Resort Thread Disney's Club Level (CL) Thread

[jods]

Happy Father's Day to all our dads, uncles, grandpas and all our fathwr figures. Enjoy your day!

 

[Crazyhorse]

To add to what @Eastern said above, there is no “change park reservation” option either. If you decide you want to try & change your park reservation, either in advance or day of, you must first cancel your existing reservation & then try to book your new park. And the reservation calendar is not kept up to date in real time. So if you cancel an existing reservation, you are taking a gamble on getting the new park or ending up with nothing. Park reservations have been full up to 2 months ahead for some parks for resort & day guests. So there is no change in the spur of the moment, “hey let’s pop into Epcot for a snack,” “It’s too hot for Epcot let’s go to MK”; “the kids really want to see the animals again, let’s go to AK tomorrow instead” anymore. If your park reservation is at Epcot, but you find a l12:30 ADR at CRT, too bad. You can’t go til 2 pm & only after you tap into Epcot first.

With FP & ADRs, there were change options. You could change your park the day of & cancel your other fastpasses & take what you could get at the new park. Or even just do stand by lines. This is just not a guest friendly system. It is for Disney scheduling.

Thank you to both of you for explaining in detail. Yes, I read the stuff that's on the Disney page but having not been there yet in real time I now understand why it is not a guest friendly experience. I'm thinking it's gonna be longer than I thought before we go back. We're old..and like things the way we like them and that includes sometimes doing things on the fly....which certainly appears to be much more difficult these days.

 

[kinkin201]

Just to add to this, there are 10 DVC units total..... 5, 1 bedrooms and 5 studios which will combine as a 2 bedroom. If 5 people want a 2 bedroom, there will be no studios even available. So just as a previous poster said, they are incredibly difficult to get, you need to have a member that owns at AKL lined up before the 11 month mark In addition we have no idea when or ever if CL will return so I would not even try to book these at the present time.

On the plus side, pre-covid, AKL CL resort rooms were among the easiest to get, so that may be a better route to go.

I’m pretty sure all the AKL CL rooms are all booked. We have a studio booked in May and they are definitely a must book at 11mo. It seems like they were getting walked since we couldn’t book our full trip for a few days after our booking window opened when they became available.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

My Twitter timeline being full of Tusker House reopening blog posts is giving me all sorts of AKL CL vibes.

Someday soon I guess!

 

[tarak]

Thank you to both of you for explaining in detail. Yes, I read the stuff that's on the Disney page but having not been there yet in real time I now understand why it is not a guest friendly experience. I'm thinking it's gonna be longer than I thought before we go back. We're old..and like things the way we like them and that includes sometimes doing things on the fly....which certainly appears to be much more difficult these days.

Everyone else pretty much covered it. We have DHS reserved for this morning to ride Rise if the Resistance one final time. It’s my least favorite park, so if I couldn’t get a boarding pass, we would have switched out the park. But there was no availability for any park. Even if we wanted to hop to Epcot for an hour or so right before heading to the airport, we’d have to tap in at DHS first, and that’s just dumb to me. I got pushback from a CM one night at Epcot because my band didn’t scan at AK earlier in the day (which I suspected, but the CM there waved me through, so I figured it was fine). They did let me in the park, but I was afraid they wouldn’t at first and offered to show them our photos from Everest to prove we’d all been there. We were all so anxious to get back here for a trip, I was willing to put up with it. I love planning our Disney trips, but the inability to change plans is a huge problem for me as far as the future goes. At least they brought back park hopping. We would not be here right now if we couldn’t park hop.

I’ll be very curious to see how things pan out with the CL service. There was a period where I was completely unimpressed. Our stays at the BC in 2018 and BWI in 2019 were fabulous, though, in terms of the food and staff. I’m hoping that comes back.

 

[GADisneyDad14]

Pretty cool video. These GMA announcements are sometimes a bit of a let down, but pretty curious to see what they have up their sleeves. 10/1 is 101 days away from tomorrow, getting pretty close.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1407111374044643334

 

[rick1zoo2]

My Twitter timeline being full of Tusker House reopening blog posts is giving me all sorts of AKL CL vibes.

Someday soon I guess!

me too, so booking Saana for our Animal Kingdom day on our August trip even though we are staying at Wilderness Lodge (tempted to switch to AKL Club Level, but looks like no discounts until 9/6)

 

[kylenne]

Of course I miss the New Yorker coffee tawk being busy lol! My house is a construction pit right now, top to bottom renos. But I am a Brooklyn native and have lived here my whole life except a couple of years in AZ. I only use LGA and EWR at gunpoint...somehow from my Lower Manhattan office it takes an equal amount of time to get to all three airports. I prefer JFK though because I'm only like 20 minutes away on the Belt from home, and if I leave from work I can just take the A all the way there to the Air Train, and it's a much nicer view outside.

I'll be doing that in a couple of weeks actually. Really excited to try GDT for a weekend, if I end up liking it we might try CL at some point when it comes back.

 

[Twende]

Come on Disney announce AKL Club is opening!

 

[twinklebug]

Come on Disney announce AKL Club is opening!

Yes!
I just annoyed an online chat CM by asking if AKL CL is really going to be open by 9/29 as it is showing bookable. Her response was cookie cutter from the Disney opening notice, meaning it said AKL would be announced at some date in the future.

Sigh.
Just announce it already!

 

[Cheburashka]

Yes!
I just annoyed an online chat CM by asking if AKL CL is really going to be open by 9/29 as it is showing bookable. Her response was cookie cutter from the Disney opening notice, meaning it said AKL would be announced at some date in the future.

Sigh.
Just announce it already!

Can't really blame a phone CM who hasn't been given any exclusive info.

 

[twinklebug]

Can't really blame a phone CM who hasn't been given any exclusive info.

No, I didn't blame her at all. She just doesn't know anything more than we do. It was worth asking.

 

[Twende]

twinklebug said:
Yes!
I just annoyed an online chat CM by asking if AKL CL is really going to be open by 9/29 as it is showing bookable. Her response was cookie cutter from the Disney opening notice, meaning it said AKL would be announced at some date in the future.

Sigh.
Just announce it already!"

I tried to go to the Disney Resort site (not the DVC one) and then attempted to book a AKL Club 1 bedroom in Oct and it is saying it is not bookable. Now it is possible that the category is already completely booked but it appears that is is not available yet. Where are you finding this category for Club bookable in September?

Well I just tried to book in August and it is showing some Club availability. So I have no idea what they are doing and I don't think they do either!

 

[mystery222184]

twinklebug said:
Yes!
I just annoyed an online chat CM by asking if AKL CL is really going to be open by 9/29 as it is showing bookable. Her response was cookie cutter from the Disney opening notice, meaning it said AKL would be announced at some date in the future.

Sigh.
Just announce it already!"

I tried to go to the Disney Resort site (not the DVC one) and then attempted to book a AKL Club 1 bedroom in Oct and it is saying it is not bookable. Now it is possible that the category is already completely booked but it appears that is is not available yet. Where are you finding this category for Club bookable in September?

It was open to book a week or so ago on the website. No surprise you don’t see anything now, as you won’t see availability at most all CLs for balance of year. They have all intermittently opened up as people cancel/move around their dates. I’d expect it to become much easier once they lift capacity restrictions.

 

[Marrila]

twinklebug said:
Yes!
I just annoyed an online chat CM by asking if AKL CL is really going to be open by 9/29 as it is showing bookable. Her response was cookie cutter from the Disney opening notice, meaning it said AKL would be announced at some date in the future.

Sigh.
Just announce it already!"

I tried to go to the Disney Resort site (not the DVC one) and then attempted to book a AKL Club 1 bedroom in Oct and it is saying it is not bookable. Now it is possible that the category is already completely booked but it appears that is is not available yet. Where are you finding this category for Club bookable in September?

I know this makes no sense but the 1 bedrooms and suites at AKL aren't listed under club level currently. I think it's probably a glitch. You can book club rooms (2 queens or 1 king) in Oct.

 

[sbrown29]

Yeah Cohort 12. I teach Special Ed.

I am an Intervention Specialist, too!

 

[sbrown29]

How did the steaks compare to Yachtsman? My kids are obsessed with I and I hope they reopen soon. Glad to hear you enjoyed it too since steak was my concern. We ate at le celier in march and they hated the steak. It was really seared and my 16 yo said Applebee's steak is better

We tried Le Cellier about 6 years ago--- it was ok, but not "great". We decided to give it another go in June and we had a FANTASTIC meal. I had filet at both Le Cellier and Narcoossee's this trip... the filet at Le Cellier was far superior to Narcoossee's filet. Things are so inconsistent at some of their restaurants.

 

[Twende]

We tried Le Cellier about 6 years ago--- it was ok, but not "great". We decided to give it another go in June and we had a FANTASTIC meal. I had filet at both Le Cellier and Narcoossee's this trip... the filet at Le Cellier was far superior to Narcoossee's filet. Things are so inconsistent at some of their restaurants.

I agree! Our dinner in Feb. at Le Cellier was far superior to Narcoossee's and that is not how it was normally. In fact our dinner at Narcoossee's was probably the worst meal we had the entire trip!

 

[Dispro1]

I agree! Our dinner in Feb. at Le Cellier was far superior to Narcoossee's and that is not how it was normally. In fact our dinner at Narcoossee's was probably the worst meal we had the entire trip!

Wow...I really don't like to hear this! Narcoossee's filet has always been our favorite, and I really don't like doing signatures in the park (guess I'm lazy lol). We've always done Narcoossee's or Cali Grill if staying in the monorail loop, and Flying Fish if at BWI. I hope Narcoossee's gets their act together! We couldn't get a reservation there for an acceptable time last trip so I can't comment on their post pandemic filet.
On a CL note, I called DSS today because my DH wasn't showing up in our group plans with my sister's family (our trips overlap in October), and the DSS CM had already fixed the issue before I finished asking what the problem might be! I knew it was probably that DH had somehow failed to accept my sister's request to share plans, but that was done like 3 years ago so I thought we'd have to do all that request mess again...nope! My sister has no idea how to do any of that (I did it from her phone last time) so this made life so much easier! Let's hope DSS is back up and running full steam ahead soon! I know others have said they haven't gotten much help from DSS, but they have been able to help me quite a bit in the past, especially when there's an issue with fast passes or something, but they have also been able to get me dining reservations that for some reason didn't show up online for me. I can't explain that one since it's not supposed to be that way, but it happened multiple times so I'm hoping that will continue in the future!

 

[twinklebug]

I agree! Our dinner in Feb. at Le Cellier was far superior to Narcoossee's and that is not how it was normally. In fact our dinner at Narcoossee's was probably the worst meal we had the entire trip!

I've found the server can make all the difference between a great dining experience and an awful one. What was it about Narcoossee that put you off?