Day guest pass? And question about working with TA.

[nkereina]

We choose to only use the day amenities, but they could have stayed the night (we weren’t over occupancy- hubby is a firefighter so that’s a taboo topic I don’t even whack with a 10ft pole).

the guest pass was free, allowed them to open the door to our room, and the pool, no charging privileges, and helped the resort know that there was an extra person there (again, helpful for occupancy reasons).


that was how it was explained to me. If you are over your occupancy, I would *assume* that you might not be able to get a guest pass.

could I have just added them to the resort? Yes, but I hate how fastpasses and MDE are set up so I typically delete anyone in my party who isn’t there (and I haven’t created an account for my aunt since she doesn’t do the parks), and readd them when they come on our next trip. A guest pass won’t have them show up on MDE. We are AP so we don’t use the ticket option, and rarely do DDP.

If they were added to your reservation and could have stayed the night, then you should have incurred extra persons charges for anyone 18+ after the first two adults on the reservation. CMs have always been able to add extra people to the reservation at or after check-in, but they are treated no differently than you as the "main" guest of the resort stay. By adding them at or after check-in, they're still subject to the same rules and charges, but would be exempt from purchasing the same package elements as you (i.e. tickets, dining plan, etc). Charging privileges would be optional.

 

[txelle05]

Wow, thanks for the info everyone. I will admit that I am still a bit confused but it seems that the best course of action right now would be to do the booking for just my immediate family (the ones actually staying in the room) and then see about adding the grandparents once we're at the resort, only for the day they would be with us. I did price it out with the extra family members on the reservation and it was about $500 more expensive so I don't think we'll be doing that.

From your other thread, it looks like you’re planning to be at Yacht Club for your pool day. Pool access is strictly controlled at Y & B. Everyone entering will get their magic band scanned & must be a registered guest. So you will have to add them to your reservation, whether before or at check in. And you will have to pay the extra adult charge, since you will have have more than 2 adults in the room. Last I knew, the charge was $25 per extra guest, so you will have a $50 fee for the day they are there. You might get lucky & not be charged that fee, but I would plan on being charged.

Are you looking at a package with the travel agent? Everyone in the room on a package must have the same ticket length as you were told. But you can book a room only reservation & purchase tickets separately & get only what each person needs. You then link the tickets to each person in MDE. There are some online sites that sell tickets at a small discount too, so unless The TA has a special offer, you might be able to do better buying elsewhere.

We were initially looking at a split stay between Yacht Club and Pop, but I took the advice from the other thread and we are now doing the full stay at Poly. We are fine with paying the regular Disney rate but really want to try for points once the window opens.

And I have not heard from the TA at all since we set up the call on Friday, so I think I will just cut ties with her and do the booking myself this week.

 

[Marthasor]

We choose to only use the day amenities, but they could have stayed the night (we weren’t over occupancy- hubby is a firefighter so that’s a taboo topic I don’t even whack with a 10ft pole).

the guest pass was free, allowed them to open the door to our room, and the pool, no charging privileges, and helped the resort know that there was an extra person there (again, helpful for occupancy reasons).


that was how it was explained to me. If you are over your occupancy, I would *assume* that you might not be able to get a guest pass.

could I have just added them to the resort? Yes, but I hate how fastpasses and MDE are set up so I typically delete anyone in my party who isn’t there (and I haven’t created an account for my aunt since she doesn’t do the parks), and readd them when they come on our next trip. A guest pass won’t have them show up on MDE. We are AP so we don’t use the ticket option, and rarely do DDP.

Yes, I understand. You and I are, actually, describing the same thing. The front desk CM added your guests to your room, as you weren't over capacity, so they could use the amenities and could have stayed overnight. This is essentially what the OP wants to do as well. If you had been over room occupancy, the front desk CM would not have put them on your reservation and, hence, they would not have been able to enjoy the resort amenities for the day. This is the only work-around if you want to add guests for certain days during a trip, but don't want to, either, include them on package components or pay extra guest fees for an entire stay. You did exactly what OP wants to do, so I'm glad it worked out for you!