Walt Disney World has released a preview of the new discounts dropping tomorrow (March 27, 2025) that includes the second wave of Free Dining for the general public and room-only deals for summer through holiday travel dates. This shares dates and details, plus what’s still unknown about the special offers and educated guesses we can make to fill in the info ‘gaps’ based on past precedent.
These join the long list of special offers that have been released thus far for 2025 Walt Disney World vacations, with discounts for Annual Passholders, Floridians, and Disney Visa cardholders. For other special offers that are currently available for travel dates between now and late July (as well as some other targeted offers beyond then), see All Current Walt Disney World Discounts for 2025.
Unfortunately, that list is actually not so long right now, as a couple discounts have been unceremoniously and prematurely pulled from the Walt Disney World special offers page. We discuss what’s happening later in this post, but the point of mentioning it here is so vacation planners know they need to lock something in sooner rather than later. Walt Disney World is trying to incentivize longer and earlier reservations, which is what it looks like is happening again with one of the upcoming discounts…
Beginning March 27, 2025, Walt Disney World guests will be able to get a Free Disney Dining Plan when purchasing a non-discounted 4-night, 4-day Walt Disney Travel Company package that includes a room at a select Walt Disney World Resort hotel and theme park ticket with a Park Hopper option. According to Walt Disney World, this offer will be valid for visits on select dates from June 29 through December 22, 2025.
My assumption is that the “select dates” will be identical to those released last week as part of the Disney Visa 2025 Free Dining Deal. That deal expires March 26, and was pitched as early access to the general public version of Free Dining. Still, it is possible that some date ranges won’t be included or will have filled up already. We shall see!
Full details will be released on the morning of March 27, 2025. As always, we will have full analysis as soon as the special offer goes live.
Beyond that, our expectation is that this will follow all of the normal “rules” of Free Dining. (See our comprehensive Guide to 2025 Free Dining at Walt Disney World and scroll past the long section of predictions, since those are no longer relevant now that Walt Disney World has told us the deal is coming.)
The most notable “rule” of Free Dining is that Value and Moderate Resort guests receive the Quick Service Disney Dining Plan (QSDDP), while Deluxe and Deluxe Villa guests receive the standard Disney Dining Plan (DDP). The latter has much more value, but Deluxe Resorts also cost a ton more money on average. In the past, guests at the lower tier resorts have been able to pay the difference to upgrade from the QSDDP to the DDP.
Beyond that, expect the same terms and conditions as the first wave of 2025 Free Dining, or last week’s second wave for Disney Visa cardholders (save for maybe some different dates). Table service restaurants may have limited or no availability at time of package purchase (a common complaint with Free Dining in past years has been the lack of ADRs for those who arrived without booking anything in advance).
Free Dining cannot be combined with any other discount or promotion. Disney Dining Plans exclude gratuities, which will need to be paid out of pocket at table service restaurants. Children ages 3 to 9 must order from a children’s menu, where available. The number of packages allocated for this offer is limited. Everyone in the same room must be on the same package.
The first Free Dining offer excluded the following room types: Campsites, 3-Bedroom Grand Villas, Cabins at Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge, Bungalows and 2-Bedroom Penthouses at Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows, Deluxe Rooms at Disney’s Beach Club Resort, and Suites at Disney Deluxe Resort hotels.
In today’s tease, Walt Disney World also indicated that starting March 27, 2025, guests can “Save up to 30% on select Disney Resort hotel rooms when you stay longer for visits beginning August 1 through October 11, 2025. Special deals on rooms are also available for Florida Residents and Annual Passholders.”
This isn’t a huge surprise, as there are currently room-only discounts available through July 31, 2025.
While we were highly confident that a room-only discount would drop alongside Free Dining, what we were unsure of was whether it’d be a classic room-only rate or a stay longer and save more discount. Our expectation was the latter, as that’s currently available and a subset of the upcoming dates was previously released (before being prematurely pulled) as part of the January special offer release.
When it comes to discount tiers for the room-only rate, we can look back to 2025’s first stay longer and save deal for likely rates:
- 30% off most Deluxe Resorts
- 25% off most Moderates, plus Poly, Animal Kingdom Lodge and All Star Sports
- 20% off most Value Resorts, plus campsites and Caribbean Beach
I wouldn’t count on an exact repeat of these rates. A lot of this can change from discount to discount, which is precisely what we saw last year when Walt Disney World did this exact same thing. As it turned out, the earlier discount that was pulled was superior to the subsequent re-release.
With Walt Disney World also offering the 50% Off Kids Tickets and 3-Parks Magic Ticket for most of these same dates, they might be less inclined to offer more aggressive room discounts. There’s also the matter of making Free Dining look more attractive, as they’d prefer to push people towards that. On the other hand, there’s rising economic uncertainty and the wildcard of Epic Universe, so perhaps the moment calls for bolder deals. Again, I suppose we shall see tomorrow!
This also brings us full circle to the point about Walt Disney World prematurely pulling discounts. The above ‘stay longer and save more’ discount is actually still available…just not for August and September 2025, as was previously the case. Those dates were quietly pulled a month or so ago, so only the travel dates between now and July 31, 2025 remain. (Usually that happens the other way–earlier travel dates get removed before later ones.)
In the past, Walt Disney World used to release discounts with a “book by” date noted up-front. In the last year-plus, they’ve gotten away from that practice. On some occasions, they’ve removed them early (with notice); other times, booking is open-ended and the discounts just disappear.
We suspect that Walt Disney World has been toying with the way they’ve been doing discounts, trying to entice planners to book early with attractive offers while also creating a false sense of urgency. In several cases, they’ve circled back with additional discounts even after those offers have ended in order to fill unsold rooms and hit occupancy targets.
This is basically the Disney Vault, but applied to discounts. It’s savvy strategy when it comes to incentivizing obsessive Walt Disney World vacation planners…but arguably less effective with casual guests who might only visit DisneyWorld.com once, see no discounts for their dates, and book vacations elsewhere.
We’ll be closely monitoring the 2025 Walt Disney World discount situation, keeping our ears open for more news about other special offers. Should anything be released or rumored for future travel dates, we’ll send you an alert if you sign up for our FREE Walt Disney World newsletter.
If you’re already overwhelmed, you might just want someone else to do the work for you. Free Dining is Walt Disney World’s most complicated promotion, and can be a huge headache to book. Between limited availability and navigating a sea of rules and restrictions, it’s easy to get frustrated, have problems, or be unsuccessful in scoring a reservation.
To that end, we always recommend that Walt Disney World first-timers or regulars who just don’t want to deal with the hassle use a travel agent. (Click here to request a free quote from Be Our Guest Vacations, an Authorized Disney Travel Planner that we recommend.) Most legit travel agents do not charge for booking Walt Disney World vacations (and you don’t pay a premium to use them–Disney pays them commission, so they’re free to you), so that’s really the easiest way to go. But if you’re going to go that route for Free Dining, you need to do so ASAP. Don’t expect to request a quote on the morning of March 27 and receive an immediate response–you need to get your ducks in a row now.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Excited that room-only discounts will be released to the general public, Florida residents, and Annual Passholders? Planning on booking those or the second wave of Free Dining for the general public? Thoughts about the 2025 Free Dining discount versus room-only and ticket deals? Agree or disagree with our commentary? Any questions? Hearing your feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts or questions below in the comments!