Hotwire Deals for April: Another Pop Drop
Update: The day after we posted this, I noticed that Hotwire dropped additional Coronado Springs deals all the way from April 9th to the end of the month! I have updated some references and the calendar in the post. Go get ’em!
Good news deal seekers! Hotwire has released its April deals for Disney resorts a little bit earlier this time around. This month you can find Coronado Springs for $130 to $155 per night for most days. Yacht Club jumps in at $273 for a few days nearer the end of the month, but the real star of this drop is Pop Century.
The Pop Drop has some gap days in the middle of the month, but you can find it going for $87 to $124 per night throughout.
Before we get into the Calendar of Deals (Everyone’s a Winner!), I’d like to start off with some Hotwire tips and some other good deals for this Fall.
Contemporary Deals in the Fall
If you are a fan of the Contemporary’s Bay Lake Tower, Magical Vacations Travel has some terrific deals on many dates from October through December.
I’ve compared a sample date for each room type to Disney’s current pricing – I’d have to say that saving $316 per night for a Theme Park View is pretty impressive.
Tips & Tricks
Beware: The 10% Off Hidden Deal
I don’t want to harp on this first tip – but, actually I do, because it keeps happening and I don’t anyone to get suckered enticed into a less than dealy-deal. If you search for Hotwire deals in April, you will likely see some random Caribbean Beach hidden deals in the results. These will all be 10% or 11% off deals – when Disney has regular or annual pass discounts out, they tend to be equal to or better these 10% off hidden deals after you factor in all taxes and fees.
In fact, you’ll notice in the Calendar of Deals later on that there is a random $185 Coronado Springs deal out there on April 18 – that is also a 10% off deal you may want to avoid. (The Coronado deals earlier in the month are all 37% off deals.)
The Takeway: Lookup Disney’s pricing for your dates and ADTM: Always Do The Math.
Also Beware: The Last Person Got X Resort Hint
Both Priceline Express and Hotwire like to try to push you over the edge with hints that can be less than accurate. One of their favorites is a little box on the deal listing or booking page that tells you the last person who booked got some specific resort.
Having watched a lot of those go by over the years on Priceline, I’ve found that if the hidden deal is a non-Disney resort, those hints may be fairly accurate. But, if the hidden deal is for a Disney resort, they are almost certainly wrong.
I hadn’t analyzed them in as much detail on Hotwire, but suspected their “last person got” hints were also, err…. suspect. This week on the app, my suspicions were confirmed. Take a look at this example at right.
This deal is for a 3-star, 4.2-guest rated resort in Bonnet Creek. The hint at the bottom suggests the last person got Disney’s Pop Century resort.
The problem is, Pop Century is a 4.4-guest rated resort! The only two 4.2-guest resorts right now are All-Star Movies and Music. (And, only Movies is opening up soon.)
Takeaway: I suggest you ignore those hints and use the usual comparison techniques: star and guest ratings, location, and for tie-breakers, compare sub-guest ratings (there are usually 4 of them somewhere on the listing). For extra credit, watch out for mandatory resort fees. Disney resorts do NOT have them.
Draw Your Way to Enlightenment
We’ve mentioned this in the past, but is worth another shout out. If you are trying to figure out what resort a hidden deal is, you can often scroll down in the search results and find that resort in a non-hidden deal. If you compare the full price to the one that is struck out on the hidden deal, it will usually be within a $1. That, and comparing the ratings and review counts will often give the whole shebang away to you.
But, sometimes there isn’t a non-hidden deal in the results to compare to. Enter the Draw feature of the Hotwire app! You can use it to draw a circle somewhere and the app will filter to show you just the deals that reside within it.
If you suspect a hidden deal is, say, for Yacht Club, you can click the Draw button, zoom into the general area of that resort on the map, and draw a circle. You can see in the example above, I drew a fairly large circle around most of the Epcot area resorts. Had I made a tighter circle just around Yacht Club, only those two 4.5-guest rated deals would have appeared and confirmed my resort guess.
On To the Deals!
That is likely enough imparted knowledge for today, so let’s move on to the April deals. Below are some examples of what Pop Century, Coronado Springs, and Yacht Club will look like in hidden and non-hidden deals.
Below, below that is the always welcome *echo-y voice* Calendar of Deals.
Added Bonus: Free Math!
For your viewing pleasure, I’ve compared a few select days of Disney’s current pricing to these HotRate deals.
If you’ve booked any of these Pop Drops, or just have questions or comments about all the knowledge dropped in this post, please let us know in the comments!
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May 4-8 has been holding steady at $159 for Coronado. Today it’s at $179. Ugh. I was hoping for a drop this week.
Mindy,
Ugh, that stinks!
This doesn’t help of course if your dates aren’t flexible, I just took a quick and it looks like the $159 rate is still in place on the 4th then jumps up for the 5th and 6th, then drop back down over the weekend and back to $155 for the following week. Kind of weird, but might be related to other bookings being strong on those days?
Fingers crossed it drops back down for you!
Hi John.
I am looking for 4/26-4/28. I am looking for pop century. I did the draw function and I don’t see anything that seems like Pop. Do you have any opinions on same month availability on these kinds of deals? Thanks for your time.
Logan
Hi Logan,
Sadly, it looks like when they released the newer Bonanza! drop the Pop deals in April went away. When I checked your dates just now, at the lower end of the resort spectrum I see Music (3*, 4.2-guest) for $96 and Coronado (3.5*, 4.3-guest) for $126.
I also see Carribbean Beach (3.5*, 4.0-guest) for $204, which is not the best deal, but because one of the bed selections is double beds, I’m guessing will be a Pirate room. Since those are an upcharge, if that’s your cup of rum could be a good deal to you. 😉
In the past Hotwire has been fairly consistent: once they dropped a batch of deals they mostly stayed the same. Last month or so we did see a few minor changes in price – then when the full 2021 drop occurred, it kind of reset the April deals already out there. So, at this point I think I’d guess the deals you see now might be out there until your dates as is – but of course anything can happen.
If you really don’t want to book Movies or Coronado, you’ll just have to stalk the HotRates daily and keep your fingers crossed – good luck!
So….am I interpreting this right? $165 a night (May 23-29), 3.5 stars in Bonnet Creek, “4.3/5 Excellent! (1,001 – 1,500 Expedia reviews)” and taxes and fees of $239 for the 6 night stay…. would that be Coronado Springs?
trying to get back into figuring out these blind deals!
Hi Tiffany,
Yep, I think you have that right! The only 2 resorts in Bonnet Creek with the 3.5/4.3 combo are Coronado and Wyndham Bonnet Creek – but the latter appears in results as “3.5-star CONDO”, so is easy to spot in comparison. I just took a quick look at Disney current 30% prices for the same days: compared to the standard room rate, this HotWire deal saves you about $175.
BUT, there have been several reports that these Coronado deals are turning out to be Preferred rooms. There is no guarantee of course that anyone will get a Preferred room on any hidden deal, but if you compare the Hotwire deal to Disney’s discounted Preferred total, the Hotwire deal actually would save you about $580. That’s good for a few extra Mickey Bars, at least!
Good luck! 🙂
Hi John!
I just did a search on Hotwire and I am finding ZERO Disney properties available ( hot rate or standard rate) for any month. Does this happen a lot? Glitch or maybe updating the system hopefully?
Hi Stephanie – Yes, I noticed that ALL Disney resorts had disappeared from Hotwire when I checked this morning, and that includes both HotRate and non-hidden deals at least as far as September. (The last random date I checked.)
I have never seen this happen on Hotwire before, but for awhile was a regular thing over on Priceline Express.
Guess we’ll have to wait and see what happens next! You can still catch the recently dropped April Express Deals over on Priceline. Good luck! 🙂
Thanks so much for posting these! Just a scored a night at Yacht Club for cheaper than the discount we were going to get through Disney.
Hope,
Woohoo! 🙂
My 2 daughters used this information to snag a room at Pop Century last month. They were able to save over $300 for a 5 night stay compared to the Disney rates. Highly recommend drawing a circle and looking for deals within the circle. It helped us to rest easy that we were truly getting Pop as their hotel.
Thanks Mindy! 🙂
Great info! I consider myself pretty good at figuring these deals out and I have not gone wrong yet. Staying at Coronado this weekend on a hotwire deal and I am hoping for a deal from May4-9. I appreciate all that you put into this article. Love the savings graph !
Hi Amber,
Anything is possible, so I’d keep checking to see if deals appear for those last days in April – but it has been my experience that Hotwire tends to put out all the deals for a month and then that’s it.
Some of the Coronado deals on weekends this month did start disappearing (sold out? not sure), but I really haven’t seen any instances of new deals appearing.
For the record, when Priceline drops deals, theirs are more mystical and can come and go over time – but I’m not sure if that is intentional, things get sold out, or if their systems are just wonky. (I vote for wonky.)
Good luck!
Thank you for this! Please forgive me if this is obvious, but are the Oct-Dec bay lake tower rooms (through magical vacations) Studios? From the graph, it looks like those are regular Contemporary rooms in the main building.
Hi Dee,
I was forwarded those rates by Darren from Magical Vacations and his descriptions were as shown, .e.g. “Tower Theme Park View” – which I take to be Bay Lake Tower. The comparison table of prices I used were prices I looked up at Disney’s site with the same descriptions.
You should reach out to Darren and confirm any questions you have! 🙂
Hi John,
Thanks for putting this together. Always appreciated, as we have booked Pop in the past through Hotwire based on your posts. Question for you – the last 3 days of April do not have any hotel deals listed. Do you think this is because it is too early, and they will appear at a later date, or there aren’t going to be any deals for those specific dates?
Thanks!
Amber, Hope you are set up for notifications here! I ran another deal check today and noticed they added a whole bunch of new Coronado Springs deals from April 9th, all the way to the 30th!
So, looks like my previous answer that Hotwire tends not to add new deals was proven wrong. Boy, these sites like to keep me guessing. 🙂
Another thing I’ve found helpful for the ASMovies and Pop is that when you get the option to pay an extra $1 to pick your beds they say Queen bed + murphy bed. Can you confirm if any other hotels would have that possible bedding setup other than the Disney value resorts?
I haven’t gone that far into bed types, but I have noticed that Queen + Murphy selection seems to be a clue for Pop Century. When I just tested checking out a deal for an All-Star Movies hidden deal at the end of March, the bed options were King or Two Doubles.
The resort in question has to be Movies, since the deal is for a 3-star 4.2-guest resort in Bonnet Creek. The only two resorts that match those ratings are Movies and Music, and only Movies will be open (after March 22nd.) But, after the refurbishment, Movies has 2 Queens in each room, not doubles!
So, I think the takeaway here is: bed types *may* be helpful, but I wouldn’t count on them. Both Hotwire and Priceline get lots of amenities and other things wrong in listings. (You’ll notice they still have the Free Parking amenity set on Yacht Club deals.) I’d definitely factor those things in when I have a deal where it might be more than one resort – but these days that is fairly rare as other methods will usually tell you the resort more accurately.