Promotions and Discounts

One of the best special offers ever available at Disney World is back! Free dining!

Here's the background. Disney offers a special add-on for its vacation packages called the Disney Dining Plan. For $40/day per adult and $11/day per child (age 3-9), you get one counter-service meal, one table-service meal and one snack for each night of your Disney hotel stay. Normally, my opinion is that the Dining Plan is a good deal only if you would normally eat (on average) one table-service meal a day.

(Fine print: the Dining Plan can only be added to vacation packages that include your Disney hotel room and theme park tickets. Everyone has to have the same tickets, and all have to participate in the Dining Plan. Here's a PDF file with all the Disney Dining Plan details.)

Our family usually prefer counter-service dining... to save time as much as anything. So the Dining Plan usually isn't a good deal for our family.

So here's the good news: Every fall for the past few years, Disney has offered the Dining Plan for free! And it's back for 2009! That's right. You can get two meals and a snack each day of your vacation if you book a five-night, six-day Disney World vacation (or longer) for no extra charge.

Disney's fine print:

• Must be booked between March 30 and June 21, 2009
• Offer available for most nights August 16-October 3, 2009
• Minimum three-night stay in a Disney World hotel, with at least one-day Magic Your Way theme park tickets.
• Can be upgraded to the Deluxe Dining Plan or Dining with Wine or Deluxe Dining with Wine package for an additional fee.
•  Not available on all nights
• Cannot be combined with any other discounts, such as group rates

My pointers:

• The sooner you book, the more likely you are to get your preferred travel dates.
• Reservations are highly recommended table-service dining. To make sure you can take advantage of all of your entitlements, be sure to make dining reservations beginning 90 days before your travel date!
• Budget for tips, which aren't included in the Dining Plan.
• Our family stretches our credits by using the snack option for breakfast and by splitting counter-service meals. We also prefer to eat the table-service meal for lunch, since it's sooooo filling!

So if you've been thinking about a Disney World vacation, now's the time to book. You can book online or through my favorite travel agents, Joe and Liz at Dream Come True Vacations.

 Now... time for me to contact Joe and book my fall Disney World vacation!

Well, it's official... We're all getting more chances to spend the night in Cinderella's Castle, the highlight of every Disney World map and loved by millions!

The Disney team has announced that the Year of A Million Dreams is being extended through 2008. That means the daily prize awards in the parks will continue through then, but few details on whether some of the other programs will continue. Of course, the most covered prize is a night in Cinderella's castle!

There's one more special treat for Annual Passholders... another chance to win a night in Cinderella's Castle this year. To enter, send a 3-by-5-inch or 4-by-6-inch photograph of you (or you and your family) "experiencing a Disney Dream come true in one of the Walt Disney World Theme Parks" and a completed entry form to this address by September 30, 2007:

Passholder Dreams Photo Contest
PO Box 1000
Lake Buena Vista FL 32820

Download the official entry form on this Disney World web page.

Your entry must be postmarked by 5:00 PM September 30. The grand prize includes one night in Cinderella's Castle on November 8, dinner for two at Cinderella's Royal Castle, selected merchandise and $500 for travel expenses if you live more than 150 miles from Disney World. There will be four "first place" prizes of $200 gift cards.

One sticky little rule: You must have been a Passholder on July 31 in order to be eligible. To read more, visit the Passholder Dreams Photo Contest page on the official Disney World web site.