According to MouseMisers Disney is now assigning rooms at time of booking

[CarnotaurDad]

This is much harder to manager than people think. As an extremely frequent business traveler, I understand the demands on room reservations and what can happen.

If everyone accepted the first room they got, then that would be one thing and it might work.

But things happen. Internet might not work. Toilet is plugged. Window won't open. Balcony is broken. People switch rooms and all of a sudden the wonderful plan is broken. What should Disney do? Force people to stay in their assigned room if it isn't up to par?

I understand room category guarantee but actual room guarantee is not as easy as people think.

 

[fireflymedic]

Gosh I cant rember if I put in a request for a ground floor room or not. But I have to have one as my mom uses one of those scooters while we are at DW.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

This is much harder to manager than people think. As an extremely frequent business traveler, I understand the demands on room reservations and what can happen.

If everyone accepted the first room they got, then that would be one thing and it might work.

But things happen. Internet might not work. Toilet is plugged. Window won't open. Balcony is broken. People switch rooms and all of a sudden the wonderful plan is broken. What should Disney do? Force people to stay in their assigned room if it isn't up to par?

I understand room category guarantee but actual room guarantee is not as easy as people think.

you bring up other good points...

but i can tell you from first hand experience at WDW that the reason things are shifted around are more than likely NOT for maintenance issues...those are a small percentage of the cases.

The biggest reasons are...in no particular order:
1. Parties traveling with, multiple room blocks, etc. No place on earth has more people on coordinated travel dates and itineraries than WDW...makes sense...the grandparent effect. But its a pain because they are often booked independently, others decide to come later, etc etc, and the system won't necessarily have them linked together. "Magical Gatherings" anyone?
2. the aforementioned view and locations headaches...wishes, magic, dream, and wonder!!! They deserve this headache cause they made it
3. Day of "plans" to be met by parties checking in. Again, a beast of their own making. As they have you book your dinner 6 months in advance and sell a slew of "special event" tickets that are on select days. People often are insistant on getting in a room to get to "something" with a reservation number on it in a short amount of time.
4. The baby needs a nap....self explanatory there.

 

[lockedoutlogic]

Again, it is simple, automatic room assignments, if a guest wants to change allow the front desk to switch rooms on a first come first served basis. Not a new concept and a pretty easy approach to the whole situation.

All in all...this is the way it HAS been handled. and the morning workers always give out the "best" rooms...mostly because they are longer tenured, don't want to deal with the strife, and like to be all smiles and give people what they want to hear.

They are always told that this is not the way to do things...but the management doesn't have the guts to enforce the pre-blocks...just as those blowing them are to spoiled to have to maintain them. It makes the latter half of the day a nightmare at times...but that isn't likely to change.

the "first come, first serve" plan doesn't work on a fundamental level. The megaopolis can be on a plane at 7 and on the ground in orlando at 9:00 am...they would always have first crack.
That is fundamentally not fair to those coming from both the West and abroad. And jerks from the upper east coast (like me) are there too much and always raising hell anyway.

The squeaky wheel shouldn't always get the grease.