If I get to do the ICP this year I will start in June and finish at the end of August. My family will want to come visit and I heard about the discount CMs can get on the Disney hotels. Obviously I wouldn't be able to reserve them a room until I got there and could access the CM 'Hub'. Will there be much availability left? I'm a little worried that all the CM rates for July/August will be booked up by the time I get there. Anyone have any information/experiences? Thanks.
It will depend when they come. If they stay over 4th July then probably not. But remeber Disney has something like 20,000+ hotel rooms and they are rarely ALL sold out. But it depends on the sort of hotel you want to stay in. The discount avalibility for all the value and moderates might have all sold out, but there are rooms left at the deluxe resorts. However even with discounts these can still be $200 or $300 per night with discount! All Disney hotels can be cancelled before you arrive with no penalty fee. So if i were your family i would book the hotel you wanna stay in and at the price you would be prepared to pay even if you dont get a discount. Then when you get there you can see what discounts are availble and if its something good you can rebook over the hub and then cancel the other hotel booking.
There's also the opportunity to book other hotels that's about the same price as you pay with CM discount on Disney hotells. When I went on vacation there I stayed at the Regal Sun, wich is one of the closest hotels to Downtown Disney. They have Mears busses that goes to the parks about once an hour I think it is... You can check the www.hotels.com site to find the cheap ones. Just search for Orlando, when the results is up you can narrow it down by choosing hotels near a landmark, and choose Downtown Disney Village. You can get rooms to around $40-$50 a night there...
if you stay in a resort, it includes park tickets too, and food right? (I was just on the website-- it looks like you pick if you want a 'meal plan' and which park tickets you want...) So is the discount applied to all of this, as a whole, or JUST the hotel part??
You get discount just the hotel part. on thewebsite you can book the room on its own, with tickets and with dining plan. At certain times of the year you get a discount on the dining plan and you can alays get discounted park tickets from company d.
The Christmas discount on the dining plan is very good, I paid $20 a day for it when I stayed at a resort...
When I was there, in September you go the Dining Plan free with the room (I think that included CM bookings as well). However, it did mean that you couldn't get discount in any restaurant on property because all the guests were getting the Dining Plan for free. That's the just of it anyway lol
Oh yeah, I remember that! One day I didn't have enough money to tip the bar and food runner because absolutely all the guests were on the Dining Plan But you only get one day for free though...
Haha but still, if that's 20,000 rooms, then that's an awful lot of guests each day using that one free day.
