Based on Past trends- when would you book?

[DisneyWishesandDreams]

I am a little too excited about my Disney trip for Christmas 2017! I have been reading about historical discounts, and I am trying to decide what week would be the best to book to either get free dining or a room discount:
November 12-18
November 26- December 2
December 2-9

Any suggestions?

 

[G8rchamps]

NOT 26-2 (unless you like large crowds and long waits)

12-2-9 might have best crowd level actually.

 

[onesandzeros]

You can book your trip anytime and then apply the discount to that booking when announced.
If you don't want to do this yourself through the Disney phone line, you could work with a Disney
only travel agent, like Small World. The agent will monitor your reservation and work to apply any discounts
when made available. Have a great trip .... Christmas is an excellent time to visit.

 

[Swissmiss]

When we went in 2013 we arrived the Saturday after Thanksgiving (so more or less the same as your choice of dates 26 November - 2 December 2017). There was a room discount offered for those dates (and contrary to what a previous poster said, we had rather low crowds too).

 

[tractor tipper]

I wouldn't be in a big hurry, see what and when the discounts are for this year and then you might have a better idea for 2017. No guarantee for this but you will have the latest info to compare with previous years.

 

[LAKid53]

Free dining is usually offered earlier in the Fall (think September). We visited Thanksgiving 2014 and the parks were crowded until Sunday. If you look at the individual days of your resort reservation during a discounted period, many times Friday and Saturday are not discounted days.

But if you want to go for Christmas, either do early (week or two before Thanksgiving) November or the first week or two after Thanksgiving. Either your first or last travel dates would be fine.

Make your resort reservation as soon as you firm the dates. As other posters said, once discounts for late Fall are released, which should be soon, you can call Disney travel to adjust your existing reservation. Just note that they may not have discounted rooms available at the resort you previously selected. I think the idea of using a travel agent is an excellent suggestion, since they will track the discounts and make the adjustment for you. I would also recommend Kingdom Konsultants as a travel agent... they are a sponsor of this forum.

You can also go to Mousesavers.com and see when late Fall discounts were released last year, along with what the discount was for each resort level and what resorts were included.

But don't wait too long....

Edit: re-read your original post and realized you were talking about 2017. Not sure if you can make a resort reservation this far out, since Disney may not have put rates in their system yet. Bur doesn't hurt to check.

 

[MickeyMomV]

If I remember correctly you can book your room 500 days out and you then add the package as it becomes available. You can buy tickets at any time, however if you are looking at adding a package i would not advise adding tickets until the packages come out. 12/2017 pricing won't be out till next year and packages won't post for about a year. I would get the room when you can, maybe start a disney savings account to take advantage of the free $$, and dream about he trip until you can make the rest of the plans.

 

[DisneyWishesandDreams]

Thank you everyone! You have been so helpful! MickeyMomV- that is exactly right! We are very excited and want to book so we can dream! Thanks!

 

[Weather_Lady]

If you want to trend-spot, information about past discounts can be found here: http://www.mousesavers.com/historical-information-on-walt-disney-world-resort-discounts/

As others indicated, though, you can always book for the week that works best for you, and change it if necessary to make yourself eligible for any discounts that come out, once they are released.

(A tip: modifying an existing package reservation, from what I understand, can only be accomplished with a phone call, which on days that discounts come out, can be difficult as hundreds of callers are trying to get through at the same time. Our workaround when this happened to us was to simply book a brand-new reservation online with the special offer, and then cancel our initial reservation.)