Need Fort Wilderness Help!!!

[marileep]

Hey Everyone,

Sue from Small World travel suggested I come here for help! I'm hoping you will have some answers!

My church is sending me to WDW for a children's conference (JESUS LOVES ME!!! ) in January at the Coronado Springs Resort. I have a 7 month old baby and my parents were going to meet me down there for the week to watch him while I'm in meetings. They have an RV and were planning on staying at Fort Wilderness. The problem is that I called to book their reservation today and the campground is completely packed!! Am I out of luck? Do any of you have any other suggestions?

Thank you so much for your help!

~MariLee

 

[BigDaddyRog]

The only realistic suggestion you can get is to call Disney EVERY SINGLE MORNING at 7 OCLOCK, reservations are cancelled quite often for one reason or another...and if you call when the phone lines open every morning, your chances of nabbing a cancelled reservation are tremendously increased. Good Luck to ya!

 

[OK GRUMPY]

Persistent it pays off. Just keep calling!

 

[marileep]

I live in Colorado----so that means I get to call at 5am every morning!! GEESH!! Oh well, with a 7 month old, I'm up at that time quite often. Thanks for the info!!!

 

[bradisgoofy]

Some have suggested try booking more days then you need ( i.e. more before and after then you really need ). Then, if you get the reservation, call back after you get your confirmation, and cancel the days you don't need.

 

[AlyLynn]

I agree that you should keep trying! It took me over a month to piece together 3 different reservations so we could go Thanksgiving week this year! We even called while we were there to add an extra day--it didn't happen until 2 days before we were supposed to leave, but we got it! Good Luck!

 

[DznyRulz]

Some folks will book any available days during the period they want to stay at the Fort then build on that with subsequent phone calls. For example, if your trip is for 1/14 - 1/18 and your folks want to visit the Fort 1/13 - 1/19 and when you call the CRO they only have 1/15 and 1/16 available, take it. Then on the next call they have 1/14, take that. Keep building and making reservations until you have all days covered. The folks at the CRO can help you combine everything into one reservation. Like AlyLynn above, she had to make 3 different reservations to finally end up with one reservation. When making reservations at the Fort, like it's been sad many times before, persistence pays off.

 

[surferrat]

Just keep checking here. Usually when someone from the Dis does cancel they will post here.

 

[LarryJ]

Hey Everyone,

Sue from Small World travel suggested I come here for help! I'm hoping you will have some answers!

My church is sending me to WDW for a children's conference (JESUS LOVES ME!!! ) in January at the Coronado Springs Resort. I have a 7 month old baby and my parents were going to meet me down there for the week to watch him while I'm in meetings. They have an RV and were planning on staying at Fort Wilderness. The problem is that I called to book their reservation today and the campground is completely packed!! Am I out of luck? Do any of you have any other suggestions?

Thank you so much for your help!

~MariLee

As had been mentioned call each day and grab anything that is avail for starts and keep working from there and don't give up.

We originally wanted to go from around 19 Dec 07 to around 20 Jan 08 and started back in Feb of this year. All we could get originally was 16 to 23 Dec 07 and 1-5 Jan 08 (two different ressies). DW called each Mon and within a month we were able to get a third for 24 to 29 Dec. Then about a month later picked up 6-25 Jan 08 that was added to the existing ressie. Just yesterday we were able to get 31 Dec and it had to be a separate ressies since that's during the peak holiday season and was not contiguous to our existing peak holiday season ressie of 24 to 29 Dec, so now we have 4 separate ressies and still are looking for the 29th and 30th which should be able to be added onto one of the other peak holiday ressies and then once all is complete we should and hope that we can combine the peak holiday ressies into one and end up with 3 ressies covering the entire period 16 Dec 2007 till 25 Jan 2008.

Same thing happened when we starting making ressies for next X-giving. Back in Aug all we could get was 20 Oct to 20 Nov so we grabbed that and within about a month we were able to pick up a second covering 20 Nov till 1 Dec.

Larry

 

[PolynesianPixie]

I tried for awhile to get my reservation, calling and checking on-line. I called the reservation # about 8am EST, and no luck. Within 30 minutes, I checked the same reservation on-line and presto! I got it! Persistance is key! Sometimes a very kind Dis board member will post when they are cancelling a ressie, so pay attention here, too!

Good luck! I think you'll do fine!

 

[Y-ASK]

Not sure how expensive it would be, but you could try to rent some DVC points and have a DVC owner try to setup a reservation for the days you want. I know that different resorts set aside what some would call "Inventory" within the reservation system.

Example: I called the normal reservation line early in Oct. for a Nov. reservation (wanting to pay cash). No surprise nothing available. Remembering that I own DVC and could use points, I called DVC member services and they were able to reserve the dates that I wanted. Now it could only be a coincidence but I do know that DVC resorts set aside "Inventory" for cash reservations that DVC members do not have access to (unless they use cash). Maybe it works both ways with regular Disney resorts setting aside "Inventory" for DVC use. Just a thought.


Y-ASK