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WDW Ultimate Christmas Trip "Deal"


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The usual bloggers and even the Orlando Sentinel are all talking about a new "deal" being offered at WDW that they're calling the Ultimate Christmas Trip for the 2017 Christmas season.

Here's what the Orlando Sentinel says about this "deal":

Can you put a price on Christmas happiness at the theme parks? Disney can, and it’s packaged up as a hotel and park ticket deal called Ultimate Disney Christmas.

The new deal is for stays at select Disney hotels from Dec. 21-26 that include four days of theme park tickets and access to special events.

The price for all of this can run a family of four as low as $139 per person per night or a total of $2,775, according to Disney’s website. That’s specifically if a room at Coronado Springs Resort was booked and the price is for two adults, one child ages 10-17 and one child ages 3-9.

Other price points quoted include $3,721 for that same family to stay at Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa or $3,777 for stays at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Lodge.

While exactly which rooms at which resorts beyond these three aren’t listed, it does include select moderate, deluxe or deluxe villa resort options. It excludes three-bedroom villas, the Cabins at Copper Creek Villas, Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge and Bungalows at Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows.

Each person gets a four-day theme park ticket with Park Hopper option. It also includes tickets to Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party at the Magic Kingdom on Dec. 21, exclusive night access to Disney’s new Pandora — The World of Avatar at Animal Kingdom on Dec. 22, a character experience at Disney’s Hollywood Studios on Dec. 23, Christmas Eve dinner at Epcot and a holiday gift in your room on Christmas Day.

While the deal does include the tickets, which are designed to work with the crammed holiday itinerary, they technically don’t need to be used until Dec. 31, 2018, and all four days need to be used within 14 days of the first use. Check in is Thursday, and Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party is that night. Check out is Tuesday, the day after Christmas.

Details can be found at https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/special-offers/ultimate-christmas/details/ but booking has to be done before Dec. 10 and either through a travel agent or by calling Disney vacation help at 407-939-7886.

The site warns there are limited numbers of rooms set aside for this deal.

Even though they're saying space is limited, it's interesting to me that there is enough available inventory on such short notice to be able to offer the entire Christmas week as an option.

I wonder if the Fort Wilderness Cabins are being offered as part of this deal- it says that the Copper Creek Cabins are excluded, but nothing about the Fort Wilderness Cabins, which do show up as moderate resort rooms.

I am not going to take the time to try and crunch numbers on this, but I'm pretty sure that this isn't a good deal for anybody but Disney.

TCD

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18 minutes ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Even though they're saying space is limited, it's interesting to me that there is enough available inventory on such short notice to be able to offer the entire Christmas week as an option.

I wonder if the Fort Wilderness Cabins are being offered as part of this deal- it says that the Copper Creek Cabins are excluded, but nothing about the Fort Wilderness Cabins, which do show up as moderate resort rooms.

I am not going to take the time to try and crunch numbers on this, but I'm pretty sure that this isn't a good deal for anybody but Disney.

TCD

I agree with you it is veeerrry interesting that there is available inventory since more than one person I know has tried to just add a couple of days to existing reservations in that time period.  

I am also veeeerrrryyyyy sure - in fact down right positive -  that it will be an exceptionally good deal for Disney because it always is!!;)

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51 minutes ago, lightbikes said:

I agree with you it is veeerrry interesting that there is available inventory since more than one person I know has tried to just add a couple of days to existing reservations in that time period.  

I know the Fort is a different animal (campsites anyway) but I haven't been able to find any availability at all from Dec 7 on, and I had to tack on Dec 3-7, one day at a time.  DH said he was playing around with the site the other day and couldn't find a site all the way through Jan-Feb.  Given Jan is usually the quietest time of the year - that all seems really odd.

But I've seen more than one article now saying that Disney is anticipating lower than usual crowds for the holidays, which is why they're spitting out more offers.

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1 hour ago, BradyBzLyn...Mo said:

I know the Fort is a different animal (campsites anyway) but I haven't been able to find any availability at all from Dec 7 on, and I had to tack on Dec 3-7, one day at a time.  DH said he was playing around with the site the other day and couldn't find a site all the way through Jan-Feb.  Given Jan is usually the quietest time of the year - that all seems really odd.

But I've seen more than one article now saying that Disney is anticipating lower than usual crowds for the holidays, which is why they're spitting out more offers.

The thing about January, and to some degree February, is that the Fort's rates are at their lowest, and there are a lot of snowbirds who show up then for lengthy stays.

Add to that the "Northern Pioneers" group who gets some kind of special deal which allows them to take over a lot of the full hook up sites.  For some reason, Disney will give them discounts, but the rest of us can pound sand.

These great customers then clear out for President's Day weekend and other dates when the rates go up.  Some of them then come back when the rates lower.

Disney is obviously satisfied with this arrangement, so  Fort sites are hard to come by in the months when the rest of WDW is "slow."

TCD

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1 minute ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

The thing about January, and to some degree February, is that the Fort's rates are at their lowest, and there are a lot of snowbirds who show up then for lengthy stays.

Add to that the "Northern Pioneers" group who gets some kind of special deal which allows them to take over a lot of the full hook up sites.  For some reason, Disney will give them discounts, but the rest of us can pound sand.

These great customers then clear out for President's Day weekend and other dates when the rates go up.  Some of them then come back when the rates lower.

Disney is obviously satisfied with this arrangement, so  Fort sites are hard to come by in the months when the rest of WDW is "slow."

TCD

From what I understand though, they have discontinued the discount that the Northern Pioneers used to get. I think Grumpy can confirm this.

Even so, from about Jan 3rd or 4th, to the Thursday before Presidents day are the lowest rates of the year. 

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50 minutes ago, mouseketab.....Carol said:

From what I understand though, they have discontinued the discount that the Northern Pioneers used to get. I think Grumpy can confirm this.

I believe I heard that was supposed to be happening starting this year, but I haven't seen any confirmation of that.  I would imagine that discount going away will effect how many of those folks still book their long stays through January.  While rates are their lowest for sites, they're still not cheap.

 

52 minutes ago, mouseketab.....Carol said:

Even so, from about Jan 3rd or 4th, to the Thursday before Presidents day are the lowest rates of the year. 

We have a trip booked in February.  I was going to book us starting Pres weekend and then I saw the rates (!!!).  So we're checking in that Tuesday instead when the rates are at least a little bit lower.

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 Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Just out of curiosity I looked at a room for two adults and two children ages 8 and 14. At Coronado springs for December 21-26th. Four day park hopper tickets. 

With the holiday rate room offer it was $3125. That's $350 more than the package offer and that doesn't include the extras. 

Something doesn't seem right. This is the busiest time of the year and they are discounting rooms???  

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4 minutes ago, h2odivers...Ray said:

 Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Just out of curiosity I looked at a room for two adults and two children ages 8 and 14. At Coronado springs for December 21-26th. Four day park hopper tickets. 

With the holiday rate room offer it was $3125. That's $350 more than the package offer and that doesn't include the extras. 

Something doesn't seem right. This is the busiest time of the year and they are discounting rooms???  

Hmmm... sounds like the rumors of lower crowd predictions for the holidays may be onto something.

Unfortunately as is usually the case with most things, that doesn't seem to apply to campsites at the Fort.  

But hey, for those that can snag a deal at a resort for the holidays, that's great!!

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11 minutes ago, h2odivers...Ray said:

 Surprise! Surprise! Surprise! Just out of curiosity I looked at a room for two adults and two children ages 8 and 14. At Coronado springs for December 21-26th. Four day park hopper tickets. 

With the holiday rate room offer it was $3125. That's $350 more than the package offer and that doesn't include the extras. 

Something doesn't seem right. This is the busiest time of the year and they are discounting rooms???  

Very interesting.

I'm very surprised.  The extras are worth several hundred dollars with the MVMCP tickets and a dinner meal at Epcot.

Was there actually availability at Coronado Springs for those dates?

I wonder if they lost bookings due to it currently being a big construction project?

TCD

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1 hour ago, mouseketab.....Carol said:

From what I understand though, they have discontinued the discount that the Northern Pioneers used to get. I think Grumpy can confirm this.

Yep, those rates went bye bye. There are a few token discounts, but not the Winter Settler rates that had been available. Most days were pushing $100.00+ a day on average.

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25 minutes ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Very interesting.

I'm very surprised.  The extras are worth several hundred dollars with the MVMCP tickets and a dinner meal at Epcot.

Was there actually availability at Coronado Springs for those dates?

I wonder if they lost bookings due to it currently being a big construction project?

TCD

Yep. those dates were available. 

Maybe partially due to construction.  When I selected Coronado springs it said...

"This Resort hotel is undergoing refurbishments.  See Details"

 

 

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38 minutes ago, Tri-Circle-D said:

Very interesting.

I'm very surprised.  The extras are worth several hundred dollars with the MVMCP tickets and a dinner meal at Epcot.

Was there actually availability at Coronado Springs for those dates?

I wonder if they lost bookings due to it currently being a big construction project?

TCD

There are/were family suites available at AOA for Christmas week, although not cheap, but available.

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22 minutes ago, Grumpy and Grandma said:

There are/were family suites available at AOA for Christmas week, although not cheap, but available.

You are right!

Out of curiosity, I just looked for what was available between 12/21 and 12/26- there are lots of options- AOA, lots of values, lots of moderate, deluxes- everything- even with a Florida resident discount. 

That is very unusual for Christmas week.

TCD

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Nice catch TCD.

It's interesting to think about the time line. Someone didn't come up with is idea on Friday, then roll it out the following Monday. The weak numbers have to have shown up months ago. Then someone did the Financials, then marketing, then executive review, then....welll you get it.

Makes me wonder if the pricing / value chain equation is finally hitting a tipping point for Disney. 

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This is very surprising considering how busy the fall is now days.

On a side note is this website new https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/gift-disney-vacation/ ????

I ran accross it yesterday for the first time.  I forget where I read about it but they said it had a special offer for WDW, here it is:

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/special-offers/gift-disney-vacation-package-magic-band/details/  the valid travel days are all of 2018...

WBI

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16 hours ago, Travisma said:

There were numerous resorts and dates available over the summer on the various discount hotel sites at low low prices!

There were a lot of reports over the summer that attendance was down. The special dining offers they spit out for the summer seem to back that up too.

23 minutes ago, WannaBeImagineer said:

This is very surprising considering how busy the fall is now days.

On a side note is this website new https://disneyparks.disney.go.com/gift-disney-vacation/ ????

I ran accross it yesterday for the first time.  I forget where I read about it but they said it had a special offer for WDW, here it is:

https://disneyworld.disney.go.com/special-offers/gift-disney-vacation-package-magic-band/details/  the valid travel days are all of 2018...

WBI

Yep!  I think they rolled that out about a week ago.

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