My letter to Disney about booking accessible rooms online

[dcpkiddo]

Has anybody else experienced the issue of trying to book a specific type of accessible room at a resort that you KNOW exists, but it doesn't show up on Disney's website? My mom and I have experienced this with WL and their roll-in shower rooms. There are a total of four roll-in shower rooms at WL and none of the proper room types show up online as bookable. The only roll-in shower room that is listed is a room type that doesn't even exist!

Anyway, I wrote to Disney through their online help portal to let them know, so here's the letter if you're interested in reading!

---------------------------------

This is less of a question, and more of a point of interest. If I need to send this to another department please let me know and I will gladly do so.

My mother and I love staying at the Wilderness Lodge, however she is disabled and requires a room with a roll-in shower. Something came to our attention while planning our most recent trip - we couldn't book any accessible roll-in shower rooms online. We couldn't book any for our last trip at the end of 2015 either, but someone we spoke to over the phone said those rooms were not bookable due to the construction. So on a whim, mom called the reservation line and asked if there were any roll-in shower rooms available at WL, and the rep said that there were, roll-in shower rooms with courtyard views. The woods view rooms were currently unavailable. We were pleasantly surprised, and booked the room right away! It's a courtyard view room with a queen bed and a bunk bed. After a few days I became curious as to why I couldn't book the room online... I went back to the website, and saw that the only room listed online for WL with a roll-in shower is a courtyard view room with 1 king bed. This room doesn't even exist to my knowledge! The rooms that we have stayed in before at WL (woods view roll-in shower with 1 queen and 1 bunk, and courtyard view roll-in shower with 1 queen 1 bunk) aren't even listed on the site!!

I am not bringing this up as a complaint - calling to book my reservations is equally as convenient as booking them online. I wanted to bring it up more so that Disney was aware. If mom and I had never stayed at WL before and we were doing some research on the website about what types of accessible rooms were available, we would've crossed it off our list before we could even consider it (for the lack of two beds).

As I said in the beginning, I'm not even sure if this is the place where this type of feedback is supposed to be submitted, but it was the only link I could find online!

Thanks so much,
-Emily

 

[5kidsmommy]

I am wondering if they don't want to have them online because they want to make sure they don't get booked by people who don't actually need them. Unfortunately people might just book because it's the cheapest room available, like if standards were available and then the room wouldn't be available for those who truly need it.

So basically I think it's a way to ensure that the rooms are available for those who need them. It's unfortunate that people wouldn't think of others but sadly often my faith in humanity is lacking.

 

[SueM in MN]

They are online, so if you are not seeing them, there are none available for the dates you are looking at or they have been temporarily pulled off and are not book able at time you are looking.

There were changes to the ADA that came into effect a couple of years ago (my recollection is March 2013) that required accessible rooms to be able to be booked by guests in the same ways as guests without disabilities book rooms.

 

[BabyFu18]

They are online as of this year, before I booked I looked online to see what was available with a roll-in shower and many resorts had them available to be booked online, a couple showed the option of roll-in shower as unavailable during my dates and I figured that meant all that room type was booked. And if it's a roll-in shower room in a specific category that isn't showing online maybe the room categories changed, of the rooms were renovated or changed the bathroom setup? I don't know, I just know that through my looking on the website a lot of different handicap accessible rooms were showing, but it's always good to call to see if other things are available as maybe the website was having issues or just isn't totally accurate.

 

[DisneyOma]

Has anybody else experienced the issue of trying to book a specific type of accessible room at a resort that you KNOW exists, but it doesn't show up on Disney's website? My mom and I have experienced this with WL and their roll-in shower rooms. There are a total of four roll-in shower rooms at WL and none of the proper room types show up online as bookable. The only roll-in shower room that is listed is a room type that doesn't even exist!

They aren't showing up because there are none available for the time frame you are looking at - try other dates?

 

[Shanti]

I booked an accessible room for a trip we took with my elderly mother. The different handicapped categories (tub with rails, walk-in shower, etc.) will show up if they're available. Maybe when you looked online someone had the room reserved, then canceled, so it showed up by the time you called. Room availability of all types comes and goes at WDW, particularly for categories that have limited inventory. People like me are forever tweaking their reservations.

 

[mamabunny]

Has anybody else experienced the issue of trying to book a specific type of accessible room at a resort that you KNOW exists, but it doesn't show up on Disney's website? My mom and I have experienced this with WL and their roll-in shower rooms. There are a total of four roll-in shower rooms at WL and none of the proper room types show up online as bookable. The only roll-in shower room that is listed is a room type that doesn't even exist!

Anyway, I wrote to Disney through their online help portal to let them know, so here's the letter if you're interested in reading!

---------------------------------

This is less of a question, and more of a point of interest. If I need to send this to another department please let me know and I will gladly do so.

My mother and I love staying at the Wilderness Lodge, however she is disabled and requires a room with a roll-in shower. Something came to our attention while planning our most recent trip - we couldn't book any accessible roll-in shower rooms online. We couldn't book any for our last trip at the end of 2015 either, but someone we spoke to over the phone said those rooms were not bookable due to the construction. So on a whim, mom called the reservation line and asked if there were any roll-in shower rooms available at WL, and the rep said that there were, roll-in shower rooms with courtyard views. The woods view rooms were currently unavailable. We were pleasantly surprised, and booked the room right away! It's a courtyard view room with a queen bed and a bunk bed. After a few days I became curious as to why I couldn't book the room online... I went back to the website, and saw that the only room listed online for WL with a roll-in shower is a courtyard view room with 1 king bed. This room doesn't even exist to my knowledge! The rooms that we have stayed in before at WL (woods view roll-in shower with 1 queen and 1 bunk, and courtyard view roll-in shower with 1 queen 1 bunk) aren't even listed on the site!!

I am not bringing this up as a complaint - calling to book my reservations is equally as convenient as booking them online. I wanted to bring it up more so that Disney was aware. If mom and I had never stayed at WL before and we were doing some research on the website about what types of accessible rooms were available, we would've crossed it off our list before we could even consider it (for the lack of two beds).

As I said in the beginning, I'm not even sure if this is the place where this type of feedback is supposed to be submitted, but it was the only link I could find online!

Thanks so much,
-Emily

So, if I understand correctly, your concern is that there are *incorrect* room accommodations being listed on the website - a king bed+roll-in shower shows up at WL, when there is no king bed+roll-in shower room at that resort? (to my personal knowledge, WL only has queen+bunks for roll-in shower rooms, not even any 2 queens+roll-in showers; I asked the last time we stayed there in January of this year.)

If that's the case - that there are rooms being listed that aren't actually "real", that's kind of a weird problem, and I'm not sure who to go to.

(Out of curiosity, I just went over to the WDW website, and there it is at WL... a king bed room with a roll-in shower, courtyard view.)

I have personally called the reservations line, and been able to book rooms in the past that showed online as "unavailable" - meaning, we wanted to stay at POFQ in September, but no roll-in shower rooms were available to book online. When I called to make reservations at another resort, and mentioned it to the CM on the phone, he was able to book the room, no problem. He had no explanation for why it showed as "unavailable" on the customer-facing website, but we got the room we wanted. My personal theory is that those rooms are (when the resort reaches a certain capacity in a given time period) marked as "unavailable" to insure that they are open for those who really need them? We have had several times when our family *would have* gone to WDW, but couldn't, because that room type (with the roll-in shower) was not available for us, at the resort we wanted to stay at.

I suppose there is an outside chance that this "phantom room" could have occurred as a result of the construction at WL? Maybe with the updates to WL they are going to add (or change) a roll-in shower room to a king bed+roll-in shower? Or maybe it was a simple human error, where someone on the backside put in the wrong room type for that hotel.

Let us know if you get any response from WDW!

 

[BillSears]

I haven't stayed at WL for almost 10 years but back then they did have rooms with a king sized bed and a roll-in shower. Room 6098 was one of those. Of course it may have been changed since then.

My post with pictures and descriptions are here in the 4th post on this thread.

http://www.disboards.com/threads/wh...ible-room-locations-and-measurements.1180437/

 

[mamabunny]

I haven't stayed at WL for almost 10 years but back then they did have rooms with a king sized bed and a roll-in shower. Room 6098 was one of those. Of course it may have been changed since then.

My post with pictures and descriptions are here in the 4th post on this thread.

http://www.disboards.com/threads/wh...ible-room-locations-and-measurements.1180437/

That is so good to know - if DH & I ever get to go on our "second honeymoon" (and this year IS 30 years, so...) then I have hope for that room!

 

[RachelKS]

I have found when booking for my husband and I that when calling "central booking" numbers for any hotels the people on the phone are always less than informed about room types. I always try and call hotels directly and speak to someone on location. Over the years I have gotten super specific to the point where I fear that the staff thinks I'm being crabby but it is more that I just want to be sure they know what I am asking for. Even when I book call and say, "I am looking for a wheelchair accessible room with a roll in shower, and by roll in I mean something on wheels can roll right into it with no lifting." We have still gotten places and found that it was completely not accessible. We have booked through a travel agent for this trip and she has assured me that our room will be exactly what we asked for, crossing my fingers!

 

[Bete]

I agree with the other posters. I have run across this myself. The rooms that come up for a reservation request are those that are available to book at the time you are booking, not all those room types that may be available, but already booked.

I've played and tweaked our dates to get the room request we need for a roll in shower.

Also, bookings are cancelled and you may pick one up later if you watch and try diligently.

I will say if construction is going on at a resort there may be a glitch or two with on line booking keeping up with those current changes; so, in that instance I would call and try to book that way instead. They may have more current updates.

 

[stitchlovestink]

I have found when booking for my husband and I that when calling "central booking" numbers for any hotels the people on the phone are always less than informed about room types. I always try and call hotels directly and speak to someone on location. Over the years I have gotten super specific to the point where I fear that the staff thinks I'm being crabby but it is more that I just want to be sure they know what I am asking for. Even when I book call and say, "I am looking for a wheelchair accessible room with a roll in shower, and by roll in I mean something on wheels can roll right into it with no lifting." We have still gotten places and found that it was completely not accessible. We have booked through a travel agent for this trip and she has assured me that our room will be exactly what we asked for, crossing my fingers!

Well with Disney, "you" think you are calling the hotel directly, but your call is still going to a CALL CENTER. And in the case of Disney those call centers don't handle making reservations, they will transfer that type of call.
Even calling the front desk from your room, you aren't really talking to someone at the front desk of your hotel. That call has been routed to a call center!! Disney definitely does things their own way.
To reach someone at your actual hotel, you need to call the back office. That is very hard to do. Disney protects those numbers VERY VERY closely. Otherwise those CMs wouldn't ever get anything else done because all they would be doing would be answering the phone nonstop.