Disappointment with Online Booking (Non-Home Resort)

[Bell30012]

We are planning to take our first Disneyland vacation. Since it is not my home resort, Monday morning at 8:00 AM promptly, I log into DVC to book a stay for October 16 - October 21. No availability on the 16th. Tuesday morning at 8:00 AM promptly, I log into DVC to book a stay for October 17 - October 22. No availability on the 17th.

This morning, at 7:45 AM, I check availability for October 18 - October 23. All days available, nothing gray. At 8:00 AM, I click enter and guess what… No availability on the October 18. GRRRRRRR. I wait listed October 18 - October 23. If it comes through in the next month or two we go to Disneyland if it doesn't, the left coast wasn't meant to be.

/end rant

 

[tjkraz]

Bummer.

Unfortunately that's what happens when demand exceeds supply. When some amount of availability is shown, it could be as little as one unbooked villa. Another member clicking his mouse a half second before you leaves you out in the cold.

The good news is that getting on the waitlist that early means you have a very high priority. One cancellation could be enough to see your reservation met. You could also look into booking a DL hotel room with points...although the costs are higher than villas.

Good luck.

 

[Bell30012]

Just to add a little salt to the wound, they threw an ad on the screen that said, "Need More Vacation Points?" Of course, my internal response was something like, "Heck no, I can't use these. I know that there is limited availability but it must really be limited in Disneyland with only one DVC resort. At least at Walt Disney World, you can always pick a less popular DVC resort.

 

[LisaS]

An option to consider in the future is to try to arrange with a VGC owner to have enough VGC points transferred into your account to book your stay. You can use them to book VGC 11 months out. Then rent your points out to cover the cost of the VGC points.

 

[wdrl]

Have you tried calling Member Services and having them check availability? They say MS has the same availability as what Members see with the Online System, but I always wonder if some days slip through the cracks and don't show up on the Online System.

For some time now I have suspected there is a systemic glitch with availability exactly at the 7-month window. For many months I have noticed the exact same issued mentioned by the OP: Today, there is availability for tomorrow's 7-month window, but by tomorrow that day is gone. And there is a cascading effect where each successive day appears to be available the day before, but then is gone when the actual day arrives.

I could understand if this happened occasionally. But its happened for many months at several different resorts. Yesterday, (3/17) I looked at availability for PVB Lake Studio for 10/17-10/24. October 17th wasn't available, but October 18th was available. Today, October 18th is not available but October 19th is available. Tomorrow, I'll check again, but I fear that I will find that October 19th will not be available.

 

[Bell30012]

An option to consider in the future is to try to arrange with a VGC owner to have enough VGC points transferred into your account to book your stay. You can use them to book VGC 11 months out. Then rent your points out to cover the cost of the VGC points.

Unfortunately, I'm at the 7 months from our trip now. I didn't realize that this would be an issue. Lack of research on my part. I'm wait listed but if we don't get it, then we'll just have to make the decision to stay <gasp> off property.

Have you tried calling Member Services and having them check availability? They say MS has the same availability as what Members see with the Online System, but I always wonder if some days slip through the cracks and don't show up on the Online System.

For some time now I have suspected there is a systemic glitch with availability exactly at the 7-month window. For many months I have noticed the exact same issued mentioned by the OP: Today, there is availability for tomorrow's 7-month window, but by tomorrow that day is gone. And there is a cascading effect where each successive day appears to be available the day before, but then is gone when the actual day arrives.

I could understand if this happened occasionally. But its happened for many months at several different resorts. Yesterday, (3/17) I looked at availability for PVB Lake Studio for 10/17-10/24. October 17th wasn't available, but October 18th was available. Today, October 18th is not available but October 19th is available. Tomorrow, I'll check again, but I fear that I will find that October 19th will not be available.

I did, I called Member Services today. Twenty-five minutes on hold, and I'm not sure he was US based. Not the same level of service that we had in the past, that is for sure. Basically, he told me that by wait listing today, I'm likely to get it but may not know until 30 days before the trip. I hate not knowing.

 

[CMNJ]

Have you tried calling Member Services and having them check availability? They say MS has the same availability as what Members see with the Online System, but I always wonder if some days slip through the cracks and don't show up on the Online System.

For some time now I have suspected there is a systemic glitch with availability exactly at the 7-month window. For many months I have noticed the exact same issued mentioned by the OP: Today, there is availability for tomorrow's 7-month window, but by tomorrow that day is gone. And there is a cascading effect where each successive day appears to be available the day before, but then is gone when the actual day arrives.

I could understand if this happened occasionally. But its happened for many months at several different resorts. Yesterday, (3/17) I looked at availability for PVB Lake Studio for 10/17-10/24. October 17th wasn't available, but October 18th was available. Today, October 18th is not available but October 19th is available. Tomorrow, I'll check again, but I fear that I will find that October 19th will not be available.

The problem isn't that there is a glitch and rooms aren't avail it's just that there are way too many of us all trying to book those avail rooms at PVB-I too had been tracking PVB bookings as we are going in Oct and couldn't get into our home resort-EVERY day at exactly 8 am there was avail for PVB for the past few weeks (with the exception of one day during the Columbus day weekend when 2 days booked up at once and no one trying to check in the following day would have been able). If you want PVB you MUST try to book at exactly 8 am OR stalk the website in the following days to see if anyone is walking a reservation-avail has popped up after being fully booked the past few weeks so it is a possibility.

 

[skier_pete]

I think the problem is VGC. It's EXTREMELY hard to get into because it is (a) a small resort - only around 75 rooms, (b) the owners tend to use their points there as they are California based.

We are hoping to go out in February and hoping that the "off-peak" season is enough to allow me to get in. One thing we are considering is a shorter stay in a 1-bedroom. (3 nights in a 1-bedroom instead of 4 nights in a studio) The 1-bedroom is our back-up plan if we can't get the studio. If we can't get in at all, we will probably skip going as well.

 

[quinnc19]

Yes, I had to go to a 1 bedroom for my June stay at GCV. Twice as many points for only my DD and I, but at least I got in!

 

[tasha99]

I had to do a split stay within VGC last summer--2 days in 1 BR and one day in a 2 BR. It was a pain, but our 2 br was on the top floor next the WoC viewing area. We watched WoC from our balcony and had an amazing view of California Adventure. We knew getting 3 nights at 7 months wasn't to be relied on, so we bought a resale VGC contract for future stays.

 

[Bell30012]

We're in Georgia so we usually go to WDW. I haven't been to Disneyland since 1971 when I was still knee-high to a grasshopper. But I am wanting to take my daughter there for a change. We've done WDW and stayed at every resort. We'll still probably manage to do a DL but they sure aren't making it easy.

 

[Bell30012]

Now October 19 is showing unavailable as well.

 

[wdrl]

The problem isn't that there is a glitch and rooms aren't avail it's just that there are way too many of us all trying to book those avail rooms at PVB-I too had been tracking PVB bookings as we are going in Oct and couldn't get into our home resort-EVERY day at exactly 8 am there was avail for PVB for the past few weeks (with the exception of one day during the Columbus day weekend when 2 days booked up at once and no one trying to check in the following day would have been able). If you want PVB you MUST try to book at exactly 8 am OR stalk the website in the following days to see if anyone is walking a reservation-avail has popped up after being fully booked the past few weeks so it is a possibility.

I totally agree that there is a lot of demand for certain resorts at certain times. However, there is just too many times the ONLY day that is not available is the start of the 7-month window. I'm curious why the Online System shows availability for the first day of the seven-month window right up through 7:59 AM Eastern time and then, poof, its gone at 8:00 AM. A few months ago I was watching availability for VGF and there was about 7-8 days in a row when the Online System showed availability until it rolled over to the new day. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen enough times to make me wonder if there is a glitch in the system.

I've tried to think of booking scenarios that could explain why only one day at the start of the 7-month window would continuously be unavailable. Are there that many members who book only one day at a time? It can't be due to members walking a reservation.

 

[CMNJ]

I totally agree that there is a lot of demand for certain resorts at certain times. However, there is just too many times the ONLY day that is not available is the start of the 7-month window. I'm curious why the Online System shows availability for the first day of the seven-month window right up through 7:59 AM Eastern time and then, poof, its gone at 8:00 AM. A few months ago I was watching availability for VGF and there was about 7-8 days in a row when the Online System showed availability until it rolled over to the new day. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen enough times to make me wonder if there is a glitch in the system.

I've tried to think of booking scenarios that could explain why only one day at the start of the 7-month window would continuously be unavailable. Are there that many members who book only one day at a time? It can't be due to members walking a reservation.

I initially thought the same thing when I started watching the poly bookings end of February/beginning of March-why would only the current day every day book up and not subsequent days because who is staying just 1 night? Then I thought about it some more and it made more sense. There are ALOT of studios there-even if DVC hasn't declared them all into bookable inventory for the fall it's still prob a much larger pool of rooms than what is typical avail for Oct. at 7 months (other than possibly SSR). Since people can only book up to 7 days at a time (and from other posts I've read it sounds like a lot of Dis posters are doing shorter split stays there) on any given day SOME studios are being vacated and therefore avail for check in each and every day (except I think it was the Friday of Columbus Day weekend that completely booked up when the Thursday check in window opened). Combine that with the fact that there are not a lot of PVB owners just yet to have taken advantage of the 11 month window and you have some rooms becoming avail each day (except the one I meantioned already). I'm not saying there aren't any glitches with the website (we all know there are) I'm just saying that I personally checked at 8 am almost everyday for about 2.5 weeks and if a room was avail at 7:59 on Room avail tool AND I hit book at 8 am on the dot it came up avail for me to book. Then I would back out and check again a few minutes later and it was fully booked. I had seen all the posts about getting booted out when people tried to book online so I wanted to try my phone/tablet/etc to see if I would have problems too and figure out which device was most reliable for me.
I do feel bad for the OP as there is not an alternate DVC at DL like we have at WDW

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

Honestly being on site here is not the advantage it is in Florida. I have gone several times and I never even bothered to try to stay at a Disney hotel. There are great hotels within walking distance.

 

[supersnoop]

I totally agree that there is a lot of demand for certain resorts at certain times. However, there is just too many times the ONLY day that is not available is the start of the 7-month window. I'm curious why the Online System shows availability for the first day of the seven-month window right up through 7:59 AM Eastern time and then, poof, its gone at 8:00 AM. A few months ago I was watching availability for VGF and there was about 7-8 days in a row when the Online System showed availability until it rolled over to the new day. It doesn't happen all the time, but it does happen enough times to make me wonder if there is a glitch in the system.

I've tried to think of booking scenarios that could explain why only one day at the start of the 7-month window would continuously be unavailable. Are there that many members who book only one day at a time? It can't be due to members walking a reservation.

Because there are 500+ people online at exactly 8:00 trying to book one of the 8 rooms still available for that date. Synchronize your clock with http://nist.time.gov and run some trial bookings in the days leading up to see if Disney's clock is a few seconds fast or slow, and then have the website up, search filled out, and clock visible so you can click the button the millisecond availability opens up.

 

[tasha99]

Honestly being on site here is not the advantage it is in Florida. I have gone several times and I never even bothered to try to stay at a Disney hotel. There are great hotels within walking distance.

This is true to some extent--if you stay offsite, it's very easy to walk to Disneyland. We've stayed at Hojos and liked it. However, Harbor Blvd is extremely far out of any sort of "Disney bubble," especially at night when there are people sleeping next to the sidewalk. We had our first stay at VGC last summer, and it was a world of difference--and why we decided to buy VGC points.

 

[Minniesgal]

yes VGC is very small. We bought points there for exactly this reason.

 

[tjkraz]

I know that there is limited availability but it must really be limited in Disneyland with only one DVC resort.

Assuming all of the lock-off villas are split, room counts are as follows:

Deluxe Studio: 23
One Bedroom: 23
Two Bedroom: 23
Grand Villa: 2

So yes, rooms are very limited at VGC. If you were trying to book a Studio, there are only 23 available every single night. And owners at VGC had a 4-month advantage to book.

 

[OrangeCountyCommuter]

This is true to some extent--if you stay offsite, it's very easy to walk to Disneyland. We've stayed at Hojos and liked it. However, Harbor Blvd is extremely far out of any sort of "Disney bubble," especially at night when there are people sleeping next to the sidewalk. We had our first stay at VGC last summer, and it was a world of difference--and why we decided to buy VGC points.

I never really see a "Disney bubble" at this resort.

1. You can SEE the rest of the world from your hotel and park rides
2. There are LOADS and LOADS of locals and it's a much more like a "day" trip park then Orlando. Much different feeling of 'real world'

I said I had never stayed at Disney hotel, but then I remembered I did. And I never have bothered to stay again so I guess I wasn't too impressed.