Falling Expressly in Love with Priceline Again
We’ve had some excitement over here in the Priceline Express Wing of Touring Plans Headquarters!
(Can you have the Keurig restocked now, Len? I’m thinking something caramel-y.)
Back in April we got Sporty about a drop of hidden deals that ran through the end of June. Sadly, despite some rumblings about softness of the hotel market, Disney resorts once again went radio silent on Priceline Express.
Until this weekend!
From late October through the end of December You can find All-Star Sports as low as $78/night, Coronado Springs as low as $201, on very specific dates (as far as we can tell) Animal Kingdom Lodge for $260, and some absolutely smoking Art of Animation Suites as low as $252.
We’re going to get right into it below with what we’ve found, right after one reminder:
YMMV Depending on Your Search
The prices and days we found these deals on the calendar were spotted using 1-night searches. You also might find deals on the empty days we list in the calendar by searching for multiple days, especially if the starting date of your search is one of the days where we already found a deal.
For example, searching 1-day at at time, we did not spot any Sports (say that three times fast) hidden deals between December 25th and 28th. However, if we searched that entire week starting on the 22nd, there was Sports aplenty.
You might also find different availability from what we list depending on your location, the browser you use, by using the app, or based on the color of the outfit you wore on your third trip to Disney if it rained. (Read: Priceline is weird and often shows different things to different people.)
For more tips on identifying a resort, we suggest you refer back to the Let’s Get Sporty blog post.
Comparisons
How good are these hidden deals? Like the last batch: Pretty darn good.
Picking some dates in October for each of those resorts, you can see how much these hidden deals save per night over the current Disney Fall discount and the full price. Note: these tables are all-in amounts that include taxes, fees (hidden deals, hidden fees *sigh*) and using the current Priceline Express code LABORDAY10 for an additional 10% off hidden deals.
Note: that code only works in the app and expires on September 3rd, so you’ll have to act fast on that one.
Special Guest Start: Art of Animation
Because the savings for these Art of Animation Suites are especially good deals, let’s run through a quick identification and comparison for that resort.
You can identify most hidden deals through simple comparisons with non-hidden listings. For Art of Animation, you’re looking for a 3-Star resort in Bonnet Creek with “300 Ratings” – which is a rounded version of 377, or the actual number of reviews on that resort.
All of the Disney 3-Star resorts are located in Bonnet Creek, but only Art of Animation currently has a review count in the 300s, making this particular hidden deal easy to spot.
One you click through each of those deals, you can see similar room selections. In this example, the crossed-out $516 “full price” on the Cars Family Suite gives us another clue that we’ve identified this room type properly.
When you select “Book” on each of these options, you can see that in this example, there is a $237 PER NIGHT savings by using this hidden deal vs Priceline’s own regular listing for this resort. And that is not even including the 10% off if you are able to use the Labor Day code.
How does this break down vs Disney pricing using our comparison tables? It breaks down well, believe me. A savings of $244 per night vs Disney’s Fall Discount!
One Warning
Beware the Ides of March. Also: The Drury hotel.
In this latest batch of hidden deals, there are some for the Drury that might throw people off and look like a Disney Value if you are new to this tactic and/or aren’t paying attention. However, in reality it is easy to spot:
- The Drury is in Disney Springs, while ALL of the Disney Value resorts are in Bonnet Creek.
- Oddly, The Drury has NO review counts or guest ratings on its listings.
AT LAST: THE CALENDAR ‘O DEALS
Here’s what we found – go forth and discount!
If you’ve booked any of these hidden deals and want to shout it out into the Disneysphere, let us know in the comments!
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Got AOA Cars Suite on a Friday night – Sunday morning in November for $288/night. I literally had Pop Century standard booked for those nights _at the exact same price_.
And to your point of “random deals appear based on no logic at all” – I also got AKL for 11/16 for $266. That’s cheaper than the next-level bonkers $311 cheapest non-All-Star room I could get through Disney (Little Mermaid at AOA, for the record). It didn’t show up on the web, but did when I searched on the app. But NOT on the express deals tab, only on the full listing page. Priceline be priceline-ing.
What other “3 star hotels in the Walt Disney World area” are also in Bonnet Creek but are not Disney value resorts? Asking for a friend…
Thanks for the clarification question, TwoBits, I probably should have mentioned this in my Drury section:
Short Answer:
On Priceline, all 3-Star resorts in Bonnet Creek are Disney resorts.
The Drury is the only 3-Star in Disney Springs.
Longer Answer:
When it comes to identifying the Disney 3-stars, you can usually figure those out by comparing to the non-hidden deals in search results and see what matches up using location, star & guest ratings and review counts. Especially since they don’t tend to post hidden deals for multiple similar Values at a time.
By similar, I mean this:
Currently, All-Star Music and Movies both have review counts in the 400s right now (464 and 485, respectively.) So, if you see a 3-star hidden deal in Bonnet Creek with a rounded review count of 400, could be either.
However, in practice, the crossed out prices on the deal compared to a non-hidden listing will give it away. Also, if the hidden deal price is higher than you’d expect to see for a Value – good chance it will be a Music suite.
Pop Century and All-Star Sports both happen to have review counts in the 700s right now so theoretically if you see a 3-star hidden deal with that 700 review, also could be either. But, we all know Pop tends to be priced higher – and Sports is MUCH more common on Priceline hidden deals. With no other info, Sports is almost always the guess in this case.
Art of Animation stands on its own with 314 reviews, so any hidden deal for a 3-star resort in Bonnet Creek and a rounded 300 reviews shown has to be that resort.
Hope that helps!
Big help! I wouldn’t want to do one of these deals for a Bonnet Creek hotel thinking it was a Disney resort but finding out only after paying that it really was something off-property, and therefore void of Disney perks and charm!