Friday night or Sat. noon arrival?

[zulaya]

Okay, here's the deal. My family and the inlaws are planning on staying at a 2BR at BCV in Dec 2004. We were thinking about taking the first flight out Sat AM which would put us at BCV around noon.

Now I finally talked my parents into coming, but because my mom is a teacher, she doesn't want to have to take more than her 2 personal days off. So my parents and sibs would get another 2 BR and stay Sat., Sun, Mon, and leave Tues. late.

Since my parents are going to have limited days to go to the parks, etc., they are thinking of flying in Friday night and getting full use out of Sat. Which I can totally understand.

My query: If we fly in Friday night, do you think it would be difficult to get the 2 - 2 BR close to each other?

My thoughts are since it's Friday night, a lot of people would have checked out Friday AM to save points, and the Saturday travelers wouldn't have arrived yet. So the odds are good that units would be more open on a Friday.

But as it is, we probably wouldn't get to BCV until 8pm-ish. And if there are rooms available, we would get last choice, possibly having units at opposite ends of the resort.

If we choose to arrive noon-ish on Sat, it's possible we may have more choice in the matter, with this whole new "room ready" thing.

Okay, a little longwinded and detailed, but what do you all think would work best?

 

[DebbieB]

I would wait until Saturday, you're not going to get much park time on Friday night and are only losing a couple hours on Saturday. A 2 bedroom will cost you 60 points each in early December on a Friday night. Most of the resorts are booked for the weekends in December because people want to see the Christmas stuff, so chances are there would not be many open rooms on Friday night to choose from.

 

[TerriBelle]

Last Thanksgiving we had the same debate. What we did is arrived late Friday and stayed the night at PO. We got a good room rate for the one night and chose not to use our points. Sat. morning we got up and checked in at the BCV. We were lucky and PO gave us and our stuff a ride in their van over to the BC. After we checked in we had a PS for breakfast at Cape May, then we walked over to EPCOT. This worked great for us. Our kids are young and it seems to be a long day when we try to fly and then go straight to the parks.

 

[lightsaber]

The points are not an issue. This will probably be the only time both sets of grandparents are going to travel to WDW with their only grandchildren. (Sad, I know, but DW parents are just not into it... but mine have the WDW bug BAD )

We would like to have everybody close together for convenience sake, and the kids (grandkids) are going to want to go back and forth between rooms and we'd much rather not have them traipsing from the bottomest room in the East wing to the top-floor Westest room.

We know room requests are just that, room requests, but we want to do the best we can to get us all together.

Lightsaber + Zulaya

 

[dianeschlicht]

I think your idea of Friday having more avaialability is a good one. I would certainly try it!

 

[DeeP]

If your parents are checking in Fri night also maybe they could get the rooms blocked when they check in, so that you will be close together. It is certainly worth a phone call to ask if this would be possible. It would be much nicer to have all day Sat, because even with arriving at noon you probably won't get to the parks until 1:00 or later. If you stay over Fri night you could have gone to the parks early in the morning and be back enjoying SAB by noon on Sat!

 

[CarolMN]

Originally posted by dianeschlicht
I think your idea of Friday having more avaialability is a good one. I would certainly try it!

I don't agree and believe this is a flaw in zulaya's original logic. While it may be true that many DVC members check out on Friday, that doesn't mean the resort will be empty on Friday night. Cash customers will be checking in. As mentioned by DebbieB, December weekends are popular, and it is unlikely that many rooms will go empty that night. Remember, if you are paying cash, weekend nights cost the same as weekday nights, and most cash guests prefer long weekend visits to weeknight visits. Whether the rooms you want are already occupied by DVC members or assigned to a cash customer checking in before you get there, the results will be the same.

Here is what I would do - if you are OK with not all flying down together:

Keep one Friday-arrival reservation. Put a name from the Friday group on the Saturday group's reservation and have that person get up early on Saturday morning and check in to the second room. At that time, he/she can repeat your request that the second room is located as close to the first as possible, even if you have to wait for the second room to be cleaned. If the second room family arrives before their room is ready, they can sit with the others for awhile, right?

Good luck - and try not to make yourself crazy with all the planning!

 

[Terry S]

I think I read that some have mentioned with this new "room ready" policy that they will block (pre-assign) rooms for people who what to be together. Does anyone else remember hearing or reading that?