How far in advance are people walking reservations?

[Replevin]

Hypothetical situation: If I don't have enough points to walk a five day reservation through Christmas at a given resort, can I book a four day reservation, I have enough points for that, and change it to a five day reservation once I'm on the other side of Christmas?

 

[Judique]

Hypothetical situation: If I don't have enough points to walk a five day reservation through Christmas at a given resort, can I book a four day reservation, I have enough points for that, and change it to a five day reservation once I'm on the other side of Christmas?

Yes.

 

[AstroBlasters]

Hypothetical situation: If I don't have enough points to walk a five day reservation through Christmas at a given resort, can I book a four day reservation, I have enough points for that, and change it to a five day reservation once I'm on the other side of Christmas?

Yes.

 

[Replevin]

Yes.

Thank you

 

[Replevin]

Yes.

Thanks.

 

[meekey7197]

Hypothetical situation: If I don't have enough points to walk a five day reservation through Christmas at a given resort, can I book a four day reservation, I have enough points for that, and change it to a five day reservation once I'm on the other side of Christmas?

Barring any of the things talked about here like rooms being taken out of service, as long as you have points for 2 nights (and you are willing to walk every day in that case) you should be able to maintain your walk during high point periods.

 

[disneycruisedreams]

Can someone explain to me why when you try to walk a reservation the only day blocked out is the day you need ... every day?
Not the rest of the week. Does that make sense?

 

[Sandisw]

Can someone explain to me why when you try to walk a reservation the only day blocked out is the day you need ... every day?
Not the rest of the week. Does that make sense?

If you are trying to book right at 11 months and are not getting that first date, you are losing out against others who are getting it faster.

You can’t start a walk until you get something. Some rooms go within seconds of the 8 am window and get booked every day like that year round.

 

[Psymonds]

I wonder if they'll ever consider a system like the state parks here use: you get two modifications online and after that you have to call and it's at their discretion.

 

[Sandisw]

I wonder if they'll ever consider a system like the state parks here use: you get two modifications online and after that you have to call and it's at their discretion.

All of this and more have been discussed and some want stricter rules and some do not.

We shall see if anything happens in the future.

 

[Psymonds]

All of this and more have been discussed and some want stricter rules and some do not.

We shall see if anything happens in the future.

Until then I guess we make like Aerosmith and "Walk this way"

 

[TheDailyMoo]

If you are trying to book right at 11 months and are not getting that first date, you are losing out against others who are getting it faster.

You can’t start a walk until you get something. Some rooms go within seconds of the 8 am window and get booked every day like that year round.

I know this has been mentioned elsewhere but can't find it...

I am on the reservation page before 8 am, I see the room available, I hit refresh (or update)...I keep seeing the room available

I refresh one more time before 8 am, maybe 15-20 seconds or so, and not only is the room gone but the next day is grayed out as well.

Is the only explanation that the walkers decided to move their reservations at that moment because no new reservations could be made before 8 obviously. And if so...why when they can do it at any time today or whenever.

 

[Sandisw]

I know this has been mentioned elsewhere but can't find it...

I am on the reservation page before 8 am, I see the room available, I hit refresh (or update)...I keep seeing the room available

I refresh one more time before 8 am, maybe 15-20 seconds or so, and not only is the room gone but the next day is grayed out as well.

Is the only explanation that the walkers decided to move their reservations at that moment because no new reservations could be made before 8 obviously. And if so...why when they can do it at any time today or whenever.

There are lots of ways that things can happen id the day after the 11 month window is also gone if means that more are checking out than in that specific day.

If the system is now letting you get to the calendars before 8 am and hit book right st 8 am, it means anyone else wanting to get that room are doing the same and are choosing all their dates ahead of time.

I agree that walking right at 8 am isn’t needed but if you are up against a resort that has fixed weeks, or are worried rooms will go out of service, then making sure you don’t wait can be important.

This is why I no longer will walk because I’d rather just book the more expensive view and then use waitlisting and stalking when it fits my schedule.

 

[TheDailyMoo]

There are lots of ways that things can happen id the day after the 11 month window is also gone if means that more are checking out than in that specific day.

If the system is now letting you get to the calendars before 8 am and hit book right st 8 am, it means anyone else wanting to get that room are doing the same and are choosing all their dates ahead of time.

I agree that walking right at 8 am isn’t needed but if you are up against a resort that has fixed weeks, or are worried rooms will go out of service, then making sure you don’t wait can be important.

This is why I no longer will walk because I’d rather just book the more expensive view and then use waitlisting and stalking when it fits my schedule.

Hypothetically if you were looking to start a small walk and the room at 11 months is gone would there be any reason to waitlist it for the day or keep checking throughout the day? In other words what are the chances that room gets put back into inventory that day.

 

[Sandisw]

Hypothetically if you were looking to start a small walk and the room at 11 months is gone would there be any reason to waitlist it for the day or keep checking throughout the day? In other words what are the chances that room gets put back into inventory that day.

It can happen! I have had that happen for a 7 month booking.

It really would make no sense to waitlist a night that is to start a walk because by the time MS would process it you’d not need it.

 

[AstroBlasters]

There are lots of ways that things can happen id the day after the 11 month window is also gone if means that more are checking out than in that specific day.

If the system is now letting you get to the calendars before 8 am and hit book right st 8 am, it means anyone else wanting to get that room are doing the same and are choosing all their dates ahead of time.

I agree that walking right at 8 am isn’t needed but if you are up against a resort that has fixed weeks, or are worried rooms will go out of service, then making sure you don’t wait can be important.

This is why I no longer will walk because I’d rather just book the more expensive view and then use waitlisting and stalking when it fits my schedule.

At some resorts (Grand Cal, Beach Club) that trick doesn’t work because they are all coded as a standard view.

As you indicated, it really is just more demand than supply.

 

[TheDailyMoo]

At some resorts (Grand Cal, Beach Club) that trick doesn’t work because they are all coded as a standard view.

As you indicated, it really is just more demand than supply.

It struck me as odd that a room type would be there right up until a half minute or less before 8 and then disappear when no one except walkers would be able to snag it. If it was walkers I understand but the confounding part is why a walker would modify at that point, 15-20 seconds before 8 and not say yesterday, earlier in the morning, much later in the day or anytime else. In the end it doesn't matter the room was unavailable but I always like to figure out the why.

 

[AstroBlasters]

It struck me as odd that a room type would be there right up until a half minute or less before 8 and then disappear when no one except walkers would be able to snag it. If it was walkers I understand but the confounding part is why a walker would modify at that point, 15-20 seconds before 8 and not say yesterday, earlier in the morning, much later in the day or anytime else. In the end it doesn't matter the room was unavailable but I always like to figure out the why.

It would be nice to have that level of transparency given the costs we are all paying.

 

[ehh]

It struck me as odd that a room type would be there right up until a half minute or less before 8 and then disappear when no one except walkers would be able to snag it. If it was walkers I understand but the confounding part is why a walker would modify at that point, 15-20 seconds before 8 and not say yesterday, earlier in the morning, much later in the day or anytime else. In the end it doesn't matter the room was unavailable but I always like to figure out the why.

I agree that 15-20 seconds before 8am is a very bizarre time for a room to go from "available" to "not available".

Any chance your device's clock is a little off? If you go to time.gov it'll show how far off you are. (it's unlikely to be the issue as modern computers/phones/tablets tend to check timeservers on the regular and have good time-maintainence hardware to keep things on track between checks as it's both important and cheap, but it's worth a double check)

Assuming it's not a clock issue. I agree that your walker theory fits the general understanding of how booking works. But it's not a logical human behavior...they had 23.99hrs leading up to that to do the exact same thing

Looking at it from a 'logical human behavior' perspective, I'm wondering if people nervously check 15-20sec early and there's some temporary deduction from inventory while they see the 'Wait until 8am' error. A frightening realization: in theory, if this were true AND someone knew the cooldown of the temporary deduction, it would be possible to exploit it.

I'd hate to think that there's some loophole to the 8am limit...

 

[TheDailyMoo]

Any chance your device's clock is a little off? If you go to time.gov it'll show how far off you are.

I have the world clock open on both another window and my phone lol

Assuming it's not a clock issue. I agree that your walker theory fits the general understanding of how booking works. But it's not a logical human behavior...they had 23.99hrs leading up to that to do the exact same thing

Yes! Exactly. Unless there is some weird glitch that is unknown to us then it stands to reason that a walker would be up around that time and perhaps get a little nervous that the room wouldn't be there or something odd like that. Which is also weird because let's be real most walkers of the specialty rooms are probably experts at it and this isn't their first rodeo meaning there's really no reason to get nervous and jump on at that hour. The workings of DVC never fails to fascinate me!