Perks of staying onsite?

[Tea]

What's left? Parking soon to be gone and I see mention of "diluting of other perks such as the fastpass booking window and the Extra Magic hours many of the "little perks" are rapidly being erroded"

Are the FP window and EMH gone for onsite?
If so what's left?
We're looking at approx $150 per day for "free dining" cost for our family of 6 on qsdp, which isn't exactly good value ($320 per night for AK villas, minus $120 which we'd usually spend on a villa accommodation per night, minus gift card etc works out about the $ 150 mark for food)

EDit: I worked it out again: it's actually more like 200 for qsdp or 280 per day for ddp. Now I love my food, but you would really want to be stuffing your face for that sort of money- we all know Disney food is overpriced... Oh why do they have to make it so expensive. I really want to justify it!

[Conno]

Originally Posted by Tea

Are the FP window and EMH gone for onsite?

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Nope.. FP window is diluted though, as a bunch of offsite hotels now also have 60 day availability, and Club-Level guests have the option to buy an extra 3 FPs.

[sha9]

Parking is still free for UK bookings plus stays booked on DVC points will have free parking. 60 day FP booking for length of stay and EMH still exist.

[dvc]

FP and EMH are still available and we've had no issues booking ours for the busy time of July. Also there's Disney transport from MCO and back and around the parks. We've stopped hiring a car, we Uber now for the few off site trips. We've never had an issue with Disney transport even at busy times I.e. mid summer and Christmas. I love staying on site I our DVC studi.

[legallyblonde]

We are here now and like eating out on holiday. Every sit down meal we have had this time for 2 adults and 2 kids has been at least $150. Also, we have hammered the snacks for drinks and ice-creams in the heat. In my view, the fee DDP has been invaluable for us. We bough $2000 spending money and have hardly touched it. We have also had some lovely varied meals. We would never have been able to have them all if paying OOP.

[Sew109]

Originally Posted by Tea

What's left? Parking soon to be gone and I see mention of "diluting of other perks such as the fastpass booking window and the Extra Magic hours many of the "little perks" are rapidly being erroded"

Are the FP window and EMH gone for onsite?
If so what's left?
We're looking at approx $150 per day for "free dining" cost for our family of 6 on qsdp, which isn't exactly good value ($320 per night for AK villas, minus $120 which we'd usually spend on a villa accommodation per night, minus gift card etc works out about the $ 150 mark for food)

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$25 per day per person you don’t think is good value for 2 QSDP 2 snacks and a refillable mug really ?

That is amazing value;
Large coffee at Starbucks $5
Lunch at Harbour house land and sea platter and drink $17
Ice cream $5
Dinners sunshine seasons pork loin and drink $17
1x coffee 1 xsoda at hotel in cup $7

So $51 + tax worth of food for $25 with no tax and I have selcted standard meals not the ones that you can ensue to really maximise your value.

If you think that you can getter better value for food for $25 per person per day please let me know where I would love to know.

[Jakey Neverland]

I didn't realise the 60d FP had been diluted, how have people actually found that? Has there been a noticeable difference?

[YorkshireT]

It's bound to make some difference for the really hard to get FP as you now have thousands more people chasing the same FP.
Remember, the free parking for UK guests is supposedly ending (I think) end of 2019, and it's then stated they will have to pay. This will rack up, because it's $25 a night at deluxe resorts. So if someone takes a car for a typical fortnight, $350 just for parking. Simply fleecing the customer in my view, when already paying a Disney premium.
With cash prices marching upwards (particularly for anything other than studios), renting DVC points may be the way forward. Then you'll get free parking still.
My suspicion is they were late announcing the free 2019 dining because they were waiting to hear when Star Wars would open. They released free dining only a few weeks ago and this week effectively said Star Wars would open just before Xmas.
I'll be very interested when the 2020 prices come out, but expect them to shoot up again if the economy is holding up. They are on 90 odd % hotel occupancy now, it will be near 100%. There will be no incentive to fight for our business with offers at all.

[Sew109]

We were going next year but have almost talked ourselves out of it I think that the park tickets are amazing value and the dining plan with a booking is.

We were trying visualise us standing at gates of each park thinking about what we want to do and there was really very little add the crowds and the weather and we are thinking do we really want to spend all this money for this experience. Probably go West Coast next year sure Disney is not as good but that is the only thing, evertyhing else is so much better than Florida. Let’s face it none of us would go to Orlando if it did not have disney

[sha9]

Originally Posted by Sew109

We were going next year but have almost talked ourselves out of it I think that the park tickets are amazing value and the dining plan with a booking is.

We were trying visualise us standing at gates of each park thinking about what we want to do and there was really very little add the crowds and the weather and we are thinking do we really want to spend all this money for this experience. Probably go West Coast next year sure Disney is not as good but that is the only thing, evertyhing else is so much better than Florida. Let’s face it none of us would go to Orlando if it did not have disney

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To be fair, that’s more about you feeling Disney in Orlando is not for you any more rather than a lack of onsite perks.

I must admit the parking fee is causing me some concern. Our preference is to hire a car for the flexibility but I don’t think I can stomach paying for something I’ve had free up to now. It dilutes the free theme park parking to the extent I’d definitely consider an off site hotel for 2020. Or it may be that we rent DVC points as OKW is our favourite resort anyway.