Adding someone to ressie?

[asmit4]

Say I want to book a trip in September 2008 for a September 2009 trip (hopefully during free DDP bounceback). If I book the trip for 2 adults in 1 value room, but say in March want to add in 1 more adult to the ressie, are they going to allow that person to get the free ddp too? I am probably going to go with my mom again in 2009, but might want to have my husband come with, I just don't want to add him to the ressie so early until we know for sure about him coming or not.

Also, say we book me, and my mom but my mom drops out and I want to replace my mom with my husband on the ressie. Will they allow this?

 

[yoplit]

In my opinion i think it would be alot easier to just book for all three, then you know for sure that everyone can be accounted for. But time and unforseen occurance befall us all, so if one or the other can't make it just cancel it for them. thats just my opinion though...hopefully someone with more experience can give you their thoughs

 

[Traveliz]

In my opinion i think it would be alot easier to just book for all three, then you know for sure that everyone can be accounted for. But time and unforseen occurance befall us all, so if one or the other can't make it just cancel it for them. thats just my opinion though...hopefully someone with more experience can give you their thoughs

I agree - much easier to take him off than try and add someone when you are talking free dining and all the special little rules that has.

Liz

 

[busykate]

I'm going this sept. and am planning on bringing dd and neice. I wasn't sure if the neice was going.When I booked with Small World my agent told me it was much easier to add than to subtract a person. I don't know if there is a fee for removing a guest, there's no fee for adding and we are going during free dining.

 

[aribelle]

I haven't done Free DDP, but have read many threads where people have tried to add someone....the college kid who decided to go at the last minute, etc....and if it's past the dates to reserve DDP you're out of luck. Not only can you not add them with the free DDP...but you can't add them at all, because the room is a free DDP, so you would end up losing YOUR reservation too. NOT GOOD.

I agree with PP, book the room for the most people that you plan to have come....it apparently is easier to drop people off the ressie. In fact, they require that each person on the ressie be present at checkin before they'll put that person's DDP credits on your key. In other words....if Mom arrives a few hours after you do, she has to go and check in even though you already have the room key...she needs to show she exists and be added to the room key. I guess in the past people have taken advantage of free DDP to get extra credits by having phantom people in the room. Kinda sad.

Now...it does cost extra for a 3rd adult in the room, so you'll have that added to your reservation, but you can delete one adult 45 days before arrival and have the cost removed. But that's easier to do than trying to add the 3rd adult with the Free DDP, so I'd go that route. In fact...if there is even a remote chance that Mom will want to bring along a friend, I'd book it for 4 and clean it up at 45 days out so that you can do the free DDP for everyone in the room.

 

[aribelle]

I'm going this sept. and am planning on bringing dd and neice. I wasn't sure if the neice was going.When I booked with Small World my agent told me it was much easier to add than to subtract a person. I don't know if there is a fee for removing a guest, there's no fee for adding and we are going during free dining.

I'd suggest you call back and confirm what they told you.....because it doesn't quite make sense. The FREE dining has very strict rules...a big one being you have to book it before a certain date and you can't do things like change rooms (i.e. standard to water view) AFTER the date for the promotion deal ends. And....If you look around at different threads here you'll see lots of people unable to add someone to their room because it's after the FREE dining deal ended. Since everyone in the room has to be on the same dining plan (be it the free time, or even when you PAY for the dining, everyone has to be on the same plan, regular or deluxe, the exception being the wine add on is only for adults of course, but you can't have Dad on Deluxe and Mom and kids on regular for example). So, when it's FREE dining, you can't add someone to the free dining after the deal ends, so you therefore can't add them to your room. You'd have to cancel your room/free dining and book another room and pay for dining. Obviously, not a good choice.

But....apparently each person getting free dining has to be seen (kids included) by the check in CMs, so it's much easier to remove someone, for example one of the kids stayed home. Because if they don't appear, they don't get the free dining.

In the OPs case she's talking about the possible third being another adult and Disney does charge for more than 2 adults in a room, so she'd definitely want to make those changes to her room before final payment is due, because it's conceivable you couldn't get a refund of those extra charges at check in. Not sure about that, but wouldn't want to risk the expense, and hopefully she'll know 45 days before arrival if everyone is going.

So, I'd check with your travel agent to be sure that you understood them correctly, but if you did, then they seem to be telling you the opposite of what people have been posting about both this year and last year (we seriously considered going September 07 for the free dining, so I followed those threads for months).

 

[asmit4]

I haven't done Free DDP, but have read many threads where people have tried to add someone....the college kid who decided to go at the last minute, etc....and if it's past the dates to reserve DDP you're out of luck. Not only can you not add them with the free DDP...but you can't add them at all, because the room is a free DDP, so you would end up losing YOUR reservation too. NOT GOOD.

I agree with PP, book the room for the most people that you plan to have come....it apparently is easier to drop people off the ressie. In fact, they require that each person on the ressie be present at checkin before they'll put that person's DDP credits on your key. In other words....if Mom arrives a few hours after you do, she has to go and check in even though you already have the room key...she needs to show she exists and be added to the room key. I guess in the past people have taken advantage of free DDP to get extra credits by having phantom people in the room. Kinda sad.

Now...it does cost extra for a 3rd adult in the room, so you'll have that added to your reservation, but you can delete one adult 45 days before arrival and have the cost removed. But that's easier to do than trying to add the 3rd adult with the Free DDP, so I'd go that route. In fact...if there is even a remote chance that Mom will want to bring along a friend, I'd book it for 4 and clean it up at 45 days out so that you can do the free DDP for everyone in the room.

Thanks! This makes really smart sense to me- so that's what we will do. We'll just book it for 4 adults, put our 200 deposit down and cancel later if necessary. As for the phantom people? How terrible! It's such a shame that people try to rig the system like that. Some people really have no shame.