Anyone Get S/D Teacher/Nurse/Gov't Rate For a Full Week Recently??

[Bill From PA]

I noticed last Autumn while searching for S/D rates for our Jan. 2005 trip that the Teacher's rate was available for both hotels, but not for more than 3 days consecutively. I ended up booking the first 3 days at Swan, the next 2 at AllStar and the last 3 at Dolphin. Those middle 2 never were listed at either place. Looking now, this pattern seems to be in place. You can get 2 or 3 days here and there, but not a solid week. Anyone get a full week or more at either place or 4 in one and the rest in the other to make a full stay possible? The hotel swap was not too bad, but I'd rather stay in one for our whole stay in March or at the worst, go straight from one to the other on foot. The previous 2 trips in the first week in March we got the rate for 8 days consecutively in one or the other.

Thanks,
Bill From PA

 

[MickeyMickey]

Yes 3 rooms $99 each September 24-October 1

 

[luvmarypoppins]

We tried for a full week at the swan with the govt. rate in april. It was busy since it was the northeast spring break. They too only gave us a few days, abput 3. I think you are right about the pattern. We booked it anyway for the full week. But then I kept looking on the starwood site and for the days we didnt get the discount they kept lowering the room rate. I had my dh call and complain about this. They told us if we bought in the printout from the internet then they would honor the lower rate. But in the end we ended up switching to the Poly with an AP rate. Now this dec. we are going to the swan for dh conference. I asked for a rate for Dec. 1-3 after the conference is over and they quoted $329. Well thanks to a nice poster here I was able to get the mousefest rate of $129 which at first they denied they had or were even offering. This took 2 phone calls from dh again. Now for this upcoming easter 2006 I will try again for another whole week, but I am not holding my breath. I think the starwood hotels are keeping in line with the disney deluxe prices. I dont know if this is their policy or something disney is prompting them to do. I dont like this trend. The Swan with a govt. discount is always my b plan if I cant get a good disney deluxe rate.

 

[swilphil]

We stayed at the Contemporary on our last trip because of this. We love the Swan/Dolphin, but the discounts are getting harder to come by. Availability seems to revolve more around their convention schedule than anything else. Most conventions are usually 4-5 days, so it makes sense that the discounts are only availabe for 2 or 3 days at a time.

 

[Cerala]

The fiancee and I were just pricing the Swan/Dolphin because of the current flakiness of the Best Rates booking engine. Technically, we were able to get rates for a full week but because I arranged our visit 3 days into Peak season, the per night rate went up $20 the last two nights. (It was originally 2 days in but they didn't give a discount at all the first day so I pushed the whole vacation back a day.) I've never booked with the Swan/Dolphin (much less any Deluxe resort), though, so I'm a little nervous about the differences between these resorts and the actual Disney resorts. However, now I'm afraid to wait on booking this and end up in the same boat I ended up in when I didn't book the Best Rate program when I could still see the availabilities. Good grief - this is getting a little stressful.