agent had texted me telling me that she saved my daughter’s family and my husband and me MONEY! We had booked a Disney trip in March for the week of Thanksgiving at All Star Sports (I’m seeing a lot of negativity about this place in some of the comments, and I’m not really sure why…everything I’ve found have satisfactory ratings and comments. We booked at this specific location because my grandson is a sports enthusiast). But any way, we originally had not booked “park hopper” and since that’s a requirement for free dining, our agent had to modify our reservation and upgrade to the dining plan that we originally booked. Together my daughter and I saved over $850 and added park hopper!!!! Thank goodness for a travel agent.
We are annual pass holders, we probably get to Disney four or five times a year Every trip we took this last year was extremely overcrowded even on low crowd dates, (we didn’t even go on weekends). Because of the anticipated crowds for Star Wars we have decided to let our passes lapse for the next two years. While I know that Disney is in the business of making money, I have always been able to justify the cost of vacationing there. (We have been going for 30 years). But the additional cost of the parking fees has pushed me over the edge. And it might not be the cost as much as the action., but whatever the reason,I’m done for a while.
Was actually on hold with Disney at 7:15am Tue when I saw the message, figuring this was “meant to be” but NO, after an hour on the phone. Was not able to add the free dining to my existing reservation for Value resort and no new reservation for any value resort was available for Dec. 11. Have tried numerous times since then, still NOTHING.
thanks for the email alert on free dining. started at 7am could not modify current reservations at all star sports online. Had to call in. Playing it safe I made a different reservation for animation, got it (free dining) and glad I took it. Later in the afternoon I was on hold for about 45 minutes try to determine if I could get in at all star anything. They were really good about checking into every options. I will tell you that Mickey doesn’t like it when you are booked in two places at the same time. Lucky we got that worked out otherwise they would have cancelled my reservations. After reading the comments I am glad that we are not at all star and I am glad that we are slightly later in Dec then what we had originally wanted. Would not have gotten this without Dinsey Tourist Blog!
I actually called a little before 7:15 and kept getting the busy signal. I just kept redialing every second until i got through and was put on hold for almost 2 hours. In the end, I was told that the free dining would have actually cost us more money! I did the math and the CSR was correct.
We were already booked at the yacht club resort fir November and just happened to fit the dates perfect. Well for starters I was on the phone over 2 hours just to get in the que and listened to Disney music for another 45 minutes. When I got thru the rep checked on my dates and told me they had nothing left ,so I asked her to check WILDERNESS,CONTEMPORARY AND GRAND FLORIDIAN and was out of luck. The only way to get the free dining at those resorts was to book my room with the concierge rat and now tell me that makes sense with free dining. Well thanks to a Disney rep that knows what she’s talking about she said they had a 20% discount on hotel rooms and low and behold taking that discount paid for my free dining, YEA ME!!!
Thank you for the email on Tuesday. I wasn’t even two sentences in…I stopped reading and got on the phone! I ended up saving 70 dollars on my room only reservation. They had to upgrade my room to do it so win win!
I booked free dining for late August when it was announced in the spring. It required a park hopper, which I don’t need. After the Visa cardholder room discount was announced this week, I cancelled my FD package at POR and booked a room at AKL, standard tickets, no dining for about $250 less. I’m travelling with my 11yo, she wont eat much so FD isn’t that important to me this trip
What Disney world Card holder discount? I haven’t come across that -? I looked all over after reading your post – I must be missing something? Can you please tell me where to find that? Thank you
Thank you for sending the email! I had no problems booking 2 different reservations at 9am PST. We were surprised to be able to book our dining reservations so easily; in past years they were all completely booked and we had to try every day waiting for cancellations.
Thanks for all of your research on this. Our travel agent encountered those exact issues when she tried to call to change our reservation on the first day. She could not get through at all. But, she had better luck this morning and was only on hold for about 20 minutes. Thankfully, we already had made a reservation this spring for Thanksgiving week, so we were able to compare those rates to the new deal. Plus, we had the reservation, so we didn’t have to worry about our dates having no availability. We’ve saved around $800, plus we added in the Park Hopper pass which we didn’t have originally in our plan. I am so glad I read your blog entry! Keep up the great reporting!
I was able to add free dining to our existing vacation but our cost increased by almost $2,000!! So, it was not “free” lol the agent couldn’t really give a good explanation as to why the significant increase and someone is supposed to call me back with an answer. I appreciate all your helpful information!
I’m not positive about your situation but I suspect It increased because your room got upgraded. The deals are for upgraded rooms at current prices. When I called, the deal was not available for my room category. The cast member told me she had to upgrade my room.
When are free dining dates usually announced for the next year? We’re going in late January and we’re patiently waiting.
I can never remember when it is released.
This free dining promotion has never been for January–for US residents, anyway.
Traditionally, the discount is for the fall, and it’s been released at the end of April. This year was a bit of an anomaly.
We went in February last year and received it. We’re going January 31-feb 5 so we’re hoping to get lucky again!
Any discount will help. Even still, for later bookings, when do they typically release those dates for the next year.
Free dining was offered once in January. I believe it was 2011 or 2012. My son took advantage of it.
The additional caveat in this deal is that you must have the Hopper pass in order to book the free dining. Don’t even bother trying if you don’t have the Hopper pass.
No luck here for free Dino g when trying to modify our reservation nor could we get a room discount even though our days qualified. What a joke these are! I’m pretty much done with Disney not only for this but for how far in advance one has to make hotel reservations, dining and those fast passes. So much easier in the old days just to go and enjoy the parks
Totally agree. I didn’t get a deal either. Disney raised the rates on all the resorts and then offered a discount. My rate was better when I booked it in February.
If you booked it before at the “rack” rate then you got a deal. It’s just a big game they play and most people don’t realize it. I’ve been checking the special offers site since April every morning then they release this “discount” at 1:00 am. on Tuesday Didn’t see it until 5:45 am and then it didn’t even help me.
Very disappointed.
Thank you, Tom, for sending out the email early Tuesday. I was able to log in and get free dining for our trip in November. We saved about $550 and added two more days to our Park Hopper. I did not encounter any issues with the website when I logged in at 7:45 am.