Hi Roy,
Not one but two magical stays at Walt Disney World Resort? Awesome!
The Free Dining promotion has been offered during the fall for the last few years, and usually made available in the late spring. The offer would give you one of the
Disney Dining Plans free of charge for your entire stay up to 10 days, when you booked a
Magic Your Way Vacation Package, and as long as you arrived during promotion period. We've taken advantage of these offers in the past, and are excellent. At this time, there are no details on upcoming promotions for next fall.
My understanding is that your family will have two Disney Resort reservations, with a break in between. Assuming both arrival dates fall within the promotion period, you would two separate Magic Your Way Vacation Packages. Each one of them would require you to purchase the minimum number of theme park tickets. Since the more days you add, the more money you save, you may want to book your first reservation as a vacation package with dining and tickets with days to cover both periods, and the second reservation as room-only and pay out of pocket.
Hope this helps a bit with your planning. Keep an eye to the
Special Offers page, which will list whatever offers become available for the fall. See you real soon!
Ricardo.