Mira Costa booking experience

[DisneyRegulars]

I wanted to let people know about my recent Mira Costa booking. Tonight I went online to make a 5 day reservation starting 6/28/2017. Right at 9:00pm eastern time I refreshed my browser. It took a full 2 minutes!!! There was only one room available for five nights and it wouldn't fit my family. I redid my search for the first three nights. I ended up with a Triple room on the Venice side.

Like people have reported, my Visa card did not work. So I tried my Master Card debit card. This one didn't work either!! Fortunately my brother was online making his reservation too, and his master card debit card did work. Same bank, same card. How bizarre! Grrrr. He was nice enough to help me out and was able to book my room for me.

Man is that site picky.

A few bits of advice. Run a few test reservations in the days leading up to your actual date you need. I discovered that I needed to make a completely new account, and that I couldn't use Mozilla Firefox browser or my phone, but Chrome worked just fine. Went through many nights of frustration trying to figure this out.

Hope this helps someone in the future. Good luck!

 

[nycdisneygal]

Thank you so much!! I actually just came to this board to post a question about how to ge a reservation at mira costa!! Our trip is not until 2018 but already planning...

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Thank you so much!! I actually just came to this board to post a question about how to ge a reservation at mira costa!! Our trip is not until 2018 but already planning...

Right now they open up booking 5 months out for online booking. I've been watching for a few weeks and availability really does disappear within the first few hours. It's crazy!

 

[nycdisneygal]

I wonder if I will even get a ressie. I have never seen anything so crazy. I keep looking at availability 5 months from whenever I am checking and its always booked!!!!!! Am a little worried that no CC will work...

 

[CharmedCake]

At TDRExplorer they have a new updated how to book Tokyo Disney hotels and are looking for people to send in information about their positive and negative experiences with paying so they can compile an accurate procedural, including credit cards.

So maybe send they the info about both you and your brothers experience about booking to help others.

http://tdrexplorer.com/how-to-book-a-disney-hotel-at-tokyo-disneyland/

 

[DisneyRegulars]

At TDRExplorer they have a new updated how to book Tokyo Disney hotels and are looking for people to send in information about their positive and negative experiences with paying so they can compile an accurate procedural, including credit cards.

So maybe send they the info about both you and your brothers experience about booking to help others.

http://tdrexplorer.com/how-to-book-a-disney-hotel-at-tokyo-disneyland/

Thanks! I'll do that.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Update! This morning my credit union suspended my debit card for possible fraudulent charges. This is the same bank that approved both my brother's charges. Sooooo... another tip might be to call your bank or credit card ahead of time to authorize the charge from Japan. Maybe that would have allowed my charge to go through.

 

[Nomarian]

I also recently booked the Disneyland Hotel at Tokyo Disneyland and had to the following to get my booking.

1.) I had to create a brand new account since my old one would not accept any changes.
2.) I used my US based Barclays Mastercard to book a 5 night stay. (I did call and let them know it was coming)
3.) I accepted my payment and I have the booking now.

Hope that helps.

 

[AquaDame]

another tip might be to call your bank or credit card ahead of time to authorize the charge from Japan. Maybe that would have allowed my charge to go through.

yes! this is key... not just for making the charge now but also to let them know when you will be in Japan so you aren't locked out while overseas. The card we used was declined until we called and spoke with a rep who allowed the charge.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

yes! this is key... not just for making the charge now but also to let them know when you will be in Japan so you aren't locked out while overseas. The card we used was declined until we called and spoke with a rep who allowed the charge.

Sooo....I did call my bank ahead of time yesterday because we were booking the last two nights of our stay. Even with calling ahead my card failed to work. My brother's card also failed to work because he forgot to call ahead. My brother's did work today after calling our bank. It seems calling ahead is definitely required, but in addition it is also card specific. My brother's debit MasterCard has a chip, mine does not. I think that might be a driving factor.

So in summary:
MasterCard
With chip
Call ahead

is what worked for us. If we were missing any one of the above it didn't work and we managed to try all the combinations!

Sadly we learned the hard way that some rooms are gone instantly. Because our cards wouldn't work we saw all but one category of concierge level room disappear within 3 minutes.

 

[AquaDame]

Sadly we learned the hard way that some rooms are gone instantly. Because our cards wouldn't work we saw all but one category of concierge level room disappear within 3 minutes.

I'm so sorry to hear this..! Do keep checking - I was able to swap rooms twice by keeping an eye out. From venice to PP to harbor view. Availability has been tight but I have seen many different categories come and go over the past few months.

 

[OhioStateBuckeye]

Does anyone know how far in advance the rooms open up? Does a whole block of time open at once or is it day by day?

I'm thinking of booking a one night stay with a balcony view. It will be our first day at the parks after having visited the city for a few days. I want it to be our rest day so we can enjoy the hotel and watch some of the shows from the balcony.

We'll be going in early September.

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Does anyone know how far in advance the rooms open up? Does a whole block of time open at once or is it day by day?

I'm thinking of booking a one night stay with a balcony view. It will be our first day at the parks after having visited the city for a few days. I want it to be our rest day so we can enjoy the hotel and watch some of the shows from the balcony.

We'll be going in early September.

Booking opens 5 months in advance, one day at a time, I believe 9:00am Japan time. You should double check that time. You must be online at exactly opening time to get the room you want, especially if you want a balcony.

 

[AquaDame]

Even going on to the minute 5 months out we were not able to get the room we wanted right away - the only thing I can figure is they were booked up as packages on the Japanese site at 6 months/someone typed faster than me! I kept looking every day until I was able to snag the room we wanted.

 

[Lewdannie]

Is is possible to do a test booking and then cancel it to ensure the credit care will work OK when it really counts?

 

[DisneyRegulars]

Is is possible to do a test booking and then cancel it to ensure the credit care will work OK when it really counts?

No. There is a 30,000 yen cancellation fee, so it would be a pretty expensive test booking.

 

[meryll83]

If availability is tricky and you end up having to book individual room nights separately, can you get these linked so you don't have to keep checking in and out?

 

[AquaDame]

Once you have a reservation you will see each night listed individually and can easily change a single night within the same reservation.

 

[a1betpr]

As a self proclaimed semi-professional MiraCosta booker (I made several "practice" bookings, tried getting through almost nightly for about 2 months, and finally booked Harbor View Alcove rooms for three consecutive nights in late May) I feel obligated to chime in. BTW if you think doing all this is nuts you should see the embarrassingly elaborate spreadsheet I've created for this trip.

MiraCosta Rooms become available at 11am Japan time for rooms 5 months out. Japan does not have daylight savings so right now they are 13 hours ahead of east coast time so you need to be ready at 10pm on the east coast and 7 pm on the west coast. You can only book one night at a time for harbor view rooms and above; other rooms you can get I think up to 5 consecutive nights. If you book one night at a time you need to make sure you book the exact same room type each night or you'll have to change rooms. You will be charged 30k yen each night. This is refundable - I made and cancelled reservations a couple times and it worked fine. The deposit was charged and refunded in the same day. I used a Citi MasterCard and it worked every time and I didn't tell Citi in advance. I highly recommend making a trial reservation. I learned a lot. For example your card will go through a weird approval screen I've never seen on another site before and if you're not expecting it you might screw something up.

Things I learned through practice: refreshing your browser when the clock turns 10 will not work fast enough every time. A practically fool proof way of getting through in the first few seconds while every room type is available is to bookmark the URL for the night you need. I went to a day that was available, chose my room type and whatnot, then in the URL box I changed the date to the date I needed and hit enter. Then I bookmarked that URL. At 10pm 5 months ahead of my dates I clicked on that bookmark and boom, all room types available, including concierge level. I did this three nights in a row and it worked out great.

Another thing - every night about 30-35 minutes after rooms became available another set of rooms would be freed up. Every single night. I could have booked harbor view rooms at 9:30 (this was before DST kicked in) virtually every night I tried. Not sure if this is from people's cards rejecting or what but it happens every night.

So that's my 2 cents. Any questions I'd be happy to answer!

 

[a1betpr]

Is is possible to do a test booking and then cancel it to ensure the credit care will work OK when it really counts?

Actually yes you can. You pay a 30k yen deposit but it will be refunded. I did this a couple of times, cancelling almost immediately. The deposit and refund hit my card account at the same time. Don't wait too long to cancel or you take some foreign exchange risk. I was worried that doing this repeatedly might flag my account or something but it was fine.