DVC Waitlist didn't come thru yet, but member services put it through.

[noisykid]

I called member services because I had a separate non-waitlist related question. When I was done with the main question and the CM asked if I had anything else, I said, "I have a waitlist for one extra night and keep checking with no luck, and I assume your inventory is the same as the live website inventory?" She said, "It is, but let me check for you anyway." She then said, "your waitlist actually came through, it just hasn't completely confirmed yet." And then she confirmed it and I got the night I wanted. So just curious, is that a common thing? Would I definitely have gotten that waitlist confirmed had I not called, or did I jump the queue or something?

 

[RoseGold]

It's unclear when they process these, this has happened to me twice. It seems like they just sit in a queue until someone manually cleans it up eventually.

 

[Sandisw]

Yes.:.the waitlist matches but then a CM actually has to process it manually

It can take a few days from a match to confirmation.

The website doesn’t show if there is a match but pending processing so there is no way to know that is the status!

 

[VGCgroupie]

Yes.:.the waitlist matches but then a CM actually has to process it manually

It can take a few days from a match to confirmation.

The website doesn’t show if there is a match but pending processing so there is no way to know that is the status!

So that room remains out of inventory while it sits in this processing status?

 

[DVCyore]

So that room remains out of inventory while it sits in this processing status?

No, people can just book it. If you were to check availability during this time there would be a book able room. The system isn’t fool proof, unfortunately.

 

[VGCgroupie]

No, people can just book it. If you were to check availability during this time there would be a book able room. The system isn’t fool proof, unfortunately.

wow that kind of sucks.

 

[airjay75]

Are we sure that's the way it works? It doesn't sound like that is how it worked for OP. Sounds like the website showed nothing available but a room had actually been pulled from inventory and was just waiting for a CM to formally process that room into a reservation.

I am selfishly interested in this. I am currently trying to add 1-night onto our upcoming trip and currently have that day waitlisted. Everything I've read suggests that rooms can be put back into inventory but that there is, for lack of a better word, a WL sweep that gets made periodically and pulls rooms to fill pending WLs. Then, at some point later (sounding like it could be even be up to a few days), a CM processes it. So, if you want to constantly stalk the website, you might be able to find a room before it gets pulled through a WL sweep (and, accordingly, take the room first if someone were ahead of you on the WL). I don't think anyone has been able to decipher how often or how regularly those WL sweeps are run.

If a room can actually sit in available inventory for days without being pulled, that would make the WL pretty useless. I don't get the sense that people have found it to be so.

 

[Sandisw]

So that room remains out of inventory while it sits in this processing status?

Yes, it does! That’s why sometimes when you see a room and book it thinking there wasn’t a match and then cancel the waitlist, another shows up.

 

[Sandisw]

No, people can just book it. If you were to check availability during this time there would be a book able room. The system isn’t fool proof, unfortunately.

This is not true. When there is a match, the room is taken.

Since we don’t have a clear picture of how often the system scans for a room that has been cancelled against wait lists, sometimes rooms show up.

But, if the system has made the match, the room is pulled and held until it’s processed.

As I posted above, sometimes one has a match but since the systems doesn’t note that, a room you are waiting for shows up and it turns out it’s an additonal one.

It’s happened to me more times I can count. Had a waitlist in place…snagged a room and then canceled mt waitlist and another room showed up…it was the one being held by my waitlist.

 

[VGCgroupie]

Yes, it does! That’s why sometimes when you see a room and book it thinking there wasn’t a match and then cancel the waitlist, another shows up.

Whew! Thanks.

 

[airjay75]

Makes me wonder whether the stories about people finding a room before a WL is filled are just examples where 2 rooms became available about the same time and the idea of stalking the website is basically a waste of time. Off I go to stalk again . . . .

 

[Sandisw]

Makes me wonder whether the stories about people finding a room before a WL is filled are just examples where 2 rooms became available about the same time and the idea of stalking the website is basically a waste of time. Off I go to stalk again . . . .

Oh, never give up stalking because there have been times when nothing showed when I cancelled the waitlist.

But, I definitely know that rooms showing up can be additions and that the waitlist has worked,,,

It’s one of the enhancements I’d like to see…have the waitlist show pending if there is a match waiting to process.

Other than the dreaded trip cancellation email, which I just got for my one April night

 

[noisykid]

Makes me wonder whether the stories about people finding a room before a WL is filled are just examples where 2 rooms became available about the same time and the idea of stalking the website is basically a waste of time. Off I go to stalk again . . . .

Based on the way I have booked highly sought after rooms by constantly refreshing when that room should almost definitely have been grabbed by a waitlist, I would bet that the flow is something like:

- Room becomes available for whatever reason (cancellation, etc).
- Room goes to general inventory
- Every X seconds/minutes a job runs that fills all waitlist requests
- If someone grabs the newly available room before the waitlist job runs, they "steal" the room from the person waiting for their waitlist

 

[airjay75]

Do we have any sense of how often the system takes rooms from inventory that match waitlists? Seconds, minutes, hours? I’m would think, at minimum, a few times per day?

 

[noisykid]

I would hope that it’s at least hourly, but wouldn’t be surprised if someone said it was every few hours. I should note, the flow outlined above is a complete guess based on the way it “feels“.

 

[Fangorn]

Based on the way I have booked highly sought after rooms by constantly refreshing when that room should almost definitely have been grabbed by a waitlist, I would bet that the flow is something like:

- Room becomes available for whatever reason (cancellation, etc).
- Room goes to general inventory
- Every X seconds/minutes a job runs that fills all waitlist requests
- If someone grabs the newly available room before the waitlist job runs, they "steal" the room from the person waiting for their waitlist

As someone who's been designing, building, fixing, and troubleshooting business systems for over 50 years, and someone who's experienced the oddities of the waitlist, this is a reasonable hypothesis, and matches my own thoughts.
Most of Disney's computer systems are, or contain routines that are, holdovers from the 80s and 90s. I suspect the wait list subsystem and processes were built back at the beginning of DVC (1991) and has never been updated in any meaningful way. Hence the manual effort that is still required to complete a match.

Steve

 

[mkatsy]

Do we have any sense of how often the system takes rooms from inventory that match waitlists? Seconds, minutes, hours? I’m would think, at minimum, a few times per day?

I have had amazing success grabbing WDW rooms around 1 am EST. I don’t think the wait list grabber runs frequently during the night, and most people in the EST and CST time zones are asleep. So, if someone releases a popular reservation it just sits there undetected.

 

[juliebee]

I have had amazing success grabbing WDW rooms around 1 am EST. I don’t think the wait list grabber runs frequently during the night, and most people in the EST and CST time zones are asleep. So, if someone releases a popular reservation it just sits there undetected.

Finally one thing that benefits us on the West Coast! That is 10pm here

 

[Sandisw]

Do we have any sense of how often the system takes rooms from inventory that match waitlists? Seconds, minutes, hours? I’m would think, at minimum, a few times per day?

No idea but I have lost rooms immediately that I was trying to get back so it was on a different membership.

So, there are plenty of times that it is automatic. I even canceled a three night once and only two came right back…the other did not.

 

[Cfabar1]

We are trying a wait list for the first time for more than like 24 hours and getting bored and moving on... It is kind of interesting...

I'm skeptical the requests we have open will come through as they are for multiple nights in 2 bedrooms, but it is still interesting to learn how it works.