Is it important to book on release day of free dining?

[mummybear]

Hi all,
Just wondering, if they release free dining as hoped, is it important to book on the first day? I.e. are the best prices on release day?
Thanks

[Alien]

no, it's not. Some hotels run out of rooms fast but not as fast as one day

[HappyThoughts]

Definitely not essential to book on release day. To be honest I think it’s more excitment that makes people book that day (or at least it is for me), like after all those months of researching, planning & waiting we can FINALLY book. I don’t want to wait after that, I just wanna be booked & start the official holiday planning 😃

[goodevans]

Unfortunately we found that although I looked on the day of release and for a few weeks afterwards no standard rooms ever became available for our dates at POR

I ended up booking a Garden View for fear of not getting anything and it cost about £300 more

I kept checking as I would have changed booking and paid the £50 admin charge if any standards had come up but they never did.

Can't say I was that thrilled with the Garden View we got given either as it looked out on an area reserved for dog walking ...complete with poo bins !

[pompeyboy]

If you have specific dates and hotel preference then the sooner the better, you can pay a deposit and then pay it off bit by bit. We booked for Feb 2019 in late september 2018 and got a std room at CSR, although we had to go later in the month, stangely they only had availability for the Presidents Day week, which was also half term here, which meant the flight prices doubled from £300 in early Feb to over £600 into MCO for our dates, although we managed to get £350 ones to Miami.

I don't like booking too early myself, we did miss out on the $200 early booking incentive but still got the $100 card.

[blainy]

That's if free dining happens.

[ozzyowl1]

I would agree if you have specific dates and hotels in mind, why not book early. The choices for free dining for this year were quite limited so I would go for it in the first few days!

[DisneyDaffodil]

I booked POFQ for October last year on the day free dining was released. I checked two days later and it wasn’t available for that exact time and didn’t have any more availability afterwards (not when I checked anyway) so it is possible that certain dates and rooms sell out quickly

[disney20042012]

Its also worth checking if there is cash back offered through Quidco etc, we had £90 back one year when we booked with Disney.

[Cloverlady]

Originally Posted by goodevans

Unfortunately we found that although I looked on the day of release and for a few weeks afterwards no standard rooms ever became available for our dates at POR

I ended up booking a Garden View for fear of not getting anything and it cost about £300 more

I kept checking as I would have changed booking and paid the £50 admin charge if any standards had come up but they never did.

Can't say I was that thrilled with the Garden View we got given either as it looked out on an area reserved for dog walking ...complete with poo bins !

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Same here, had to book Garden View although we'd have preferred standard, because a view isn't a view to us at a moderate due to folks walking past, so curtains are usually closed all the time anyway. Never saw any standard rooms come on despite looking

For next year we will book on release as usual (if free dining is even offered!) as we have flight dates set already.