Experience linking reservation made through Swan/Dolphin, Orbitz, and Expedia

[elaine amj]

I have been helping several friends/family link their reservation made via Expedia, Orbitz and Swan/Dolphin (my own reservation). There's not always a whole lot of info out there so I though I would lay out what we had to do with each reservation and where to look for the correct numbers for each booking option.

For each, you login to your My Disney Experience (MDE) account and select "Link Resort Reservation". The trick for each is finding the correct booking number.

Swan/Dolphin
The easiest.
Where to find your reservation number:
They have ONE reservation number and MDE recognizes it. It is an 8 digit number. e.g. 12345678
Notes:
- you have to wait about 24 hours (it syncs about 1x a day at night) before you can link it in your MDE
- in one section of my email confirmation, they added a "0" to the start of my reservation number. e.g. 012345678 instead of the correct 12345678. It was listed correctly elsewhere. Just omit the "0" and you will be fine.

Orbitz
Also very easy.
Where to find your reservation number:
In your confirmation, it will clearly list an Orbitz booking number (looks like ABCDE-123-123-1234) and a Hotel confirmation number (looks like 12ABCD or some variation thereof). Use the hotel confirmation number.
Notes
- The reservation could be linked within minutes of making the booking and my friend was able to make her FP+ right away (she was within her 60 day window).

Expedia.ca
Much more complicated (not sure if expedia.com has a different procedure)
Where to find your reservation number:
At booking, my friend received an email with 2 numbers - a 12 digit reservation number (looks like 123456789112) and a confirmation number (looks like 123E4nXVj5). Neither worked. She waited a week to see if it needed to be synced.

Today, I helped her call expedia. Naturally, the agent knew nothing. We explained that neither number worked and we needed her to call Disney directly to ask for a different number that would allow my friend to book her airport shuttle. The agent asked if we wanted her to book transportation. We said "no, the resort provides free transportation". The agent suggested we call the hotel directly. After explaining to the (very nice) agent that Disney would not talk to us directly, we convinced her to call the hotel and ask for the correct number. She came back with a 12 digit number (looks like 443456789112). We kept her on the phone while we linked the reservation and it worked beautifully.

Hope this helps someone! On the whole it is not bad, but it is useful to be aware of the differences between the different website booking engines.

 

[pugbug]

Just weighing in on expedia: I called them twice. The first time, they told me to call Disney, which I did. Disney told me that Expedia needs to call their wholesale line to get the reservation number. When I called expedia back, they had no idea what I was talking about, but were able to get me the reservation number I needed right then. So I think it matters who you talk to. All that said, it was a hassle, and I probably wouldn't book through them again for a DW vacation.

 

[elaine amj]

Just weighing in on expedia: I called them twice. The first time, they told me to call Disney, which I did. Disney told me that Expedia needs to call their wholesale line to get the reservation number. When I called expedia back, they had no idea what I was talking about, but were able to get me the reservation number I needed right then. So I think it matters who you talk to. All that said, it was a hassle, and I probably wouldn't book through them again for a DW vacation.

Persistance and explaining exactly what we needed the agent to do was what finally did the trick for Expedia. I agree it was a hassle and it took a little while with the very nice but clueless agent trying valiantly to offer us other options she thought would work. However, my friend specifically wanted to pay in Canadian dollars and Expedia.ca was the only way we could figure out for that to work. Disney charges in USD.