Can we "crash" with our friends midway through their 10 day stay?

[cmack98]

HI Gang...

I hate posting a new thread, in fear that it's been answered before....However, after 30 minutes of searching this site, as well as the rest of the internet....I still can't find an answer, so here goes...Hopefully someone can help.

We have a friend towing down his 5th wheel camper. It's huge, sleeps like 10 people. He has reservations for 10 days already. He's doing the dining plan with park hopper tickets for his whole crew. Well, 5 of them cancelled on him, and he asked us to go in their place. We did not plan on taking a vacation this year, so we have zero budget really....

Joining them with my family of 4 would be $2500 (he told us the campground is covered, but we'd just have to cover the tickets with the meal plan). Still way out of our budget....However, he mentioned that we can just come down and stay with them and buy our tickets on our own, eat on our own, etc....

Can we do that at the campground? Lets say they get there on a Monday, and we show up say, on Wednesday....Can we just pull up to the gate and let them know we are there to visit them (providing they put our names down beforehand or something?) That way my family has access to the resort amenities, transportation, etc?

We are friends with a CM and can probably purchase tix through him, we can hit up Wal-Mart and grab grub and cook it at the site to save money on our budget.....Just not sure if popping in during the middle of his reservation would fly?

 

[sharadoc]

You can go with your friend to check-in and he can add you to their reservation on site when you get there. That way you'll have resort IDs and be able to use the Extra Magic Hours, get into and out of the gate when you want to drive off property, and show it as ID to go to other properties.

It shouldn't cost anything extra to do that and it would make you legal.

 

[jbrostek]

Your frined can add you as a guest and get you a resort key. You can buy your tickets on your own, but the only item that might come up is if you where trying to use Magical Express to get from the airport to FW. It is nearly impossible to add you to their reservation for that if you are not part of the package (meal plan plus tickets.) So as long as you are aware that its easier to just arrange a shuttle van from the airport then you should be all set to head on down and have a Magical time.

BTW I do this all the time as I stay at FW for 2 weeks and invite friends to come for a few days or a week. I have never had an issue with adding someone, but we found out the first year when we attempted to use ME for airport transportation that the person needs to be on the same package. But since we do not use the meal plan, we now just purchase our tickets seperately so that we can use our reservation ID to have someone transported.

 

[phnguyk]

My concern is the dining plan From what I know, I think if you get dining plan it is for the entire "room reservation". Not sure if you can get it for only certain people on reservation..... But if he gets a room only reservation you are definitely fine with just adding your names to the reservation.

 

[2goofycampers]

Everyone staying on the reservation has to have the same package. So you won't be able to be added without paying for tickets and DP.

 

[cmack98]

Thanks everyone for your responses.

He actually called Fort Wilderness Campground and found out from them that we can come and stay with him at any time during his reservation. We do not need to buy any tickets or be on any plan at all. He can just add our names, we will get "keys" and be allowed to use the resort and Disney amenities just like any other guest.

That's awesome news for us, now just to see if we can get all our ducks in a row and go!

Thanks everyone for your help!

 

[retired and happy]

That seems simple enough. Enjoy.

 

[Running_Bell]

Everyone staying on the reservation has to have the same package. So you won't be able to be added without paying for tickets and DP.

Are you sure that is correct? I just made reservations for 5 people at FW/Beach Club, but only 3 of us are purchasing DP and tickets for the entire stay. The other 2 are buying a MYW 3 day pass only and no DP. We had no problems doing that at all. Maybe our reservation is setup different??

 

[2goofycampers]

Are you sure that is correct? I just made reservations for 5 people at FW/Beach Club, but only 3 of us are purchasing DP and tickets for the entire stay. The other 2 are buying a MYW 3 day pass only and no DP. We had no problems doing that at all. Maybe our reservation is setup different??

It has always been everyone in the room had to have the same package. I have searched the resorts board and apparently there are loop holes around this and WDW sometimes bends their own rules. If they let you do it . When we had guests years ago we had to make 3 different reservations for the same stay because they wanted a lesser package.

 

[jbrostek]

Odd, because we had no issue adding someone to a packaged reservation once they where there. It was when we tried to use extended amenities (like Magical Express) that we nearly hit a snag. We lucked out that I do my reservation seperate of tickets just because that is how I prefer to set it up. We never do the meal plan, after 4 years of going and tracking our expeditures, the meal plan will not save us anything since we eat in just as much as we eat out.

 

[2goofycampers]

Odd, because we had no issue adding someone to a packaged reservation once they where there.

That is a loop hole I just learned of. I had always put them on the reservation months ahead of arrival. The trick is to wait until they arrive.

 

[jbrostek]

Denise - We learned on the go ourselves. But as expected the cast members helped us tremendously and we now setup reservations in preparation for some of our friends/family with less vacation time to arrive for part of our stay.