Disney Springs hotel occupancy question

Please hear me out.

We have stayed at a WDW resort twice and I understand their occupancy rules and have never fudged them.

At most hotels though outside of Disney, no one actually knows or cares how many of us there are. We call/book online a room, and are never asked how many of us there are. We are a family of 5 (3 young children).

Are the Disney Springs hotels like your general hotels in this way? When we travel outside of Disney, say I book a Fairfield Inn or Best Western, we have never ever had a problem staying in a 2 queen room with 3 kids.

We need a one night stay in October before a family wedding and I would like to book a Disney Springs hotel. I was just about to book through hotels.com (and there was no big notice about occupancy) but then I wondered if I would run into any issue?

 

If you enter your party size accurately, a third-party site like Hotel.com will only show rooms that accommodate your party. For example, 2 adults and 3 kids results in only seeing a Junior Suite at the Hilton Lake Buena Vista. With 2 adults and 2 kids, you get four or five different room types.

Standard rooms at the DoubleTree Suites and Best Western Lake Buena Vista can accommodate 5 guests.

As someone who worked in the hotel industry, I can say that this is not true. While a Front Desk clerk might not openly care, I'm absolutely certain that management does care. No hotel manager is going to ignore maximum occupancy ratings. First, they lose money when people lie and only rent one room. Second and most important, they risk major fines by the city/county/state for violating the law. And knowingly ignoring maximum occupancy ratings probably puts their insurance policy in jeopardy.

Maximum occupancy ratings exist to keep people safe in the unlikely event of an emergency. They are like seatbelts (and features like airbags) in cars. Hopefully, you'll never need them. But, would you ever take the risk of putting your kids in a car without using a seatbelt?

Please don't do it.

 

Oh for goodness sakes. I've never, ever lied. I've also never, ever been asked. Ive called countless hotels and my husband works in an industry that has us travel often and he has reserved more hotels than i can count. No one has ever, ever asked. And when front desk people see the 5 of us come in, we've been welcomed and offered additional blankets, pillows, and even cots which we decline bc we bring our own. The only time I've been asked is at wdw where we have done exactly as we've been asked.

 

OP ~

We are a family of five ...... my DH travels all the time, and we are lucky to travel often as well.

I guess I just don't understand when you have several options to book in Disney Springs with rooms that hold 5 why wouldn't you just book it with your actual number rather than exceed occupancy?

As @writerguyfl says Hilton, DoubleTree Suites and BW LBV has options.

B Resort also has rooms for 5 and Hilton Buena Vista Palace has options as well.

On top of that the DS hotels have some hefty resort and parking fees .... if you go just a minute or so past those hotels there are lots of options for 5 that cost less and may be just as nice.

 

I guess I'm confused at why you are asking the question because every travel website I've ever seen automatically filters out any room that won't accommodate your party. Do you not make your reservations online?

I find it shocking that no hotel has ever inquired as to the number of guests when you call and make reservations. And if you've never experienced an issue trying to put 5 people into a room rated for 4, you're either super lucky or you're staying at really horribly run hotels.

Perhaps you weren't aware, but it is a life-safety issue. In the future, if you're making a reservation and no one asks how many people in your party, make sure to ask.

 

YUP. As a family of five if we book online (most of the time) the systems no matter which one automatically filters out. Sometimes hotels that I know take 5 will not allow it on third party but if you call the hotel they can adjust it to make sure you are in the proper room. When calling to book we are asked how many.

There are lots of options around WDW for 5 at many price points so no reason to exceed occupancy.

 

We travel frequently. My husband travels for work, so usually he is alone. But when we take the family and book a hotel online, it always asks how many people we have. We often book through the Hilton website, and when I put in our number, it shows me how many hotels will hold a family of 5, and it definitely limits the number of hotels. If you want to stay at Disney Springs, Doubletree is your option. There are also a couple of Embassy Suites and Homewoods right outside of Disney property.

Our youngest is 2, and some hotels don't count her until she's 3. But other hotels do count her and that bumps us out of a 2 queen regular room.

In my experience, ALL hotels are asking about how many you have in your room. You may not have intentionally lied, but if you didn't give them a number, they usually just assume there is one adult alone.

 

I've never booked through hotels.com, so out of curiosity I just went to the website. It's right there. In the same box under Where To? it asks for destination, dates, AND number of people. So it might not be in red or listed as a "notice" but it does ask. And if you're skipping that question, you are telling them that you only have one adult in the room (because that is what it says: 1 ADULT when you hit search). You may not have noticed it before, but it is lying. Perhaps not intentionally because you didn't notice it before, but now that you know, continuing to book without actually telling them how many people are in the room is dishonest.

I know that's not what you wanted to hear, but if you are insisting that you've never lied and are insisting that you've never been asked, you might want to know that what you are saying is not actually true, since it asks you right there on the front page of the hotels.com website.

 

This doesn't seem right. Not only does everyplace I've ever booked ask for how many people, when you put in "child", they want to know how old. I don't think I've ever seen it not be in the general search options.

 

I'm with you. Hotels have just never cared at all. This looks very strange to me, with a rather extreme reaction from ...well I'm not sure if it's young people who simply cant see anythimg but an internet ruled existence or OCD or what. But many years of experience with hotels tells me that hotels in general do like us as customers (and probably families in general) well enough to accommodate us with true hospitality and good sense. We've never been treated badly in any way shape or form, much less with this passionate false righteousness that says book a separate room to split your family up as if that was safe or tell families to stay home or go elsewhere if that's your travel budget. That's pretty sad behavior and reasoning, to be honest.

I wish I could answer your question about Disney area. On the rare occasions I've booked online I filled in the fields correctly. I'm guessing that may be the bit you had yet to see for yourself and think through before the terrible onslaught of poor form happened here. I think its also possible that corruption in politics plays a part in the trend towards occupancy rules. But that's OK, despite the continuing decline in central Florida's ethics and integrity. For now there is still sucesss and entertainment and it may last long enough to benefit me for the rest of my life. someday something new will rise up and replace it. And everyone will be just as well off or better for the growth of the replacements.

I've still yet to encounter any real and valid reason that our culture should stand on its head and pretend that splitting up families or make them stay home was safe or wise or good in any way. And happily I've yet to ever encounter a hotel or hotel staff that didn't appreciate our business. I've been blessed to see a lot of genuine hospitality out of the hospitality industry.

 

This statement is 100% false. Hotel occupancy rules are part of the state and local building codes. They are based on concrete factors like square footage, ceiling height, immovable furniture (i.e. beds), means of egress from the room, means of egress from the floor.

Hotels are classified as either Residential Group R-1 or R-2 under Florida building codes. Using that classification, architects and owners know exactly what maximum occupancy will be assigned for each guest room.

Florida Building Code Classifications: https://codes.iccsafe.org/public/document/code/377/6734028
Example of Detailed Codes (Means of Egress; pdf): https://www2.iccsafe.org/states/Florida2001/FL_Building1/PDFs/Chapter 10_Means of Egress.pdf

In order to falsify occupancy limits, an owner would have to bribe the architect, the hotel chain representative, the contractor, the insurance company, the local building inspector, and the office in which all plans are filed. The notion that owners do all of that is asinine.

To impugn the character of Central Florida's public servants without evidence is, to quote you, terribly poor form.

 

^THIS

And in regards to conspiracy comments ....

 

As a person who lived in central Florida as a young adult and who was quite politically active and the assumptions you implied about where the corruption in the suspicions came in are incorrect assumptions. You may dislike the notion of corruption for many different reasons, but the introduction to this conversation was already present in the assumptions, orthodoxies presented by earlier commenters. Attachment to orthodoxies disable influence.

In fact, even the building codes you refer to may not be above suspicion even if they had been a factor in that earlier comment, which they were not. There’s is absolutely room to investigate and rethink the assumptions and orthodoxies which may underlie them as well. Rational public discourse where such things can be examine and reexamined is actually valuable if not correctly placed here on disboards. Perhaps the fact that Walt Disney could do what he did when he did and that it could not be done today is a whole ‘nother worthwhile can o worms so to speak.

And as far as the implications involved about corruption vs impugning people (or the fallacy of implying a conspiracy theory) the underlying assumption one then wonders about is do you believe a) no corruption could ever exist in the politics of our culture or b) every person in a population or a demographic or even working within governmental positions is equally culpable when corruption exists. Neither is a reasonable position. Corruption is certainly real. It does exist. There is much evidence regularly in our faces and crammed down our throats. And while many individuals are relatively innocent its certainly a valid ideal when we acknowledge the decline that comes as a result. One can love the place, the people, and the culture and still deal with the realities with less emotion than was showered all over the OP or was invoked in that effort to assert that corruption isn't a possible factor through rising to the defense as if their were the same personal onslaught being launched against all public servants, many of whom would never have reason to know that a disboards commenter dared to casually mention the word.

Is that seriously the emotional need here that no one can come to disboards and be new to (And thrown by) seeing the occupancy issue or dare to sympathize with the thought that it definitely doesn't jive with decades of experience? This dogma may be something a few people or even a lot more than I'd tend to suspect are attached to. But the emotions and the assumptions leapt to over and over here certainly do reveal the problem that there is dogma, inflexibility of mind, involved.

 

Discussing politics is a violation of the Disboard rules.

Perhaps we just leave this thread with ... OP asked about breaking State law for no legit reason since there are MANY lodging options in all areas around Disney they fit in ... and responses suggested she not do that and just book one of many rooms they are permitted in.

 

Since the questions asked in the OP have been addressed and the fact that this has now taken a turn far beyond those questions, this thread is now closed.