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 just looked again today at what rooms were available the week before Thanksgiving for free dining, and found that Preferred was available at Caribbean Beach Resort. I know the day of booking, this type of room wasn’t available (of course, all of the rooms could have been gone, but when I talked to someone over the phone, they said Preferred was never offered at this resort for free dining). Is Disney adding more options for free dining, or did I just get super lucky? I didn’t want Pirate Rooms, since we plan on using the pool often, so I’m glad to have switched to Preferred. We’re still staying at the Pirate room for one night, since we arrive on the 16th.
I really want Beach Club, but since I’ve paid off our entire trip, I will probably stop looking to see if rooms ever become available. I’ve changed my reservation so many times since I originally booked back in October of last year. I started in the princess rooms at Riverside, switched to All Star Movies, then Pop Century, then Caribbean Beach. And I’ve changed rooms in Caribbean Beach at least 3 times. Standard, to Preferred, to Pirate Rooms, back to Preferred. I’m really glad this can all be done online. lol.
I am not very happy with Disney now. I have a standing reservation at Boardwalk that I made in January 2019 for stay in September 2019 with hopes that an annual pass discount would be released eventually. Finally, good discounts for resorts were released last week and I immediately called my travel agent to get my 35% discount. Even my travel agent was hopeful that there would be no problems. Unfortunately, no good news here. Disney told her that since I booked in January 2019 with no discount at that time, the price I got then was still a better deal than utilizing the 35% off passholder discount on the new higher price now. In other words, Disney inflated the rack rate at Boardwalk so much over the past few months that a whopping 35% off discount would not make any positive difference for me. Are you kidding me!!!???!!!??? That is crazy!!! I mean one of the reasons I chose to get annual passes was for the special resort discounts that passholders usually get. What a slap in the face!!!! All on top of all the other price hikes done the past few months. So ridiculous. I know Star Wars land and all of the other upgrades at the parks are not cheap, but come on Disney, don’t spring so much price gouging on us loyal fans all at one time. Give us some adjustment time please. We usually do Disney World 3-4 times per year, with each trip ranging from 7-10 days. I now calculate that each of our trips to Disney World moving forward will cost us over $1,000 MORE than they did even last year because of all the price hacks. Sure, we will still go to Disney World every year, but probably only once per year now. Disney has forced us to look elsewhere for vacation fun. My travel agent is giving me information on season passes to Universal and Sea World now. Sorry Disney, you lose!!
I totally agree that Disney price increases are reaching epic proportions. This latest overnight-sneaky they pulled on passholders was icing on the cake. But as it relates to the Boardwalk, which seems to follow similarly to the Beach Club– and the Yacht Club even though the YC is always a little higher– I haven’t seen any major price increases. We did Epcot in March and stayed at the BC. The day Tom blogged about free dining, I was eventually able to check pricing and the BC was almost the same price (for Dec) as what we paid in March. I have noticed, however, that the number of rooms available for the “Annual Passholders” and “Florida Resident” categories seems to have shrunk. Within one day of Tom’s article, there were no more rooms available under either of those categories– a phenomenon I haven’t seen before… not that quickly.
Same here. the rack rate for my room at the Grand Floridian Club level went up $300 since 5 months ago when I booked it, For the same room, same dates.
[email protected]. Is freed Disney dining available for a 3 night stay?
Our trip is for family of 6 dec 11-17 at AoA family suite. We saved $1900. Maybe the stars just aligned but a huge savings for us. We called on the 17th about 7 est and got right through and we were done in about 20 min total.
*we rebooked our existing reservation made in April
I had free dining in 2018, booked my bounce back offer while there and my requested dates of December 7th 2019 to December 13th 2019 were available for free dining. If that was in September of 2018, perhaps the free dining in December of this year was always part of the plan?
My dates are the exact same and i had a bounce back too. Im lretty upset that I booked almost a year ago and people are getting the same deal and make it mega crowded.
I must have lucked out. We are arriving December 21 and staying 7 days. I waited an hour on the phone around 3pm the day of the free dining announcement and got it, we just had to switch from All Star Music to Movies. It was a $500 savings and I’m feeling very grateful for that!
Sounded like great news, however our group is staying at Disney November 9-16 2019 which just misses the free dining plans. Is it possible more dates may be announced?
Hello: we were hoping to find the dining discount as we have almost 20 people in our group. This is a special event that is planned.
Is this deal applicable for any country?
We are coming from South Africa and I’ve managed to book our package with the Free Dining through their online site but after a few comments I’m worried it’s a US only deal? I’ve been searching high and low to find out if it is only valid for US residents (as many have said it won’t be available for those in the U.K. ) Just trying to make sure for my own peace of mind.
I don’t know this for sure, but I would think that the non availability thing is for the Disney branch in the UK. Meaning the free dining is not offered at Walt Disney World UK
I can’t imagine they leave out people coming from different parts of the world. I’ve never seen this as part of the requirement. Only on site resort stay, number of nights stay and park ticket purchase (sometimes park hopper included) are the main parameters that I know about.
Theresa,
There isn’t a Walt Disney World UK. In 5 years however, they are supposed to open a Disney park there.
Candace,
As far as I know you are able to book this deal. It doesn’t seem to be only for U. S. citizens.
Changed reservations and decided to go a week later from our original dates last night. Switched to Contemporary from POR and saved $600. I was ecstatic that we got Contemporary for $600 less than POR by going a week later. I encourage everyone that has the time and flexibility to search and change if possible. It’s well worth it. Even kept most of our ADR’s. I thought my wife was pulling my leg. Children are excited as Contemporary is our favorite. I think we’re going to tack on two more nights at Pop just to check it out (never stayed there).
Hello,
First off Tom a BIG thank you for your Free Dining article but more importantly your TIMING of it. We usually go to Disney every Nov (from Canada) but last year we only got at par pricing instead of free meal plan. Still a savings but always love the free food.
I would occasionally read an article here and there about low crowds for Star Wars, about the other free meal plans already announced (meaning probably none for fall/winter) and all of that just turned us off from rushing to book a return trip.
Then one morning I wake up, get ready for work, and as I take my phone to check my emails I see your article about the free meal plan. I immediately texted my wife and son the details and they were so excited, instantly went into planning mode.
Since we were both working and had meetings that day we could not call Disney until the wife got back home from work. She told me that she initially did have some trouble getting thru but eventually persistance paid off and she got thru.
As mentioned in your follow-up Pop was definitely all sold out by evening time, but we managed to land Sports, I was actually writing the shorthand for Sports and realized it spelt ASS (oops).
Our dates are Nov 14-23 (due to ped days for my son’s school). We had to do 2 bookings to get the free meal plan, one starting on the 17, and another booking for the first 3 days. Since the tickets are on the bigger/later booking, we were told that we would probably have trouble booking data passed online for the first booking (without the associated tickets). Technically we were told the tickets from the later booking may be used days in advance so park entrance was not an issue, only the online fast passes. Since we will be doing the Xmas event upon arrival, and maybe a water park or Universal, it does not become an issue for us. But wanted your readers to know that if their dates fall in between the free meal plan dates, you may have to deal with a double back to back booking for which only one of those will contain the tickets and free meals for the approved period and the other one will not. Logistics more than anything.
Again, thanks for taking the time to let Disney fans like us know what is happening with the parks, rides and also the big announcements like the free meal plan. It landed us a return trip again to Disney and keeps our family tradition going for heading back every year when possible.
Your friends from Canada (Montreal)
Sorry about the typo (could not find the edit comment option).
Typo: have trouble booking data passed online for the first booking
Correction: have trouble booking fast passes online for the first booking
We are going in October to POP we cannot take advantage of these discounts , unfortunately. We will have 3 park days so HS is out for us this year. We really don’t want to deal with the crowds there.
Well I’m super excited! I’m going Christmas week, scored free dining promo at Beach Club Resort (yes we are fanatics and we love crowds-odd I know), and for our family of 5 it saved us almost $2400 (this is a good deal for us due to the fact that we were going to purchase Disney dining plan anyways). There was a lot of availability left and booking it took under 20 minutes! Woo Hoo!!
I couldn’t get it for the week of Thanksgiving at beach club resort. I didn’t get through until about 2 in the afternoon. What gives? Just more people called before me that week? Should I keep trying in case or just give up? I have given up and will be buying my park tickets on park savers instead. Unless someone can advise me of a different plan?
Hi Tom,
First, thanks for the heads-up email. On Tuesday I had my husband call and he got “sorry, all circuits are busy…” I kept trying and trying(this is around 830am EST). So I told my husband to go online. In past years, we’ve made the reservation months in advance and THEN get a credit when the deals came out. Last year we were told we’d have to cancel and book a whole new reservation which we did. This year, we were lucky. When my husband and I couldn’t get through by phone he went online to attempt to cancel/re-do the reservation. Turns out they WERE able to keep our current reservation and credit us 600 bucks(we’re staying at the Boardwalk and likely have a room so far from the elevators we need an Uber to get to our room). I’m just disappointed that Disney is not offering free dining the first week of November, when we will be down there. That’s supposed to be a less busy time so you’d thinkg they’d do what they can to attract people. To have the free dinning DURING times they know will be busy(i.e. Thanksgiving) is odd to me. But, hey, 600 bucks in our pocket is not too bad.
Anyone that booked before Feb 2019 should steer clear of these discounts as they wont really be discounts. Unless they are wanting to upgrade.
Likewise, most people who booked before early May should probably steer clear as well unless they want to upgrade to higher level rooms.
This offer isn’t to get people who were previously booked discounted rates. Its to get new customers or those looking to possibly upgrade rooms. Disney is clearly trying to get higher occupancy rates, and trying to fill its Gran Destino tower. Its not really trying to give pre existing bookings discounts. It wants new books or upgraded bookings. Also, you don’t have to get the park hopper plus, just the park hopper.
I stand corrected….I was told today when I called Disney you had to have the water Park option…Obviously a new cast member….We are going December 8 – 12 ….We tried to update an existing reservation (We booked there this ages ago)…Nothing was available for us…Good luck to all.,..hope you get your rooms!
Hi Butch! We’ll be at Disney (Wilderness Lodge) Dec. 8-12th too! 🙂 This will be our first Christmas time trip to Disney World. We did Disneyland on Christmas Eve 12 years ago and that experience scared us off from the parks in December all together for a LONG while. Lol! The 8th-12th looks decent on the crowd calendars though so I’m hopeful it will be okay. Have you been in December before? Any tips?
I just wanted to comment that I was on-line early in the morning when the deals were released and could not find anything good for December either. I did get an amazing discount and an upgrade for our September trip though! I really question how many rooms were available for these packages in the first place… When I was searching I noticed that WL still had rooms available, just not with the fall discount or the dining plan option.
HI Steve,
This was not true for our trip which was booked back in October. When the free dining was released we were able to modify our reservation and save $1100 for the exact same package. Same resort, no upgrade. Family of four, 6 night, Caribbean Beach standard, 6 day park hopper, standard dining:
Package Price last October: $5512
New price with free dining: $4412
While obviously Disney releases the promos to entice new reservations, it can really pay off for those who play the game to modify existing reservation.
That’s not the norm from most people’s experiences based on all the posts everywhere. Although I thought i posted a follow up that up with YMMV as it also heavily depends on dates. I guess it didn’t go through.
For the record I upgraded to a deluxe suite at CSR because it was now in my price range. It was previously about $2k out of my price range.
We did NOT have to add the water park option. I already had just the park hopper without the water park option in my existing reservations and I did NOT have to add on the water park to get the discount. I got both the resort discount and Free Dining
Hi Sandy,
I don’t know what the cast member told you, but it’s not possible to get both a room discount and a free dining package. One of the requirements for free dining is that you pay rack rate for the room. It’s great that you got a discount, though!
I was looking at booking for the week of Thanksgiving the night before the announcement was made for free dining. When I read your blog I immediately went online and tried to book what I had in my cart not caring about the free dining because my daughters cheer leading team was headed there and we needed the reservations for that time. I sat for a few hours trying to get my reservations to go through and I was trying to call the same time only getting a busy signal. I looked at my email later and one of the many times that I hit purchase went through and my reservations were confirmed but Disney’s website was telling me it wasn’t. That same evening my daughter who had already had reservations in December went online and changed her reservation to free dining without any problem. I also went online at the same time and changed my reservations that I had made earlier that day to free dining with no problem. A day later I decided to extend our stay by one more day and went online and the hotel I had reservations at didn’t have a room for the extended day but another value resort had an opening for all my days so I switched to it with free dining with no problems.
We had a previously booked trip planned for the week following Thanksgiving, in the hopes that we could tie into Nov.-Dec free dining. When it was announced, our agent with AAA travel was right on iit and was able to snag the free dining for us by modifying the dates a few days to qualify. Still staying at Caribbean Beach standard room and saving well over $1100 for our family of four from prior package price. For those of you hoping to snag this amazing promotion, yes it can really save you thousands if you know how to play the game, you really have to do your homework and research historical promotion dates for prior years. Those of you who mentioned October dates I can tell you will never see it offered in the near future for that time period. Best plan is to book when it’s highly likely, but be flexible to swing dates if necessary. Lastly, trust me on this, while I am a many times repeat Disney visitor, I still book with a travel agent from a large company because THEY CAN GET THESE PROMOS much more likely than any person sitting on a computer or on a phone. This may frustrate some of you, but my agent booked ours hours after many of you were posting you couldn’t get through or there was no availability left. It’s truly the only reason I still use them and it has come through for us EVERY TIME for many years. Just my two cents. Good luck!
That TRAP this time around is that Disney is making you buy the Park Hopper AND The Water Park option…Which few people have….Plus Rooms have gone up TWICE since the booking window opened….So as many people are finding out (Just as We did) the “Discounted” price is MORE then what you booked at! (Tom warned us!)
Sorry this is not true. You do not need to add the water park option, only the park hopper. The trick to avoid any room price increases has always been to book early. There is no penalty for changing dates or modifying your reservation once you’ve locked into the room rates.
I have been searching for two days for dates that would work in the timeframe I can travel. Rooms are VERY limited and pricing has increased a lot since last year overall. We were looking for the same timeframe as last year.
My package cost last year was:
11 days – art of animation (cars suite)
Premium dining plan
10 day park hopper passes – 2 adults and 4 kids
Memory Photo Pass
COST: $9,000 last year..
This year:
7 days – art of animation (cars suite)
6 day park hopper passes – 2 adults and 4 kids
Premium dining plan
Memory Photo Pass
COST: $13,000.
That’s a big jump in price.
Why doesn’t Disney honor prior reservations as it pertains to a retroactive free dining plan? My reservation meets all the criteria, but I’m being told that we don’t qualify for the free dining plan upgrade. Very frustrating!
That TRAP this time around is that Disney is making you buy the Park Hopper AND The Water Park option…Which few people have….Plus Rooms have gone up TWICE since the booking window opened….So as many people are finding out (Just as We did) the “Discounted” price is MORE then what you booked at! (Tom warned us!)
You DO NOT have to add the water park option, only the park hopper. Look on the details of the offer on the website.
Same for us because we are staying in a DVC villa at the Grand Floridian (is not on the list but we tried. ) We booked in Feb. at a non-discounted rate. We are not DVC members. We were told that the offer is not for hotels they are not concerned about filling. Seems a bit unfair to me but if we would re-book for the GF ( if rooms were available) for a standard room our pricing was $1,500 more than what we already paid. Honestly, there is no way a dining plan is worth that for 5 days for 3 people. So, it comes down to weighing the extra room cost against the cost of the dining plan. If you’ve booked a discounted room your not eligible for free dining or vice-versa.
I got through straight away on the phone 8:30pm south Australian time (7am Florida) and didn’t really expect to be successful. I booked 9 night stay at All Star Music with 6 day park base tickets arriving 26th November (one day within the cut off for one of the time periods). I was told she would have to move us from Music to Sports and pay $255 to upgrade to park hopper and we would get free dining. I asked for comparison what the 10% room discount was and it was about $200. So I chose to be moved to Sports and take the dining package. Was so shocked and excited it was that easy 🙂