Walt Disney World has released a general public ‘stay longer and save more’ discount of up to 30% off hotel room rates for July to October 2024. This shares booking & travel dates for these special offers, which are both aggressive and early. Plus, commentary about the savings, sample pricing, analysis.
This is one of many deals that Walt Disney World has released for 2024 vacations, with special offers for Annual Passholders, Floridians, and Disney Visa cardholders. For every other special offer that’s currently available, see All Current Walt Disney World Discounts for 2024. The other big discount dropping today is a ‘second wave’ of 2024 Free Dining at Walt Disney World.
As discussed here, this ‘stay longer and save more’ discount might actually be better for many Walt Disney World guests than Free Dining. While the siren song of free food is certainly alluring, there’s no such thing as a free lunch–that special offer has some catches that might actually make this discount paired with the 4-Park Magic Discount Walt Disney World Ticket a better option!
There are promos available for pretty much all dates between now and late Summer or early Fall 2024, with even more targeted special offers available for select guests. So the above list is worth checking out if you’re debating a trip sometime in 2024. It should probably go without saying, but more discounts for travel dates beyond October 2024 will be released down the road (probably in mid to late June).
Per Walt Disney World, here are the deal details: Save up to 30% on rooms at select Disney Resort hotels when you stay 5 consecutive nights or longer—or save up to 25% on shorter stays. This offer is valid for stays most nights from July 8 to October 3, 2024.
Here’s the resort by resort general public discount chart provided by Walt Disney World for July through October 2024:
Offer excludes the following room types: 3-Bedroom Villas; Standard View, Water or Pool View at Disney’s Caribbean Beach Resort; Treehouse Villas at Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa; Cabins at Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge; Bungalows at Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows; Deluxe Studios – Club Level, 1-Bedroom Villas – Club Level and 2-Bedroom Lockoff Villas – Club Level at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas – Jambo House; Disney Vacation Club Cabins; The Campsites at Disney’s Fort Wilderness Resort; and Club Level and Suites at Disney Moderate and Deluxe Resort hotels.
Valid admission is required to enjoy theme parks and is not included in this offer. Starting with visits on January 9, 2024, theme park reservations will no longer be required for date-based tickets.
Additional per-adult charges may apply if more than 2 adults per room at Value, Moderate and Deluxe Resorts and Studios at Deluxe Villa Resorts. Maximum length of stay under this deal is 14 nights. Cannot be combined with any other discount or promotion.
Reservations may be made online, by phone, or via your Authorized Disney Vacation Planner. If you’re reading this on the day the discount goes live, don’t be surprised if there’s a virtual queue for online bookings or a wait on the phones. In fact, that’s a near-certainty given the release of Free Dining.
If you want to help determining which discounts are available for your travel dates and which resort will work best for your family, we highly recommend requesting a quote from Be Our Guest Vacations, a no-fee Authorized Disney Vacation Planner. The agents there will do the math for you, booking your vacation with the best-available special offer, and monitoring your package for future discounts that can be applied retroactively.
In particular, they can help you determine whether this room-only discount or the Free Dining is the better deal for you, given your party size, resort preference, and eating preferences. Beyond that, Authorized Disney Vacation Planners help take the stress out of planning and will assist with itineraries, ADRs, and much more.
If you want to ‘do it yourself’ but aren’t sure which resort to book, check out our new Rankings of ALL Resort Hotels at Walt Disney World from Worst to Best. Several of the resorts with the biggest savings are in the top 10!
Here’s what we found for best available rates for this 2024 discount:
This search is for the first week of September 2024, which is part of the Value rate season at Walt Disney World. On the rack rate chart spectrum, this is one of the least expensive times to visit Walt Disney World in 2024. As far as this promo goes, you’re not going to find any dates that are better than late August through mid-September.
Friday through Sunday nights are all going to be more expensive, and less consistent. In general, Friday and Saturday will be the most expensive days of the week, with Sunday through Thursday costing less–but still more than Monday through Wednesday nights. Holiday weeks are also more expensive. Basically, room rates are higher any time when kids are out of school.
To maximize savings, you’ll need to book 5-nights, meaning that it’ll necessarily include at least a couple nights that aren’t the absolute cheapest. However, as noted above, you aren’t required to stay 5 nights. If you book 1-4 nights, you’ll simply save 5% less at most resorts and for most dates. It’s 5 nights or longer that “unlocks” the extra 5% off, so to speak.
For more on timing your trip to coincide with the lowest prices, see When’s Cheapest to Visit Walt Disney World in 2024? That covers price increases and other variables that impact the cost of a vacation beyond just room rates.
We’ve discussed this before in Is Walt Disney World’s Free Dining Deal Actually Worth It?, but a room-only discount is going to offer superior savings for a lot of parties. That’s especially the case with this one for parties staying 5 nights or longer.
All we can offer is sweeping generalizations–you’ll absolutely want to do the math for your own unique circumstances–but as a general matter, room-only discounts are better for smaller parties staying at higher-tier resorts. When comparing these two discounts, you want to look at party size, guest ages, and room cost.
Free Dining is best for those who can maximize the number of guests staying in one room and minimize their rack rate resort cost. Conversely, a room-only discount tends to be better for solo travelers and couples at higher priced hotels–as well as parties with lighter eaters (remember, the Disney Dining Plan is only worth as much as you’ll use it, which is not necessarily its full face value).
These are generalizations and not hard and fast rules. We just want to reiterate this because there’s a lot of allure in Free Dining. After all, who doesn’t love something that’s FREE?! But in reality, there’s no such thing as a free lunch–you’re giving up a room-only discount to get that ‘free’ Disney Dining Plan. Even though it’s the more boring discount, a lot of times, the room-only deal is the better special offer.
That’s going to be especially true for travel dates in July through October 2024. For one thing, Free Dining isn’t even an option many of these dates. If you’re planning on visiting during dates that are excluded from Free Dining, you might want to crunch the numbers before trying to rearrange your trip and incurring costs of that.
The other big reason this deal might come out ahead is the aforementioned 4-Park Magic Discount Walt Disney World Ticket. With Free Dining, you’re required to purchase a (full priced) Park Hopper ticket. With this room-only discount, you can buy that discounted ticket–or any ticket deal (see our Guide to Saving Money on Park Tickets at Walt Disney World).
That’s a big thing that trips a lot of people up with Free Dining–again, it’s not actually free food with no strings attached. C’mon, this is Disney–do you really think anything that good is truly free?!
My assessment of this discount is positive, but not emphatically so like the previous two general public promos. What we’ve seen since for 2024 has been really good, earlier than normal, and more aggressive.
Honestly, this bucks that trend to a certain degree. For one thing, this discount was previously available–but pulled. This exact same discount, with these travel dates, was released back in January. The key difference was it offered a maximum savings of 35% off for booking early. At that point, it was good to see–since it was so early and 5% higher than the norm.
By contrast, it’s right on time and offers average savings, but only if you book at least 5 nights. For reference, late July through September discounts were released in March and offered 10% to 30% off, with no minimum stay.
It’s also still possible that better deals are released down the road for (at least) August and September. However, we wouldn’t bank on it at this point, as now is when this room-only rate would normally be released. Whatever else comes out will probably be more targeted.
Nevertheless, there are some very good deals to be had. All Stars for $118, Pop Century for $160, Coronado Springs for $218, Caribbean Beach for $247, and several Deluxe Resorts for under $400 per night, which are relatively reasonable rates. These are about as low as you’re going to find for general public discounts, with the possible exception of January and February 2025 when rack rates will be lower.
In particular, both Wilderness Lodge and Animal Kingdom Lodge for around $320 per night; Contemporary for $385 per night; and the Crescent Lake Resorts for around $400 per night. Even Grand Floridian for $533 is low, relative to its rack rates. The lodges are always personal favorites, and the recently redone rooms there are tough to beat. Same with BoardWalk Inn…whereas the Contemporary’s new rooms are pretty far from my favorite, but it’s tough to beat the location within walking distance to Magic Kingdom!
At the lower end of the spectrum, these savings make the Value and Moderate Resorts tough to beat. You’re going to be hard-pressed to find anything off-site that can beat the rates Walt Disney World is offering. For me, the All Stars at anything under $140 is great–new rooms, Early Entry, transportation, and free parking really sweeten the deal to the point that your ‘all-in’ cost off-site will likely be higher. (If you can find it, Pop Century is a great pick at ~$160 per night.)
Ultimately, with the exception of the minimum length of stay to unlock the extra 5% off, this is another good deal from Walt Disney World. It was better the first time it was released back in January, both from the perspective of greater savings and an earlier booking period. But absent a time machine, that information doesn’t do you any good if you’re reading this now. I assume that Walt Disney World doesn’t need to offer a better deal this go-round because so many planners already booked back then.
As always, plan on being flexible with your hotel choice, room category, and even travel dates for the biggest savings. That’s doubly true here, as there have already been several discounts that have dropped for this date range. Walt Disney World offering more special offers to the general public is great news, and definitively demonstrates that travel trends are normalizing now after running hot for way too long. During that period of pent-up demand, Walt Disney World was able to ‘get away’ with pretty much anything and still see record guest spending and insatiable demand. Consumers now appear to once again have more leverage, and companies need to entice them to visit.
This should be an interesting saga to follow, and it’s almost certain that we haven’t seen the end of Walt Disney World’s efforts to woo back former fans and pull “levers” to incentivize more demand and guest spending. If bookings remain soft for 2024, it’ll be interesting to see what type of more unique promotions (beyond room discounts) are released for October through December 2024…it sure feels like things are trending in the right direction for even more aggressive offers! We will be closely monitoring what’s released and will notify subscribers of our free email newsletter when any Walt Disney World discounts are released or rumored!
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
What do you think of these Walt Disney World room-only discounts for July through October 2024? If you booked this, do you think you ended up with a good price or do you feel like you’re overpaying? What was available or unavailable for your dates? Is this deal enough to convince you to book a trip, or can you not justify these prices? Do you agree or disagree with our assessments? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
