Disney to cancel FPs if room is cancelled

[TheMaxRebo]

What kind of jobs do some of you have that let you book vacation time more then 6 months advance at a time. My job lets people book in 4 to 6 months intervals.

I have never booked any vacation a year out. I save up the money for it that long in advance but don't physically book anything til close to 3 or 4 months ahead of time.

My job lets us book vacation whenever we want - so I book my vacations away before I put in for my time off. we just have to get all our work done whenever that is, as long as it takes ... so I often end up doing some work while on vacation

 

[TheMaxRebo]

In order for WDW to continue to market the 60d FP window as a major perk of staying onsite, they can’t make things too complicated for guests. That’s why I think they’ll close the loophole for offsite guests and then re-assess.

Can’t belive I’m posting about this during the Super Bowl...what a life

To be fair, not a great game

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Imagine if they made that change...some poor mom in Seattle getting up at 3:45am for a week straight 2 months before their Disney trip...

Her coworkers ask "why do you look so tired"

"I'm planning my Disney trip"

They respond "but you don't leave for 2 months"

"This is what it takes for my kids to experience the magic"

We always stay offsite so that is my experience every trip (though east coast time so not that bad but still up early booking several days in a row)

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

We always stay offsite so that is my experience every trip (though east coast time so not that bad but still up early booking several days in a row)

You know...now that you say that, I completely never thought about west coast off-site folks...that is really unfortunate!! That truly is their experience - not sure how much different availability is at 7am vs noon at 30 days though (seems like the difference between “sucky” and “VERY sucky”)

 

[Jrb1979]

My job lets us book vacation whenever we want - so I book my vacations away before I put in for my time off. we just have to get all our work done whenever that is, as long as it takes ... so I often end up doing some work while on vacation

Must be nice to book vacation any time you want. We get 6 months advance to book at a time. Even then I would never book something a year out. You don't know whats going to happen.

Like I said earlier, I have been able to get great off-site rooms 3 months out. It does help I usually go on a trip alone.

 

[Gentry2004]

I’m skeptical how much this will actually help FP+ availability. At least as many people were using SDFP, probably more, and I don’t feel like there was a huge change in availability when that loophole closed.

 

[Ladyfish77]

Quickly read entire thread! Here's my question/worry: We are booked at a good neighbor hotel (Shades of Green). These reservations are known to drop out of MDE on a very regular basis (many people have complained). So if my reservation drops out, and I don't catch it, then will I lose my FP? Very concerning. Not sure if other good neighbor hotels have same issue with room reservations falling out of MDE? I'm going to screen shot all my FP just in case my reservation drops out again (yes it's already happened, but didn't lose FP, but that algorithm change will probably delete them next time).

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Must be nice to book vacation any time you want. We get 6 months advance to book at a time. Even then I would never book something a year out. You don't know whats going to happen.

Like I said earlier, I have been able to get great off-site rooms 3 months out. It does help I usually go on a trip alone.

It’s definitely a positive - but like I said often bring work withe me and I work weekend from home and evenings sometimes - pluses and minuses to every job

 

[sndral]

This may be discussed on the FP thread, but what is the rationale behind allowing guests to book the FP beyond the 60 day mark? Disney could solve the various loophole problems discussed in this thread by only allowing booking at the 60 day mark, or 30 day for offsite, separately for each day of the reservation. Everyone would be on the same playing field. You cancel that day, you lose the FP. It would require a little more work but everyone has the app on their phone and is on their phone constantly anyway! If you are doing just one day at a time, it wouldn't be that time consuming.

I don’t think forcing people to log on at 655am 7 days in a row creates a positive guest experience

Imagine if they made that change...some poor mom in Seattle getting up at 3:45am for a week straight 2 months before their Disney trip...

Her coworkers ask "why do you look so tired"

"I'm planning my Disney trip"

They respond "but you don't leave for 2 months"

"This is what it takes for my kids to experience the magic"

I don’t have to imagine it - I live on the west coast. The first year I used FP+ booking day opened at midnight east coast time, which was 9 pm my time - I LOVED that, wish it was still like that.
We stay on site, so I don’t have to get up every day, but there’s also the early morning ADRs at 180 days and the 11 month DVC booking which is at least a more civilized 5 a.m. my time

 

[WaterLinds]

So sometime this week I can potentially serve as a data point for this change. We were booked at POFQ, because we liked it there last time and wanted to do it again, and I booked our FPs at 60. But then we planned the non-Disney portion of our trip and realized we’d do better with the same off site lodging for the whole trip.

Our Disney booking was made through a TA, so she has to cancel for us, and she was out of the office when I requested it. She should be back today and will hopefully put the cancellation through...but today is 30days from our first park day, so if the FPs hang out for a few days, we’ll be at 20-some days out when we can rebook them.

When we booked offsite we decided we had saved enough money to add some extras like EMM so we’ll still get to do SDD and 7D, but I might have to work for FoP now, and for our planned evening ride on SDD. (And that’s ok, I understand the rules and am happy to play by them!)

I’m happy to report back on what actually happens with our FPs for the curious.

 

[piccolopat]

There's been lots of speculation here as to what exactly will happen starting today. Waiting to hear real life experiences now.

 

[Lorelei18]

There's been lots of speculation here as to what exactly will happen starting today. Waiting to hear real life experiences now.

Indeed

 

[Spaceguy55]

I have a reservation that starts April 1st, so I just went to cancel to see what would happen.
No pop up or warning before I could hit the final button....
I have a AP, not sure if that makes any difference so far.

 

[Hoodie]

I still feel throwaway rooms is legitimate as long as you don't cancel.

I wonder if you don't check in, and it's automatically cancelled when you don't, if you'd lose all FPs. Imagine showing up and finding all you FP cancelled because you never physically checked into your throw away room.

We accidentally did the cancellation thing a couple of years ago. We had a split stay and about a month before we were going to leave, got an offsite offer that saved us enough money that we could return later in the year, so we switched to offsite the first half, and kept the second half of the reservation onsite. I wonder if our FPs would have transferred to the second reservation (even though it would have been technically 63 or 64 days booked at that point) or if they would have been erased. That would have been awful as we were less than 28 days out at that point and would have missed both FP booking days for that reservation.

 

[Marionnette]

There's been lots of speculation here as to what exactly will happen starting today. Waiting to hear real life experiences now.

I ended up canceling my AllStar reservation on Sunday when I found two studio nights and a 1BR for one night at SSR. However, that still leaves me short for the first night (not enough DVC points to book a 1BR for that night). I did get a warning that all FPs associated with that reservation would be canceled right before I confirmed my desire to continue but so far all of them are still there this morning.

I went in and changed one FP reservation for the first day that I have a reservation (I'm within 60 days for that night) to see if it would remain while the others drop off (because they were made under the AllStar reservation). So far nothing has dropped. But, I did all of this prior to today (2/4). So, we will see if this change is retroactive or not. For full disclosure, the FP that I changed was for the Laugh Floor not a high-demand one like 7DMTR, and only for 1 person. I don't want my little experiment to have a huge impact someone's attempt at a headliner.

 

[siren0119]

Must be nice to book vacation any time you want. We get 6 months advance to book at a time. Even then I would never book something a year out. You don't know whats going to happen.

Like I said earlier, I have been able to get great off-site rooms 3 months out. It does help I usually go on a trip alone.

I've had it both ways - some jobs where we could plan our vacations as far in advance as we wanted, just had to make sure we got the time off on the team calendar and keep any projects up to date and work covered while we were away.

Some jobs I had to compete for time off with other department members, by seniority. We would get the year calendar in December, and have to make 3 choices for our one "long" vacation (because we also couldn't take more than one full week in a single month for staffing reasons). The first few years I was there were awful because I could never get time off around my kids' vacations since I had no seniority. Luckily at that time we weren't doing much in the way of vacationing.

My husband's job doesn't post their time off request calendars until 3 months in advance, but all he does is send an email to his boss as soon as we know we have a trip scheduled, and he takes responsibility to send reminders and then put in the time off request as soon as the calendar is available.

 

[anniemae]

I wonder if you don't check in, and it's automatically cancelled when you don't, if you'd lose all FPs. .

I was wondering if they would make you physically check in as well. I just don't know what time they would give you until they considered you a "no show." Some people check in late at night. So you would be able to use all the fp's for day 1, but I suppose they could cancel day 2 fp's if you did not check in the day before.

 

[hotblooded]

What kind of jobs do some of you have that let you book vacation time more then 6 months advance at a time. My job lets people book in 4 to 6 months intervals.

I have never booked any vacation a year out. I save up the money for it that long in advance but don't physically book anything til close to 3 or 4 months ahead of time.

Flight crews bid for seniority-based vacation for the entire year ahead in October or November. To get a particular week off, it’s sometimes the best bet.

 

[MickeyWaffles]

What kind of jobs do some of you have that let you book vacation time more then 6 months advance at a time. My job lets people book in 4 to 6 months intervals.

I have never booked any vacation a year out. I save up the money for it that long in advance but don't physically book anything til close to 3 or 4 months ahead of time.

Many employers appreciate as much advance notice as possible for time off - at least 2 of my former employers did. Helps with planning project deadlines for the year, etc. Putting in requests a year or more in advance is common in certain industries for long term planning.

 

[intertile]

Many employers appreciate as much advance notice as possible for time off - at least 2 of my former employers did. Helps with planning project deadlines for the year, etc. Putting in requests a year or more in advance is common in certain industries for long term planning.

I've owned several businesses and consult with many firms. The last firm I consulted this was the first thing I changed. Why any company would want to be surprised is beyond me. Time off is a right to any full time employee, and its an inconvenience to any company. Why not have as much time as possible to prepare.