Hi Mary-Therese,
Thank you so much for visiting the Disney Parks Moms Panel with your question. I am so glad that you are thinking ahead and considering different possibilities for your magical Walt Disney World vacation. Let me offer some thoughts on the weeks that you are considering.
Thanksgiving falls on November 24, 2016. If you are considering the week that leads directly into Thanksgiving, perhaps arriving on Sunday November 20, that week will likely be fairly busy as many people will take off the whole week of Thanksgiving and visit Walt Disney World. If you are thinking a full week ahead of Thanksgiving, for example Saturday November 12 to Saturday November 19, you will likely find this week to be significantly less crowded as most people tend not to travel so close to but not overlapping with a major holiday. I would also expect that the weeks at the end of January will be moderate to low in crowds. When I am looking for predictions of crowds at Walt Disney World, I like to visit the unofficial website touringplans.com. For a low price, you can see their predictions of crowds at Walt Disney World for a year.
The
free dining plan package at Walt Disney World is a great one. You will want to check the website to be sure that the dates that you plan to travel fall within the dates of the special offer. As to whether there will be
special offers at Walt Disney World in January, we do not have any information on that as of yet. Historically, there are typically some special offers at that time of year, such as packages and room discounts, but again, nothing is guaranteed. I suggest that you monitor the special offers at Walt Disney World webpage that I linked to see when new offers are released.
Please do let us know if you have any further questions, Mary-Therese!