We are going on May 5, POR RGR garden view. Hoping for upgrade to river view. What are the chances? Do they have suites at Por? Do you have a better chance for upgrade if you ask or are they more prone to just surprise you. Sorry, no upgrade story. This is our first WDW trip!
Invariably, when someone starts a thread just like this; the question starts to come up from people how to get a free upgrade. It is unfortunate.
Free upgrades are few and far between, and have nothing to do with anything you have control over. Upgrades have to do with maintenance issues, rooms out of inventory due to refurbishments, resort overbooking, and people who cannot leave on time due to weather issues at home. You have absolutely no idea how or when they will pop up.
Considering the fact that Disney has over 30,000 rooms and has rooms open 52 weeks a year. You can imagine how many people check in and never get an upgrade - there is only a handful here.
CM's have also stated that the least way to get a free upgrade is to ask for it - they will tell you how much the difference is between your rate and to upgrade using full rack rate for that season. If you have a discount, you will lose it because you are basically booking a new reservation. They prefer to surprise their guests with upgrades, IF and WHEN the possibility presents itself.
In addition, over the past two years, Disney has added several differenct booking categories, due to the types of requests they have seen come through with guests. So people are booking the level they want, leaving very little wiggle room for upgrades anymore. POR has added several new categories, thus creating less and less options for the categories, and they book up faster.
Basically, you booked the cheaper garden view room and are now expecting a river view room that someone else has already paid for. You are also setting yourself up for disappointment, if you anticipate, based on a dozen experiences on this thread, that you are going to be able to snag a room with a higher booking category.
In addition, POR is going through a major refurbishment and many rooms are out of inventory at each time, so there are less to dole out.
I would expect to get a garden view room, and if by some chance you get upgraded, it is a nice thing - but it is not a good idea to expect it from one thread.
after a few months of wrangling I gave in and wrote it off as it was beginning to spoil my positive feeling about WDW
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It was our first multi-night stay at anywhere other than a value or mod, and as soon as I entered the room I saw that we got the dreaded (to me) enclosed balcony (can you tell I really have strong feelings about balconies?) Anyway, I called right away, politely explained my deep burning desire for a real balcony, and after being put on hold for ten or fifteen minutes we were given another room, which when we entered was inner courtyard view. I was in balcony heaven! It was only when I got back home that I realized the very significant difference in price from standard to courtyard view. Once again, I had not asked for an upgrade, simply a different location.
