Walt Disney World has announced new room and package discounts for summer travel dates through October 2026. Here’s what we know so far, plus tips & tricks for booking, what’s missing, and commentary about these special offers, one of which is fairly unprecedented.
Let’s start with the elephant in the room–what’s missing: Free Dining. Aside from the years when the Disney Dining Plan was temporarily unavailable, Free Dining has been offered annually since we’ve been visiting Walt Disney World as adults. It’s been a special offer staple for two decades!
For those of you who have been following along the speculation in our 2026 Free Dining at Walt Disney World Predictions, this should not be a complete surprise. Although we’ve predicted a return of Free Dining in 2026, we’ve questioned whether Walt Disney World would sweeten the deal or offer an alternative marquee special offer.
That’s because a different, stackable promo (discussed below) significantly undercuts the value proposition of Free Dining. As it turns out, Walt Disney World took the latter route! So while this feels like the ‘end of an era’ for Free Dining, it also makes complete sense that the promo would be replaced rather than just letting it limp along offering illusory savings.
This change is a net positive in our view, and the alternative marquee special offer is going to be better for most guests–especially if stacked. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves!
Let’s start with the official discount dates and details from Walt Disney World:
Ways to Save During Cool Kids’ Summer
Summer offers some of the best ticket prices of the year and will have so many new and limited-time experiences to check off the bucket list.
Combine this with longer theme park hours, and it’s one of the best times to visit. What’s more, we have brand-new deals available to book beginning January 6, so you can get even more value out of your summer vacation.
Room-Only Resort Discounts (General Public)
You can save up to 30% on select Disney Resort hotels for stays most nights May 1 through October 4, 2026.
View offer details beginning January 6, 2026.
Florida Residents & Annual Passholder Room-Only Deals
Walt Disney World has special deals for you, too!
Florida Residents can save up to 35%. Annual Passholders can save up to 40% on rooms at select Disney Resort hotels this summer.
View offer details beginning January 6, 2026.
Buy 4, Get 2 FREE!
You can get two free room nights and theme park days at Walt Disney World when you purchase a select 4-night, 4-day (or longer) Walt Disney Travel Company room and ticket package.
That means at least six (6) days to experience Walt Disney World, where you can savor every moment, take time to relax at your resort, and enjoy your favorite rides.
This deal is available for visits most nights May 26 through September 15, 2026, and can only be booked January 6 through February 15, 2026.
Kids Eat Free in 2026
As previously announced, Kids Eat FREE All Year in 2026 at Walt Disney World! Throughout all of 2026, guests staying at one of Walt Disney World’s more than 25 on-site Disney-owned resort hotels will get a FREE Disney Dining Plan for their kids (ages 3 to 9 at the time of travel) when purchasing a Disney Dining Plan as part of their package for the other members of their party (ages 10 and up at the time of travel).
The Free Disney Dining Plan included in this special offer depends on the Disney Dining Plan the adults in the party purchase. The Disney Dining Plan is included for kids ages 3-9 when purchasing a regular Disney Dining Plan for guests ages 10 and older in the party. The Quick-Service Disney Dining Plan is included for kids ages 3-9 when purchasing a Quick-Service Disney Dining Plan for Guests ages 10 and older in the party.
The Kids Free Dining Plan at Walt Disney World deal can be combined with other select special offers, meaning you may still be eligible to take advantage of other deals released for 2026. This is huge. Already, we’ve seen all 2026 room-only discounts eligible to stack with the Kids Free Dining Plan offer, from bouncebacks to general public discounts. Even DVC point rental is eligible for the Kids Free Dining Plan!
Walt Disney World has now confirmed that ALL of the above Summer 2026 are stackable with the Kids Eat Free special offer! That was expected for the room-only discounts, but is huge for the add free nights deal.
Full details will be released on the morning of January 6, 2026.
That’s all we know. Nothing about participating resorts, excluded room categories, or anything else. In fact, there could end up being more special offers than what Walt Disney World has teased. That has happened multiple times in the last couple of years. (Maybe Free Dining will make a surprise return–but I doubt it.)
I would also expect there generally to be less availability for dates that are further into the future. Walt Disney World doesn’t have as strong of an occupancy forecast for more distant dates, and it’s always the case that fewer rooms are released for special offers further into the future. (Just look at Bounceback availability, which has been minimal for many late 2026 dates.)
Here’s hoping there are also Disney+ and/or Disney Visa offers, or some other wild card to bump that number up from 4 special offers to 5-6! There’s plenty of precedent for exactly that to happen. This is always the biggest deal drop day of the year.
2026 Summer Discount Commentary
The “Buy 4, Get 2 Free” deal is fairly unprecedented. But not entirely so. Longtime fans might recall a twist on this special offer back in the post-9/11 travel slump and then again during the Great Recession.
Back then, the deal was “Buy 4, Get 3.” There were also variations of this discount that included a $200 gift card for early booking, and probably more that I’m either forgetting or can’t find in the archives. From what I can tell, this deal was offered in 2002-2003, and then again in 2007-2009. I don’t see any signs of its return in 2010, and it definitely was not offered beyond that.
Disney CEO Bob Iger announced the 2009 version of the deal on an earnings call in November 2008. At the time, he said that “The consumer today clearly is being very, very careful about what they spend, how much they spend, rather, and what they spend it on and I think the price-to-value relationship has probably never been more critical.”
Then-CFO Tom Staggs shared that although attendance was resilient, “the pace of bookings for our domestic resorts has slowed meaningfully since about the time of the Lehman bankruptcy. Our current room reservations on the books for the first two quarters of our fiscal year are a little under 10% below the prior year, with Q1 bookings down somewhat less than what we are seeing so far for Q2.”
In explaining the special offer to Wall Street analysts, Iger added: “you have a marketplace that based on our research tells us that people want to take vacations during 2009 but they are going to be much more value-focused, and this gives — which I think is one of the reasons why we have seen our bookings fall off some what — this gives us an opportunity to provide a catalyst to both early bookings and possibly better attendance or stronger attendance as the 2009 calendar year unfolds. It’s a stimulant, in many ways, and while there is some cost to us, we believe long-term the benefits will outweigh that.”
Some of this should sound at least somewhat familiar (minus the whole Lehman bankruptcy part) to those who have been listening to recent earnings calls. Disney had less to say about forward-bookings on the last call–perhaps lagging numbers like this was why.
The Great Recession is when we first started visiting as adults, and I recall massive special offers at the time. We took advantage of several, and looking at booking confirmations from back in the day is now a bit difficult because everything was so much cheaper.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the fact that Walt Disney World is now pulling from the Great Recession Discount Playbook as opposed to the 2019 Playbook (as has been the case for the last 2 years) speaks volumes. They didn’t call it the Great Recession because it was a time of economic prosperity!
Although the Great Recession is what made Walt Disney World more of a focus for investments (because the theme parks were viewed as somewhat “recession-proof”), that was only because the company so aggressively offered discounts to fill hotel rooms, restaurants, and the parks. The special offer strategy worked.
Fast forward to 2026, and Walt Disney World once again needs to offer discounts to fill hotel rooms.
I’m not sure that this is quite as “necessary” as back in 2002-2003 or 2007-2009, as it seems to be more strategic this go-round, especially during the less-popular summer months. Walt Disney World was able to increase hotel occupancy last summer with aggressive discounts, and filling rooms that otherwise would’ve gone empty helped fuel record results for the fiscal year.
In fact, Disney’s 10-K filing revealed that resort occupancy increased from 85% to 87% at Walt Disney World and Disneyland, despite decreased attendance. This higher occupancy was likely due to better special offers. As noted above, Summer 2025 had the most aggressive discounts we’ve seen in a long time.
Last summer, it was possible to pay the lowest prices for tickets and resorts at any point since (at least) 2019. And that was unadjusted for inflation! Lower prices on resorts paired with higher occupancy resulted in higher per room guest spending, which was a rare win-win for Disney and guests. Even without being to price out the “Buy 4, Get 2 Free” deal just yet, my guess is that Summer 2026 prices will be even lower.
It’s possible that this “Buy 4, Get 2 Free” deal is a harbinger of another recession or incredibly weak forward bookings–a drop on par with the 10% lower numbers in 2009. But it’s also possible that Walt Disney World is trying to maximize its fill rate to achieve another year of record results. Or maybe it’s a mix of the two, with Walt Disney World seeing weakening early bookings and wanting to get out ahead of that. Time will tell!
Obviously, this “Buy 4, Get 2 Free” deal isn’t as attractive on its face as “Buy 4, Get 3 Free.” The latter is, by my math, one additional night.
However, what could really sweeten the deal here is stacking that discount with the Kids Eat Free promo. If you have kids in that age range, this will unquestionably be a better deal than traditional Free Dining would’ve been–and it’s not even a remotely close comparison.
Without being able to do the math, it’s also possible that this beats an extra night and day on tickets. I don’t want to get ahead of myself on this, though, since many/most specifics are unknown. We’ll have full special offer analysis bright and early on January 6, 2026.
This “Buy 4, Get 2 Free” deal is a really savvy promotion from Walt Disney World’s perspective, as it creates a captive audience–something that they’ve lost at least in part with the end of Disney’s Magical Express.
Walt Disney World benefits in that it “locks” guests into staying on-site for longer duration trips, ensuring those coveted per guest spending numbers stay high. This is unlike a regular room-only discount, which could be for anywhere between a single night and two weeks.
Locking guests into at least 6 nights is one way to box out Universal, and is a means of “preventing” split stays with guests jumping to Epic Universe for the second half of their Central Florida vacations. Not coincidentally, we’re big proponents of room-only discounts because of their flexibility. If the savings are close, we always take room-only rates.
This more aggressive approach is also why we should expect to see a lot more discounts from Walt Disney World in 2026.
In fact, these deals have already started! The first such example is the Save Up to $250 Per Night at Disney World in Winter to Summer 2026 (which has already been released). This is a really good deal–better than last year’s version of the same for some guests–and might even surpass the “Buy 4, Get 2 Free” special offer.
Aside from that, we aren’t sure of what to expect. Straightforward room-only rates are fairly obvious, but there could be more attempts at keeping people on-site. Anything that increases vacation duration or locks-in per guest spending will be viewed favorably by Disney, even if it offers guests greater savings. It’s a win-win scenario for the company and guests…except those who want to do split stays or venture to Universal.
2026 WDW Discount Booking Tips
If you’re overwhelmed or want someone else to do the homework for you, use a travel agent. Any travel agent! We recommend requesting a FREE no obligation quote from Be Our Guest Vacations, an Authorized Disney Vacation Planner and having them book for you.
They’ll assist you with the planning process, help you choose the most economical dates, best add-ons, etc. Notably, they also monitor reservations and can retroactively apply new discounts if a better deal is released to save you more money.
Similarly, they’ll help you with discount comparison shopping so you book the best discount for you, not just the catchiest one. Because 2 FREE nights and days might sound great, but there’s always a catch. That will end up being a fantastic deal for many guests, but not the best offer for everyone.
Walt Disney World makes these special offers confusing on purpose so that comparison shopping is more difficult. This is done in a bunch of little ways, which I assume is for marketing purposes or to appeal to different consumer psychologies. I really don’t know. Regardless, we highly recommend using a travel agent–even if it’s not Be Our Guest Vacations. (Just don’t use a Big Box or MLM–see Why You Should Use A Disney Travel Agent for more.)
If you are going to go the travel agent route for these Summer 2026 special offers, you need to do so ASAP. Don’t expect to request a quote on January 6, 2026 and receive an immediate response–you need to get your ducks in a row now. My other advice is to provide them with backup options. As with all Walt Disney World special offers, some resorts, room types and dates won’t be available. Flexibility is the name of the game when it comes to deals like this.
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!
You will likely encounter a virtual queue if attempting to book special offers at around 9 am on January 6, 2026.
We’d also expect that the phone lines will be jammed all morning and the website will experience long waits. That “You’re Almost into Orbit” screen is a nice move that’ll hopefully work as intended. We’d expect those waits to skyrocket once more people are awake on the East Coast. For a wait time of under 30 minutes, you need to be up and online early. It’s also likely that there will be glitches, with Stitch eating the occasional page.
This shouldn’t come as a huge surprise, as it’s more or less par for the course on Walt Disney World discount drop day and has been for years. Things will only get worse as more people wake up and try to book (which is a huge reason why we recommend just using a travel agent). This is to say you will want to book ASAP for the best chance at scoring the resort and room you want.
For what it’s worth, getting something booked before the promo is released does NOT mean that you can sleep in tomorrow. In order to apply the special offer, not only do your dates and resort need to be eligible, but there also needs to be room inventory for what you’ve booked under the promotion.
This requirement often trips up a lot of planners. What it means is that, if a resort/room category/date combo sells out (and only so much inventory is allocated to each special offer–it’s possible for the promo to sell out while full priced rooms are still available), it doesn’t matter that you’ve already booked it. You will not be able to apply the discount to your reservation.
For this reason, there’s really not much of an advantage to booking something ahead of time. WDW dealhounds will debate this point (and have for years)–but the salient point is that you shouldn’t book now and sit back, assuming you’ll be able to apply “Buy 4, Get 2 Free” to an existing reservation at your leisure days or weeks down the road. That will not work.
And you won’t want to wait to book until demand dies down, as resort availability for this promotion will probably be limited and could sell out fast. So even with the potential for waiting on the phone or online, you’ll still want to be up bright and early to book ASAP for the best chance at scoring the resort and room you want.
Finally, we’ll end with a plug. We will be closely monitoring the 2026 Walt Disney World discount situation, keeping our ears open for more news about other special offers. Although specifics for the other special offers have yet to be released, we already know that more deals are coming on January 6, 2026.
We also have a pretty good idea that this is far from the end of 2026 Walt Disney World discounts to drop. Not by a long shot! Suffice to say, Walt Disney World dealhounds should be eatin’ good this year, literally and figuratively, whether they book the “Buy 4, Get 2 Free” deal or not. We’re fully expecting 2026 to be one of the best years for discounts since 2008-2009.
Whenever more discounts are released or rumored, we’ll send you an alert ASAP if you sign up for our FREE Walt Disney World newsletter. We’ve always notified subscribers about discounts early in the morning once they’re released–while they were live but before Walt Disney World officially announced them–on countless occasions in the last decade. All of this may not seem like much, but a heads up of even a day or a few hours can be the difference between successfully booking or not–or at least not being stuck in a virtual queue for hours!
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 the “Buy 4, Get 2 Free” deal will be released on January 6, 2026? Or are you more looking forward to the room-only promotions? Thoughts about the Summer 2026 special offers? 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!
