New Preferred View Booking Categories At BWV

[Crissup]

Originally posted by PamOKW
Maybe, they will revert back to the old way for the other resorts once this BW system is in place.

We can only hope. I feel all resorts should be rooms based on order of ressie. This gives the owners at that particular resort a 4 month advantage. That is only right.

 

[mjstaceyuofm]

OK, so I get this straight (and for others also...):

1. For the majority of the time the DVC has been around, requests were honored based on when you made the reservation - not when you checked in.

2. Sometime in the recent past, MS switched to a "first-come, first-serve" policy for honoring special room requests when you checked in - not when you made the reservation.

3. Now, there is a special category specifically for BW that delineates a BW view that can be reserved at reservation time in the same manner a standard view or preferred view are reserved at reservation time (BW view being a sub-category of preferred view along with the garden/pool view).

4. The "first-come, first-serve" policy is still in place at all DVC resorts for special room requests (excepting the coveted BW view which is now reservable when you make your reservations).

Someone please correct me if I've summarized anything wrong.

Now, some questions that someone may be able to answer for me:

1. When was the "first-come, first-serve" policy put in place. I must have been oblivious to it. Staying mainly at OKW, I never bothered to make any special requests other than non-smoking....

2. I have a standard view, 1-BR booked for 1 week in September this year (which I made around the 7-month mark BTW...). In the past, I've always been happy with a non-smoking room no matter where it was - is there something special I should be looking for in a 1-BR, std view room at the BWV? I never knew about the whole view fiasco until following this thread. Any advice would be appreciated.

Thanks!

 

[Nanajo1]

Actually, we enjoy a SV 1BR that overlooks the entry to BW. It fun to watch people arrive and fun to watch dads trying to reload the car after a funfilled souvenir acquiring trip!

 

[DisneyMeMa]

Monday night I sent an e-mail about the BWV reservation change. I started off by stating how much we appreciate this improvement. We are much happier knowing what to expect. I just received a very nice phone call from Jackie at DVC. I told her I didn't really need a reply, but I was quite pleased to hear from her. We discussed the smoking/non smoking issue (she said 95% to 96% of DVC is now non smoking), and the handicapped/ non HA issue. She listened to me very politely, but told me "at this time they were not going to consider any additional views at any of our resorts including smoking/non smoking or HA/non HA." She suggested we continue to request our preferences when we make our reservations. Maybe I didn't learn anything new, but again, I appreciate her contacting me and knowing what to expect...that is no additional changes are being considered at this time.

 

[disneyberry]

Originally posted by mjstaceyuofm
Someone please correct me if I've summarized anything wrong.

nothing wrong, you've summarized it perfectly.

1. When was the "first-come, first-serve" policy put in place.

according to Jackie at MS, they had a trial of the "Room Ready" system at OKW back in Oct of last year. she also said that BCV has always used the "Room Ready" policy. then 3rd to implement it was BWV. and VWL only recently converted over to it.

it's possible that sometimes the resorts will still pre-assign rooms maybe that morning or the day before. this might explain the conflicting reports we've had on the boards... how some members have had their room preassigned (check-in early but told that their room is not ready yet). but i think basically what they're saying they got rid of is whatever supposed "priority" you had if you made your reservation at 11mos vs. someone who made their reservation at 2mos. so now, the only people who have priority over others, when it comes to room requests, is those with medical or handicap needs.

 

[DebbieB]

About 2 or 3 weeks ago, DVC put a notice on the member site saying that the front desks will no longer accept faxes or phone calls regarding requests, all requests must be through member services. There has been discussion on this board for awhile from members returning from a stay saying that their room was not preassigned when the arrived as they expected it to be. I attended the BWV annual meeting in 2000 and in response to the boardwalk view question they said rooms were preassigned by the date of reservation. So I e-mailed member services asking if this is still the case or is it now different. I got a call back from Jackie at DVC saying that the current procedure has changed. When you arrive, they will attempt to find a room that you can occupy immediately that meets at least one of your requests. It isn't totally "first come/first served" according to Jackie. She used the example of someone arriving at 9:00am with a BW view request. If there are no BW view rooms ready to occupy at that time, they would try to find an available room elsewhere. If you still wanted the BW view, you could decline to check-in and return later to check availability. I said to her that we usually do not arrive until about 3:00pm, therefore our chances would be slim of getting the BW view even though we made our reservation at 11 months. She responded that they were trying to get as many members as possible into clean rooms when they arrive and not have to wait until later to get into their rooms and that members responded favorably to this when tested. I spoke to her before this boardwalk view category was announced.

 

[crisi]

... how some members have had their room preassigned (check-in early but told that their room is not ready yet)

It is also possible that their room is not preassigned but at the moment they check in housekeeping hasn't reported back with any clean rooms. It was my understanding from a previous thread that housekeeping cleans a bunch of rooms and then checks them all back into inventory.

So if you check in at 9:00am, and checkout isn't until 11:00 - it is possible that there are no clean rooms when you check in. Therefore, it isn't that "your room" isn't clean, its that "no rooms" are clean.

 

[Nanajo1]

So....., if folks who are not guaranteed BWVs decline to book a GV/PV then SV will become more of a commodity. So the 11 month window is even more important if you want to save points and book a SV.
I do like FC/FS based on reservation date and hope it spreads to all resorts. The airline is always changing my early morning flight to later in the day so no 8am check in for me.

 

[MiaSRN62]

From Leslie :

Maria, sounds to me like you were given a standard view....since we had a very similar view that was a standard view room, at the end of the hallway, over the valet parking lot. We did have a view of Epcot from the kitchen side of our room and a view of MGM from our bedroom balcony. If you get something like that again, I'd question it. I believe the preferred views are all supposed to be facing the canal to MGM or the Boardwalk...including the pool views (since the pools are pretty much right on the canal too).

Well, Jackie from MS just now called me after I emailed them on Thursday about my questionable preferred view. It didn't go well, if anyone is interested, here is a link from another thread about our conversation of my valet parking lot preferred view:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=4038235#post4038235