PortOrleans.org Discussion Forums

Disney has today released their Free Disney Dining Plan offer to encourage bookings for the slower Autumn/Fall season, valid for visits commencing on selected dates between 28 August 2015 and 21 December 2015. However, once again, the deals available for guests planning to stay at Port Orleans are very limited.

Port Orleans French Quarter has been completely excluded from the offer again this year, while Riverside has a few rooms available for the first month only, from 28 August to 2 October. I'm guessing that those will probably sell out fairly quickly though, so get your bookings in quickly if you don't want to miss out. Note: you will need to book a non-discounted stay of at least three nights, with a minimum of two days worth of park tickets, in order to receive the standard Dining Plan for everyone in your party for the entire length of your stay.

For more details on this promotion, and for other deals and money saving offers related to Walt Disney World (including a new Late Summer offer giving 20% discounts on rooms at both Riverside and French Quarter) I highly recommend a visit to MouseSavers.com. It's well worth checking to see what other deals are available on the dates you plan to travel, as unless you are a group of 3+ people staying in one room, and are big eaters in the first place, it can sometimes work out cheaper to get a better room-only discount and then pay for food as you go. 'Free' dining isn't always quite the deal it first seems once you crunch the numbers.

I would just like to point out that along with the upgraded tickets you have to purchase, there are only a select rooms availble. Example: We booked our rooms in the Preferred Section in the AB. When the promotion came out, my TA called to change us to the Free DIning Promotion, but the only thing we could book were the Royal Rooms, and again that was an upgrade. By the time she added that, and the park hopper option, our new total with free dining was not saving us a thing. We wound up moving to POFQ with the discount and being much happier with location and cost. We enjoyed the Royal Rooms last time, but my daughter has outgrown the princess phase for now, so she wanted no part of them this time.

Quite. As I said, 'free' dining sounds simple enough, but it's not always quite the deal that it first appears to be. Disney aren't stupid I guess.

Andre