Announcement today from Disney

[jimmy-google]

Disney offer you a package at a price and you chose whether or not you want to pay that price. Whether they call it free or not is very much in their mind. You pay for the package as a whole. They can call it free but you have paid for it.

I suspect that the reason we are still waiting in the UK is legal one that they are still working out

[MariaLynda]

I'm potentially one of those at csr that they need to move at the end of September, I'm not going but haven't cancelled yet as waiting to see if any offer appears. I would imagine there are many like that. So when working out what they have left to fill, it won't be accurate at all.

[Flower2603]

I'm becoming impatient too now, I received their invoice for final balance payment today, we booked direct with WDW.

Obviously I don't want to pay the balance as I really want to cancel our August trip, but if they keep us waiting indefinitely, I'll have to pay it.

[lizzie145]

it is not a simple process. They are trying to sort out hotels for the NBA? players and this will have an affect on anyone staying in those hotels.
Those people will have to be contacted and moved or postponed etc first.
Add in those people with free DP who will either want to move or cancel, sprinkle in the added complication of the travel ban and it is all one big mess.

Americans are easier to sort as it is only internal travel so they should be ok. What is the point of sorting out overseas guests if we cannot fly

[WeHeartOrlando]

I understand that Disney must be having a difficult time trying to reorganise so many bookings but it is disappointing that they haven't yet been more forthcoming with any offers (or to say there won't be any).

I am still holding out hope that we will manage to keep our Disney portion of the holiday but will likely angle for a downgrade as we only booked a moderate for the dining plan. I've also hedged my bets a little and booked two rooms at Endless Summer and a suite at St Pete Beach, all fully refundable, just in case we decide to forgo Disney altogether. The cost of these plus the extra costs needed for food are less than the cost of my Disney rooms (one free dining, one not).

As ever the usual caveats apply re the border, the FCO, and overall just what happens over the next few weeks with the parks opening up.

[Emmymouse]

Originally Posted by Miss_Tangled

Could they be stalling to see how many initially cancel, then if they are moving those staying at CSR working out where to reallocate guests and seeing what they are left to work with before contacting everyone with a new offer...if there’s to be one at all?

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I was thinking that, but the message people are getting from Disney CMs is don't cancel, wait

[nth09]

Originally Posted by jimmy-google

Disney offer you a package at a price and you chose whether or not you want to pay that price. Whether they call it free or not is very much in their mind. You pay for the package as a whole. They can call it free but you have paid for it.

I suspect that the reason we are still waiting in the UK is legal one that they are still working out

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Absolutely correct. You pay the quoted price for a specific set of "goods" in return. The dining plan is WITHIN the price. In this case it is the accommodation AND the dining plan. I'm absolutely sure that the majority of people would not have paid what they did for the accommodation alone. Instead most, if only interested in the accommodation, would have taken up an alternative offer perhaps free nights. Although it seems, by the argument that some follow here, that it have been entirely fair to offer you free nights and then tell you you'll have to pay for them. They were free so you can't have any complaint if you aren't given them!

[clucky1966]

Originally Posted by nth09

Absolutely correct. You pay the quoted price for a specific set of "goods" in return. The dining plan is WITHIN the price. In this case it is the accommodation AND the dining plan. I'm absolutely sure that the majority of people would not have paid what they did for the accommodation alone. Instead most, if only interested in the accommodation, would have taken up an alternative offer perhaps free nights. Although it seems, by the argument that some follow here, that it have been entirely fair to offer you free nights and then tell you you'll have to pay for them. They were free so you can't have any complaint if you aren't given them!

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Completely agree, we are a family of 5 and had a villa booked until Disney released 'free' DDP, we then cancelled villa because we worked out that the dining package was worth so much to us as a family 5 plus the other onsite perks i.e. EMH etc.

Without the dining package we would never have booked and forgone the space of the villa to all stay in room for 10 nights.

I could have coped with no fireworks, parades etc but no DDP is deal breaker to us, just so frustrating that Disney have made this announcement a week ago, have taken all my dining reservations off the app (although QSDP is still showing but not for long I imagine) but no email to it's customers even though balance payment is looming to explain what our options are, becoming very frustrating

[alisonjones]

Originally Posted by clucky1966

Completely agree, we are a family of 5 and had a villa booked until Disney released 'free' DDP, we then cancelled villa because we worked out that the dining package was worth so much to us as a family 5 plus the other onsite perks i.e. EMH etc.

Without the dining package we would never have booked and forgone the space of the villa to all stay in room for 10 nights.

I could have coped with no fireworks, parades etc but no DDP is deal breaker to us, just so frustrating that Disney have made this announcement a week ago, have taken all my dining reservations off the app (although QSDP is still showing but not for long I imagine) but no email to it's customers even though balance payment is looming to explain what our options are, becoming very frustrating

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Totally agree with this - we have only just re-arranged our holiday from 11th May this year to the 29th September this year - and honestly the disney part of the holiday was the hardest to re-arrange we were originally booked for CSR but none left to transfer to for sept - so was offered CBR but they wanted a whopping £600 extra per booking (there are 3 rooms booked) we had to opt for All Stars with upgraded dining plan - took a week to sort out - the very next day POR became available - but for 400 per booking extra took that with upgraded mean plan - we were only stuck on Disney for the DDP - will have to go through the whole hassle again with Disney. It's the not knowing that is bugging me too and your dates are well before mine so can only imagine how frustrated you must be.

[Tretinker]

Originally Posted by Nimbus

Free dining clearly is a "perk". Perks are booking incentives. Just as all the onsite benefits are "perks" and exist to entice people to pay more money to stay onsite.

It is a more significant perk, with an obvious monetary value, than the others but it is still a perk and booking incentive.

I wouldn't say removing it is unreasonable. They are plenty of people who book a stay at a Disney hotel and pay rack rate without the free dining. Clearly, people who did have free dining are very unhappy with its removal, which is understandable (I am one of them). Mind you, people get unhappy about a lot of things. That doesn't mean they are entitled to anything to replace that free booking incentive.

I would like a discount to make up for the lack of free dining. I do not feel entitled to receive a discount for the lack of free dining.

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This is bonkers

So if you sign up for a phone contract with 'free' phone you'd be fine if they then turned around and told you actually you aren't getting the phone after all. I mean there are plenty of people that pay more for the same phone so why not? I mean you would like the phone but your not entitled to it right?