Going to need to walk a reservation for next Fall - 2 questions :)

[Boardwalk III]

Have a large family trip that has now been postponed for a second time. Originally planned for this fall, we moved it to March 2021 and now everyone has decided to target next November. Given that we’re hoping for a Grand Villa on the Boardwalk (BWV) I know I’m going to need to “walk“ this reservation due to the 50th. Have 2 questions:

- For some reason I’m getting confused as to which day I need to go back in and walk. Assuming I book a reservation today (as an example) for a 7 night stay, what day next week do I need to go in and move it to be safe? Expect to be doing this for several weeks so want to make sure I have it right on my calendar.

- As we have a lot of unused points due to the canceled trips, we may even be able to stay for more than a week. If I were able to add on 2-3 more nights for a 9-10 night trip, do I do that now and able to walk the whole 10 days or just wait until I get to the 11 month mark and then start adding those extra days?


Many thanks!

 

[cmrdgrs]

In theory, you could move your "walk" basically a week at a time. However, having said that, I have seen other owners sell out nights that are open in the 7 night window if you don't move it everyday. So, IMO if you have to have it, I'd plan on doing it daily.

As you know, there are only 7 BWV Grand Villas. Good luck!

 

[icc2515]

Let's say you booked the 1-8 at the 11 month window of your home resort. You would need to walk the reservation no later that the 7th (In my example you are checking out on the 8th and therefore do not have that room for the night). On the 7th you would modify your reservation online to the 7th to the 14th, then on the 13th you would modify your reservation again repeat repeat repeat. Think of it this way, as long as you have the 1st night of a stay nobody can jump ahead of you. The exception to this is Disney may have a room scheduled to be taken out of service far in advance and you have no way of knowing this. The thing that sometimes confuses me is that in the RAT you select your check in and check out dates, but in the booking tool you select the nights you want to stay.

Your second part of the question is you would wait till you hit the dates of your actual trip before adding the extra days. You can book the first nite plus 7 and adding on early would just complicate things.

 

[Boardwalk III]

Let's say you booked the 1-8 at the 11 month window of your home resort. You would need to walk the reservation no later that the 7th (In my example you are checking out on the 8th and therefore do not have that room for the night). On the 7th you would modify your reservation online to the 7th to the 14th, then on the 13th you would modify your reservation again repeat repeat repeat. Think of it this way, as long as you have the 1st night of a stay nobody can jump ahead of you. The exception to this is Disney may have a room scheduled to be taken out of service far in advance and you have no way of knowing this. The thing that sometimes confuses me is that in the RAT you select your check in and check out dates, but in the booking tool you select the nights you want to stay.

Your second part of the question is you would wait till you hit the dates of your actual trip before adding the extra days. You can book the first nite plus 7 and adding on early would just complicate things.

OK got it, that’s what I thought! I can’t possibly do it daily so hope this works, and that they don’t take it out of service after I get started

 

[cmrdgrs]

Let's say you booked the 1-8 at the 11 month window of your home resort. You would need to walk the reservation no later that the 7th (In my example you are checking out on the 8th and therefore do not have that room for the night). On the 7th you would modify your reservation online to the 7th to the 14th, then on the 13th you would modify your reservation again repeat repeat repeat. Think of it this way, as long as you have the 1st night of a stay nobody can jump ahead of you. The exception to this is Disney may have a room scheduled to be taken out of service far in advance and you have no way of knowing this. The thing that sometimes confuses me is that in the RAT you select your check in and check out dates, but in the booking tool you select the nights you want to stay.

Your second part of the question is you would wait till you hit the dates of your actual trip before adding the extra days. You can book the first nite plus 7 and adding on early would just complicate things.

I agree with this. You could "walk" this basically a week at a time as the PP said, but if you can go in more frequently it wouldn't hurt IMO

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

In theory, you could move your "walk" basically a week at a time. However, having said that, I have seen other owners sell out nights that are open in the 7 night window if you don't move it everyday. So, IMO if you have to have it, I'd plan on doing it daily.

As you know, there are only 7 BWV Grand Villas. Good luck!

Can you expand on this? How does this happen exactly?

 

[Marionnette]

Can you expand on this? How does this happen exactly?

It’s a mystery but some people have theorized that Disney takes rooms ahead of the 11-month window when they have VIPs that want specific accommodations. Other times, it’s DVC taking a villa or whole block of villas out of commission due to scheduled renovations. There was an entire group of walkers who got their AKV Value studio walks disrupted last year due to renovations that were being done in the area of those rooms but not actually on the rooms themselves.

 

[What-r-ya Goofy?]

Think of it this way, as long as you have the 1st night of a stay nobody can jump ahead of you.

Using your example, I've never understood how a reservation can be walked forward if there are no rooms available in the time period you are trying to walk into? Please explain.

 

[cmrdgrs]

Can you expand on this? How does this happen exactly?

It's hard for me to put into words. I guess what I'm trying to say, is yes, I agree with previous poster, if you are holding the at least the first night of your stay as part of your "walk", no one should be able to leap frog past you to book because that night (the first night of your stay = the last night of your walk) would sell out first stopping the progression.

If you are an owner and you're booking in the owner window walking 1 week at a time can work. There should always be at least one room in your category for you to pick up as your move forward.

If you are not an owner and you're booking in the 7 month window, you can always have owners leap frog you because they have the advantage of being able to book beyond your dates.

 

[cmrdgrs]

On top of what I said above, I do believe that Disney does mess with inventory for whatever their reasons are. I've read posts of people seeing in the RAT that rooms are sold out even though the booking window for that room has not opened.

 

[Sandisw]

Using your example, I've never understood how a reservation can be walked forward if there are no rooms available in the time period you are trying to walk into? Please explain.

The only way when doing it at 11 months is if Disney takes a room out of service. It has happened but is very rare. And some times it’s reported that in a day or two it’s back.

Basically, though, it works as long as you do it at 11 months and move it before the check out day and others can book.

Think of it as you booked Room A. If you are in Room A until say July 28th, then that rooms is not bookable by anyone until August 28th because you are in it. As long as you modify before that date and move it forward, no one can book Room A ahead of you.

 

[Boardwalk III]

Thanks everyone for your input. For the record I have walked successfully before and I do know it usually works fine as long as you stay on top of it. For this one I’ll probably aim to do it every 5 days or so versus every 7, but don’t think it makes much of a difference as long as you don’t go past that 7th day for a one week reservation. Sounds like there’s no way to control the rare “room out of service” or VIP situation. Fingers crossed!

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

It’s a mystery but some people have theorized that Disney takes rooms ahead of the 11-month window when they have VIPs that want specific accommodations. Other times, it’s DVC taking a villa or whole block of villas out of commission due to scheduled renovations. There was an entire group of walkers who got their AKV Value studio walks disrupted last year due to renovations that were being done in the area of those rooms but not actually on the rooms themselves.

Yes, we checked out of three AKV value studios the last night before those rooms went out of commission. Talk about luck!

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

It's hard for me to put into words. I guess what I'm trying to say, is yes, I agree with previous poster, if you are holding the at least the first night of your stay as part of your "walk", no one should be able to leap frog past you to book because that night (the first night of your stay = the last night of your walk) would sell out first stopping the progression.

If you are an owner and you're booking in the owner window walking 1 week at a time can work. There should always be at least one room in your category for you to pick up as your move forward.

If you are not an owner and you're booking in the 7 month window, you can always have owners leap frog you because they have the advantage of being able to book beyond your dates.

I totally understand all of this. What I didn't understand from your previous post is how "owners sell out nights." But if this is something that only happens within 7 months, I should be good. I only walk 11 months out.

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

Let's say you booked the 1-8 at the 11 month window of your home resort. You would need to walk the reservation no later that the 7th (In my example you are checking out on the 8th and therefore do not have that room for the night). On the 7th you would modify your reservation online to the 7th to the 14th, then on the 13th you would modify your reservation again repeat repeat repeat. Think of it this way, as long as you have the 1st night of a stay nobody can jump ahead of you. The exception to this is Disney may have a room scheduled to be taken out of service far in advance and you have no way of knowing this. The thing that sometimes confuses me is that in the RAT you select your check in and check out dates, but in the booking tool you select the nights you want to stay.

Your second part of the question is you would wait till you hit the dates of your actual trip before adding the extra days. You can book the first nite plus 7 and adding on early would just complicate things.

Okay, so this is how I've always walked. Today I went to modify and it didn't work. I have two rooms--one with a checkout date of the 23rd and one with a checkout date of the 24th. Today is the 22nd. Why would I not be able to modify to a check-in date of the 22nd and a check-out date of the 29th? I've done this a million times. I think this thread jinxed me!

 

[Marionnette]

Okay, so this is how I've always walked. Today I went to modify and it didn't work. I have two rooms--one with a checkout date of the 23rd and one with a checkout date of the 24th. Today is the 22nd. Why would I not be able to modify to a check-in date of the 22nd and a check-out date of the 29th? I've done this a million times. I think this thread jinxed me!

Did you attempt to do your modification before 8:00 AM EDT? Even though the booking tool will show availability 11 months from today, it won’t actually allow you to book that night until after 8:00 AM.

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

Did you attempt to do your modification before 8:00 AM EDT? Even though the booking tool will show availability 11 months from today, it won’t actually allow you to book that night until after 8:00 AM.

No, it was about 20 minutes after.

 

[Boardwalk III]

No, it was about 20 minutes after.

Yikes - keep us posted. Now you have me nervous!

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

On my second call with MS. Holding for a supervisor right now even though at first I was told that they couldn't call me back until 7 more days. All I keep getting is "There are very few of those rooms," "Someone else could have books days earlier than you and have those nights booked," "It's not impossible," and "Ma'am, I'm not going to fight with you."

ETA: MS came back on the phone and said all supervisors were busy doing call-backs and couldn't talk to me. She said all she could do was a form and that it could take up to 7 days for them to call me back. I told her that being 7 days behind is very poor customer service.

 

[cmrdgrs]

On my second call with MS. Holding for a supervisor right now even though at first I was told that they couldn't call me back until 7 more days. All I keep getting is "There are very few of those rooms," "Someone else could have books days earlier than you and have those nights booked," "It's not impossible," and "Ma'am, I'm not going to fight with you."

ETA: MS came back on the phone and said all supervisors were busy doing call-backs and couldn't talk to me. She said all she could do was a form and that it could take up to 7 days for them to call me back. I told her that being 7 days behind is very poor customer service.

I'm so sorry that this is happening to you! This is exactly one of those times when you walk, that just makes no sense and gets you thinking I feel like I'm the one that was the jinx since I was really the one that pointed out that walking isn't 100% and I've seen it not work in various instances.

Keep us posted how it all works out. I'm sure in the meantime you are still trying to modify. Maybe that will have success later today

As an aside, I do wonder if Disney will make a policy change to stop walking -- not because it's against the "rules" but because I could see how all of these thousands of modifications create a data base/complexity challenge. Disney has to keep a record of every modification and every modification creates a new record to a data base. But, that's a whole 'nother topic for discussion.