Shades of Green’s Discount History for Planning

Shades of Green’s Traditional (Historical) Discounts

Shades of Green is Walt Disney World’s Military Only Resort. It is located right in the middle of Orlando’s premier theme park.

Shades of Green has always offered deluxe Disney Resort rooms at reasonable prices, but with the advent of Disney’s Armed Forces Salute in 2009, Shades of Green had to start offering discounts and or package deals to remain competitive with Disney’s 30-40% off of their resort rooms for military travelers.

With no experience discounting, Shades of Green’s first attempts in 2009 were meager offerings, just $10 of rooms and $5 off Regular Military Discounted Magic Your Way Tickets. But as time went on they experimented with various options; percentages off rooms only, packages with breakfast or breakfast and dinner included, nightly offerings, 4-day stays, and 4 to 8 day packages.

Discounts of up to 50% off were offered over the years!

In 2012 Shades of Green began less aggressive discounting. The discounts offered became in the style of “early rewards”. For instance a discount that initially was offered at 50% would be reduced to 20% in increments as the actual time-frame approached.

By 2014 the discounts had settled out to be roughly 20 – 30% off the combined price of room room only and meal/dining packages sometimes with a 4-night minimum stay.

Shades of Green also began to modify the dates that a discount was offered for, sometimes numerous times based on their projected occupancy rates in an attempt to fill rooms on lightly booked dates.

During 2018, Shades of Green began a multi-year renovation of the guest rooms in the Magnolia wing. This reduced the overall room availability and had a negative effect on discount percentages, items offered, inclusive dates, and how long before the available dates the discounts were released.

The point of all discounts (anywhere, military or otherwise) is to make sales you otherwise wouldn’t (in this case rooms). With less pressure to fill rooms the discounts settled out at to be only 10% to 15% off and dates offered greatly reduced. With the discount so low, there is no room to decrease the discount any more as rooms fill, they just continue to change the dates the discounts are available.

Today discounts remain at 10% to 15% off. It’s so sad when they used to offer up to 50% to 30% off of large portions of most months!

Historical Discounts

Below is a list of the usual dates that Shades has offered discounts in the past. After each month you will see common dates they are available for and the names they usually go by. Then below you will see the general history for that discount for the last few years.

Note: in mid 2017 with the arrival of a new manager, all of the creative discount names you will see below have been replaced with simple month discount names like: April Savings, or Savings in April. All the old names are left for posterity.

If you are interested in any discount offered by Shades of Green, you should book your dates as soon as the discount is announced. The longer that a discount is out, Shades begins to reduce both the available dates and/or the amount of the discount. See our post on this trend

After closing temporarily in 2020 for the obvious reason, upon opening Shades of Green cancelled all previously published discounts for 2020 and offered no new ones as the year wore on. As 2021 rolled around this no discount trend continued. Finally in August 2021 Shades of Green began announcing discounts for 2022, starting with the first quarter.

During much of the beginning of 2021 I kept questions as to why there was no room availability for September 2021 and it turned out that Shades of Green was to lodge the participants of the Warrior Games at WDW. Shades of Green turned many military families away due to this. On 17 August 2021 the Warrior Games cancelled, leaving Shades of Green with a mostly empty hotel for a good chunk of September. The day after the cancellation they announced a discount for most of September 2021.

January – Pre & Post Marathon Special – Four days before and four days after the Marathon Weekend; Escape the frost or January Special the last ten days of the month.

2022 – Announced Mid August 2021 – for 2 periods in the month totaling 11 days, reduced within days to only 3 days in the month, then cancelled a couple day later
2021 – Announced Late January 2020 for some weekdays during the first 2 weeks of the month, Cancelled September 2020
2020 – Announced Late February 2019, for 18 days throughout the month – Canceled Late November 2019, Cancelled September 2020
2019 – Announced Late February 2018, 3 days early January and a few days at the end of the month, canceled late December 2018
2018 – Announced Late August 2017, Early October Reduced Features and Discount Reduced, Late October Reduced Discount, Mid November Canceled
2017 – Announced Late March 2016, Early July Reduced Dates, Mid September Reduced Features, Early December reduced Discount, Discount ended

February – The Carnvale (SOG spelling) Special or Leap into February Special – All month except the week to week and a half surrounding Valentine’s Day and the Princess Half Marathon.

2022 – Announced Mid August 2021 – for 4 days during the month
2020 – Announced Late April 2019, for sporadic days through the month – Canceled Late November 2019
2019 – Announced Late April 2018, sporadic days through the month, canceled late August 2018
2018 – Announced Mid May 2017, Late August Canceled
2017 – Announced Mid March 2016, Early July Reduced Dates, Late July Reduced Dates, Late August Canceled

March – No Discounts

April – Most Dates in April – called either Spring Into Savings or Month of the Military Child

2022 – Announced Mid August 2021 – for 2 weeks during the month
2020 – Announced Late May 2019, for sporadic days through the month – Canceled Late January 2020
2019 – Announced Early July 2018, sporadic days through the month, canceled Late January 2019
2018 – Announced Late July 2017, Early October Reduced Dates, Late October Reduced Dates and Discount, Late October Second Discount with Reduced Features and Dates offered, Mid November Reduced Dates on 1st discount, Late November 1st Discount Canceled
2017 – Announced Early December

May – Military Appreciation Month – All month

2022 – Announced Mid August 2021 – for a good chunk of the month
2020 – Announced Late September 2019, for first 3 days of the month, Cancelled September 2020
2019 – Announced Early July 2018, sporadic days through the month, canceled late October 2018
2018 – Announced Late July 2017, Early October Reduced Dates, Mid December Reduced Dates, Late January Canceled
2017 – Announced Early October 2016, Mid January Discount Reduced, Early February Canceled

June & July – No Discounts

August – Book Early and Save or, the Endless Summer Special

2020 – Announced Late September 2019, for 8 days during the month, Cancelled September 2020
2019 – Announced Late October 2018, sporadic days through the month, canceled late December 2018
2018 – Announced Mid November 2017, Mid December Reduced Dates, Late December Reduced Dates, Late January Reduced Dates, canceled Early July
2017 – Announced Late October 2016, Late march Reduced Features, Discount ended

September – Ease into Fall or Fall Back and Save

2022 – Announced Mid August 2021 – for a good chunk of the month
2020 – Announced Late November 2019 for the entire month – Reduced to about 2/3s of the month Late December 2019 – Canceled late December 2019
2019 – Announced Late October 2018, a few days in the month
2018 – Announced Mid November 2017, Mid December Reduced Dates, canceled Late August
2017 – Announced Early December 2016, Mid January Canceled, Mid April Brought Back, Mid May canceled

October – Shades of Fall Special, Spooky Savings in October – Select dates

2020 – Announced Late November 2019 for a few days during the month, Cancelled September 2020
2019 – Announced Mid January 2018, for a few days mid month, canceled by Mid April 2019
2018 – Announced Late November 2017, Mid December Reduced Dates, canceled Mid June
2017 – Announced Early December 2016, Mid December Discount Reduced, Mid January canceled, Mid April Brought Back, Mid June Reduced Dates, Late July Reduced Features and Discount Reduced, Late September Expanded Dates, Late October Reduced Dates, Discount ended

November – Florida Harvest Special, First and third weeks of November

2020 – Announced Late December 2019 for the third week and the last 2 days of Nov., Cancelled September 2020
2019 – Announced Mid January 2018, for a few days mid month
2018 – Announced Late June 2017, Mid December Reduced Dates, canceled Late January
2017 – Announced Late June 2017, Mid January Canceled, Mid April Brought Back, Mid May canceled

December – Deck the Palms Special, First half of December

2020 – None offered
2019 – None offered
2018 – Announced Late February 2017, A few days mid-month, canceled November
2017 – Announced Late August 2017, Early October canceled

You can see details on all of Shades of Green’s current discounts to on this page