Hi guys So one of my friends at work asked me how much roughly it would be for her to take her son who will be 14 and her two granchildren to Disney for two weeks in september? My question is how does the resort discount work? Do you have to book hotel spearate to flights in order to get the discount? How far in advance can you book for other people using discount? Is their room garanteed once it's booked? Do you have to stay with them the entire time? Would they still get free dining in certain resorts? Any help is much appreciated Hope you're all good Thanks x
I'll try to help.... with your cast discount you get 40-60% roughly off resorts. If you are staying with them you get a bigger discount than if you just book them a 'friends and family' rate. If you aren't staying with them you have to go sometime in the week before and show your cast member ID to the front desk. I'm not sure about the meal plan... I'm pretty sure when I booked the room for my family we did the meal plan, but I'm not positive as it was a year ago and my memory fades quickly. I've never booked flights and hotels together before, and I'm pretty sure you can book pretty far in advance, at least 6 months. The Free dining is only offered at some of the resorts at certain times of the year as well...but you knew that I'm sure. As for park tickets you can get up to 3 people in 12 (i think this number got increased?) per calendar year. So you could get them all in except for one, unless one is under 3 in which case they would be free! You would just have to go to the front of the park with them, go through the cast member gate, and they will be each given a park hopper ticket for the day. Hopefully something in there was helpful, I'm sure someone else will answer with more information
Thank you so much it's helped a great deal. 40% is loads! Say accomodation was like £2000 that would be a saving of £800 (I think I worked that out right lol) Thanks again
Cast Resort rooms have nothing at all to do with flights. You will have to book them separately. Dining plans get discounted at certain times of the year, and I've never heard of any kind of free dining involved unless you start booking package deals (which you can't do and get resort room discount). You will have to sort out everything separately. Park tickets or main-gating, flights, hotel... everything is separate, there is no bundling together of anything when you start looking at cast discounts. Time scale - I can book now up until Dec 31st 2011. You pay a deposit when booking. Like all deposits, this guarantees the booking. They are not your direct family, therefore if you main gate them into the parks, you will have to stay with them. They are your responsibility, and if they do anything that Disney doesn't like, you will get termed for it. As for the rooms - there are two rates: friend and family, and rates for yourself. kate003 covered how they work, although you get less of a discount with the friends and family rates.
If the 50% room is still available, you can book it the day before you want it. It all depends on availability.
So is it only your direct family you can let in the park and then they are free to roam all parks for the day without you?I go next year and will have family coming out at xmas hopefully but also some friends at some point. If I let 3 in at xmas then that means no more for the rest of the year as I've used up the allowance? thanks
i got mine within a month last time, but I had to go to the offices at celebration to get it because they hadn't sent them to location at that point. so I think you can actually get them faster if you are willing to travel to get it!
http://www.wdwip.com/wiki/Common_Questions#What_about_discounts_for_visiting_family_and_friends.3F Actually, I don't know whether such information's still valid or not I'm really interested in this stuff, since a few friends of mine (and possibly my mum and brother) would like to come to Florida. I've found a few "value hotels" which are not expensive, and they would be particularly cheap for them with discounts. Just another question: are the discounts/free tickets sent automatically to cast members, or do we have to ask for them? And what about peak season, when such tickets should not be accepted... Do you think Halloween belongs to peak season?
I believe that it's now 16 per year, rather than 12, and we have them sooner than 3 months. There's no probationary period as far as I know. We receive them automatically, they are sent to us at the accommodation assuming you change your address on the hub after you arrive. If you don't, they'll send them to your home address I think and then you'll have to get them forwarded to you in Florida x x
Also, on the Halloween topic, the maingate does have blockouts, but as far as I can remember it's mainly just 4th July weekend and Christmas (with the odd other week here and there). Mind you, you do get sent a couple of complimentary tickets as well (which, side note, download them before you finish your program so you can still use them ie. I finished in March, but my comp tickets are valid til 2012). A girl I knew, her family were over at Christmas and she just asked people really nicely if she could have their comp tickets, so because she couldn't maingate them because of blockouts, they still got in free. But yeah, about Halloween...slightly drifted there . If you want to go to Mickey's Not So Scary, it's on for a couple of months. They'll tell you certain dates that are cheaper for cast members (don't know how it works for getting tickets for family though). So if you go about 2 weeks before halloween, it'll be cheaper, but if you go actuallly on halloween night, it'll be full price. (Oh, and you'll get your maingate after about 3 weeks)
Generally also as part of the Christmas cast celebration, you get another main gate on a separate christmassy card, so in theory during your year when you're on the CRP you will get another chance to get 3 people in plus yourself. Grooveyem has a good tip there, you will also generally get 4 comp tickets during your time there which are not connected to the main gate scheme, they are bits of paper with barcodes on which get anyone in for free, and you don't have to be with the people who are using them either. These tickets will get you into any Disney park in the world with the exception of Tokyo Disneyland and Tokyo Disneysea (oriental land company won't allow it), we used some recently in Paris. I believe this is the same for main gate cards, can be used at all Disney Parks except Tokyo, correct me if im wrong someone!
Another question! I read in an older thread something about a 90 day probation period before we could use our hotel discounts....is that still true??
