Free Disney Meals 2021

[Festival]

Hi - apologies if this has been asked already, however does anyone have any insight yet if Disney will release their 2021 free Disney dining plan. We haven't been to Florida since 2016 but manged to get the free QS dining plan and a gift card. Have Disney been doing the same offer each year?
Also, can anyone remind me how the Disney Hotels are banded with this offer as we stayed at the Caribbean Beach but recall the offers weren't as generous with Pop Century.
Finally are there any tricks I need to know that have come to be common knowledge to Dibbers since 2016 please?
Many thanks in advance!
Aiming to go August 2021.
Festi x

[sarah82]

We had free Disney Dining in May 2019
I looked at the serious hotels I liked & once it was released I priced up the different options & possible upgrades or just paying oop
We ended up staying at AKL for 2 weeks with the full dining plan as it gave us best value for money & a hotel we loved - in our opinion!

[katie786]

We are planning on Sept 2021, when we went last year we had the Free Dining - we stayed at POFQ and upgraded to the regular dining plan rather than just QS and we loved it, so definitely hoping we can do the same again next time!
From what I've heard they typically release packages around April of the previous year? I'm just hoping the 50th anniversary doesn't have too much of an effect on the window they release it for.

[mrsmickey]

There are several threads in this already. Disney usually do free dining plan in late April. It’s not guaranteed they will, but you do get a few days notice. There’s different exclusions each year so no guarantees in which hotels are in or out. Generally value resorts get free breakfast (which is really a free QS credit), moderated get free QS dining plan and deluxes get free DDP. You can upgrade a value or moderate to the bigger dining plans, but if you are planning on doing that it’s then worth looking at the next tier of hotel as the difference between upgrading the dining plan to upgrading the hotel may be minimal. They did free gift cards last year.

[ontwofronts]

Originally Posted by katie786

We are planning on Sept 2021, when we went last year we had the Free Dining - we stayed at POFQ and upgraded to the regular dining plan rather than just QS and we loved it, so definitely hoping we can do the same again next time!
From what I've heard they typically release packages around April of the previous year? I'm just hoping the 50th anniversary doesn't have too much of an effect on the window they release it for.

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We did the same, POFQ and upgraded the plan. We’ll look to do the same next year.

[Elodie]

We originally booked Caribbean Beach for this August, and had upgraded the free QSDP to DDP. We knew we wanted the DDP for character meals etc, and for us, this was the best value way to get it and stay at a hotel we liked the sound of. However, the rooms that were released in the first wave of free dining were the pirate rooms, which we weren’t so keen on. (They did later offer the free QSDP for standard rooms there.)

We kept checking the offers, and about a week later, they added garden view rooms at Beach Club to the free dining offer, with free DDP. It was another £100 a night, but we loved the sound of Stormalong Bay etc, so we switched our booking the next day.

The moral of the story is, if you have decided on the hotel / room type you want, and it’s not offered when they first release free dining, all is not lost. Either wait to see if it gets added later, or if there’s a compromise hotel that you’re willing to accept, then book that as Plan B, and hope you get the chance to switch to your preferred hotel later.

[yogadeb]

Originally Posted by Elodie

We originally booked Caribbean Beach for this August, and had upgraded the free QSDP to DDP. We knew we wanted the DDP for character meals etc, and for us, this was the best value way to get it and stay at a hotel we liked the sound of. However, the rooms that were released in the first wave of free dining were the pirate rooms, which we weren’t so keen on. (They did later offer the free QSDP for standard rooms there.)

We kept checking the offers, and about a week later, they added garden view rooms at Beach Club to the free dining offer, with free DDP. It was another £100 a night, but we loved the sound of Stormalong Bay etc, so we switched our booking the next day.

The moral of the story is, if you have decided on the hotel / room type you want, and it’s not offered when they first release free dining, all is not lost. Either wait to see if it gets added later, or if there’s a compromise hotel that you’re willing to accept, then book that as Plan B, and hope you get the chance to switch to your preferred hotel later.

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Great advice .

Sorry to jump on but is it the garden rooms at bc which guarantees a balcony ? As I realise not all have balconies .

[Gp1602]

Beach Club balconies are very small - you cannot sit out on them. You can out stuff out there to dry or open for fresh air but not much else. Our Garden view room had a balcony

[Elodie]

Originally Posted by yogadeb

Great advice .

Sorry to jump on but is it the garden rooms at bc which guarantees a balcony ? As I realise not all have balconies .

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Going by the Touring Plans map of different balconies, the only rooms with no balconies are the ground floor rooms and about 5 or 6 rooms on floor 2. Every other room above ground floor either has a full balcony or a small Juliet balcony.

As a rule: floor 2 has a mix of full and mini balconies; floor 3 mainly has small Juliet balconies; floor 4 has a mix, mainly full balcony (but slightly smaller than floor 2); and floor 5 has full balconies (again slightly smaller than floor 2).

(It sounds like the Dibber above most likely had a Juliet balcony, as photos of the full balconies do show them with chairs to sit out on.)