Calling European DIBBers (non UK, non Irish)

[chmurf]

Hi, fellow EU compadres, sorry Irish mates, you might not be affected

Hello, I'm French ... hello french ...

We usually book our disney trips through WDTC UK, or rather IE as we all pay in euros

It used to be ok, even though the sites said the offers and tickets were for UK and Irish residents only. WDTC told us it was OK

but, since the last couple of days, there is growing concern.
A new "language" has appeared on the UK site.
If you click on the language link at the top of our UK/IE site, you might have noticed a new language called "Europe (Euros)" and if you've clicked through you'll realise the prices are in euros, just like on the Irish version, but the offers and prices are much different

for example, there are no 14/21 days ultimates, there are only the US Magic Your Way Tickets, billed in Euros

so, there is a growing concern among the EU community, that we may no longer be able to book the UK/IE deals, such as Free Dining and the ultimates (or is that a reason for the 2019 price release being pushed back compared to previous years ?)


as anyone heard anything about the situation ?

[fredflintstone]

I thought that restricting one european country from buying from another was not allowed under European law so in theory they will not be able to restrict it. Doesn't mean they may not make it easy. Of course you could just use a UK or ie based vpn to make the website think you were in that country if it becomes an issue of doing it on the website.

[DisneyHoneymoon]

I noticed this yesterday, too. I have family in Germany, who normally book the UK offer.
The payment screen still looks the same on the UK and IE version and still lets you select a different country for the billing address, though.

[3family]

Irish here but I’ve had a look there

Previously when booking though disneyholidays.ie I could change the site from Ireland (€) to United Kingdom (£) but now can change to Europe (€)

That bit is definitely new. Just did a quick search and it seems the prices there are slightly dearer too

[chmurf]

Originally Posted by fredflintstone

I thought that restricting one european country from buying from another was not allowed under European law so in theory they will not be able to restrict it. .

See more...

well, there was a draft of a law banning discrimination based on country of residence, back in 2016, but TBH I don't know if it ever made it into the Law

I'm among those who are the most confident we'll still be able to book the UK offers (after all we can book disneyland paris on any european or UK site, all of which having different deals) but I'm opening this thread here in the hope to get feedback for the folks back on a non-english speaking forum.
There are a fair number of people, not UK/IE residents who are eagerly waiting for the 2019 free dining deal. So as you may understand every little thing takes ginormous proportions and people need some kind of reassurance

[ianc]

Not being a Disney employee, I have no idea why they are doing it, but as a Dibber I can speculate!

The UK leaves the EU at the end of March next year (I won't mention the B word in case it is banned on here!), and they will be selling holidays for dates after that. Any 'alignment' (or whatever word you want to call it) after that date depends on the current negotiations. UK citizens may lose benefits resulting from EU membership and EU citizens may lose benefits they have from the UK - you need to have a word with Michel Barnier and ask him to be a bit nicer to the UK, so he is aware of the negative effect on EU citizens, so we can all remain friends afterwards.

Lots of companies have different web sites in different countries. I am surprised Disney seem to have only one 'European' one, instead of separate French, German, Spanish, Italian ones etc in those languages.

[Alien]

The prices are different and you can't book over 14 days either, but I have a feeling they haven't properly launch it yet and will adjust.

EU is big and relatively wealthy market, WDW would want to keep their guest as diverse as possible in case (or when) there is another downturn in US. Ireland is still eu - you have to option to buy the Irish package but I suspect they will offer same packages for the rest of EU.

Perhaps it suited WDWTC to have base in UK and sell to EU but could look to have legal entity outside UK to protect their sales.

I am based in Ireland but with the dip in pound value it made more sense for me to book in GBP and I had no issues doing so.

The prices for next year aren't out yet and I think this is little unusual. For first time in years the usd value is down compared to 12 months ago. They had overbooking problems this year, limited rooms due to renovations and new attractions opening attracting crowds. There will be some offers again, but I am really not sure if they will be as good and will there be as many rooms as they had last year.

I wouldn't worry for now - you always have .ie to book your free dinning.

[CosmicGirl]

It appears to be a strange mix of the .ie and .com sites with .ie hotel prices without offers and US tickets without the option to buy less than length of stay. It's the worst of both worlds, really. For the dates and resorts I checked it would be much cheaper to just book on the US site and have the added flexibility of getting tickets for fewer days. For this reason I can't see anyone booking a stay like this as it is presented now. It would only take a tiny bit of research to figure out that it's not a good deal.

[myaquarium]

I think it's Disney just protecting their profits. They don't really want people booking tickets or holidays across countries in case they specifically target a country for offers. For instance the USA gives great short term offers to us visitors as does Disney Paris to French visitors. The U.K. Market gets great 2 week deals due to our nature of taking 2 or 3 week holidays abroad. As mentioned you just need to get a bit of tech advice and get a vpn.

[unixgirl]

Maybe Disney are going to launch some country specific sites in the EU. Je ne sais pas. I live in Amsterdam and have booked both UK and US site stays now.
They do have a Disneyland Paris NL website with different offers so they could be just extending that. The other thing to consider is data privacy wrt financial transactions, as long as the UK is part of the EU it's all under the same banner. Once the UK leaves there can be restrictions that financial data is not allowed to be held in the UK for an EU citizen for example.