Yay! I made sense!
I'll give you two prime examples of how the RAT has helped us. (I should presage these comments by saying we don't mind doing split stays which is something you often end when you cobble together days. Disney makes it easy to do split stays by taking care of your luggage, so we don't mind them at all.) The most recent occurrence is our upcoming 3-day trip to HHI--an almost impossible reservation to get 7 months out for spring/summer months. By using the resort availability tool, we found a single day in a studio for day two. A few days later we snagged a 1BR for the last day. We've yet to find a room that first day (it's the 4th of July so not holding out hope), but we booked a nearby hotel. Still, it's cheaper than three days in a hotel. My second example took place last year for our 5-day trip to DL. The Villas at the Grand Californian (VGC) are also difficult to reserve at the 7-month point nearly any time of year. We put in our waitlists (in case you were unaware, you can have two concurrent waitlists) and then began to stalk the RAT. Our backup plan was a cash reservation at the DL Hotel. Within a few weeks, we saw a 1BR open for our first two days at VGC and grabbed it. Another couple of weeks passed, and the last two nights popped up for a grand villa. We swallowed hard but sucked up the extra point costs and booked that. The final night in between never did open up for us, so we had to do a split-split stay. However, as mentioned, Disney made it easy to do the switching. Again, we paid one night OOP instead of five. Best wishes as you plan! Many people on here are like you in that they get some sort of weird thrill by hunting for reservations. Have fun!
