For those that have stayed in a DW resort in the summer (July 28-Aug.19 in particular for us) I have a few questions:

Are there AP rates in the summer months and when do they come out?

What type of discounts have you received in the past?

Can I book now and then get the AP rate later without an AP at the time of booking?

Also, have you heard of any type of discounts for long duration stays?

Thanks in advance to those that take the time to reply.

i have not, but i do know that mousesavers.com has a page that shows when AP discounts have been released each year going back a few years, so you know when to be ready to check.

Last year (2006) there was an AP rate for around those dates at the Deluxe resorts. I agree, check what MouseSavers says has happened in the past - it's under FAQs

Can I book now and then get the AP rate later without an AP at the time of booking?

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This one I can answer-- yes you can. But you really have to watch the AP rates and as soon as they announce it pounce on that phone because already having the room booked does not guarantee you that AP rate.

HTH

To expand on what jengold said, you'll need to pay 1 night of your stay right when you book. You can change anytime for an AP rate, and they'll just apply the amount you've already paid to the new rate. And no, you don't have to have your AP when you book. You're supposed to show your card when you check in, but I've rarely been asked to produce it. (Hey, I'm not suggesting that anyone CHEAT or anything . . .)

We called last year to change or reservation to include the AP discount and it saved us a lot of money, but we had to make a whole new reservation, with a different view, because availability is limited and some rooms, (MK view) were not available.

and the other thing i discovered about AP rates is ... you may have to play around a bit to get them. i had already booked our ten nights when the AP rates for Jan/Feb came out last week, so I rang to apply the code, and the reservation assistant said it was not available. i asked him to look just for a night in the week before (I was trying to work out what the cost was, because I only had the code, and didn't know what the saving was and if it was worth changing our dates for) and he found it was available for the first night of our stay. then he looked for the second night ... and so on and so on; turned out it was available for the first nine nights but not the 10th, so the computer just said No when asked about those dates as a whole. so i made a new booking for the first nine nights and paid a new deposit. then he said that if i cancelled my booking for the 10th night, it was likely that an AP room would become available for the 10th night - but as that first booking was made through a travel agent, i have left it to her to fix up. all in all, it saved me about $500. so, the disney computer system is obviously complicated and its worth spending a bit of time playing around with the dates.