October 2011 Code Watch

[micknme]

Did the CM give any indication that they knew a code was in the works?

No overtime booked at all as far as she has heard.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I truly hope it is not a rumor. It is killing me to pay rack rate..especially when I did not book the bounce back offer on our last visit.

ALWAYS book. YOu can cancel for a refund of your deposit if you can't go. Drives my DH crazy that I book/plan stuff so far out, but what he doesn't understand is that if you don't book under a discount when you can you might not get one later...

are u going to be at the beach club as well..

I am still so confused what discount are you talking about?

Yes, we are currently book at the BC although we just found out we are relocating to the Nashville area and that may cause us to cut back on our vacation budget this year, so we may be downgrading to POR.
The discount we are all waiting for is the typical room only fall discount. Generally 20%values/30%mods/40%deluxe. If it comes out, I would rather use this than the free dining at BC b/c I'd rather have the qsdp with my little ones anyways. Overall it would knock about $800 off our trip to do one night at pop on arrival afternoon and then 6 nights at BC with 40% off and add the qsdp. That is my plan as of now...assuming the discount ever comes...

 

[DisneyFreq]

I bit the bullet and booked the dolphin Food and Wine Classic Pkg.

We booked this package last year at $169 and we were a little irritated with the increase to $255 without the beverage seminar so we've been looking around.

My hope was to get a moderate at a discount, like CBR, and pay oop for one night of the classic and then book the 3D desserts and Mexican tequila lunch. But looking around at rack rate, there is almost nothing left for those dates. The only value still open is Sports at $120/n and the only mod is CSR at $220/n. My total for the Dolphin is $600 for 2 nights and once you subtract out the cost of arm bands for 2ppl for 2 nights, it works out to $155/n post tax and resort fees.

I really only wanted to do the classic one night because the menu is not very different from night to night.....but its nice to know I'll be staying at the dolphin for the same price as a value and since we are only going to epcot during our stay, we still have the option of walking to the park (which is all we did last year).

And if something better comes along, I can still cancel up to 5 days out and get a refund.

 

[LMO429]

ALWAYS book. YOu can cancel for a refund of your deposit if you can't go. Drives my DH crazy that I book/plan stuff so far out, but what he doesn't understand is that if you don't book under a discount when you can you might not get one later...


Yes, we are currently book at the BC although we just found out we are relocating to the Nashville area and that may cause us to cut back on our vacation budget this year, so we may be downgrading to POR.
The discount we are all waiting for is the typical room only fall discount. Generally 20%values/30%mods/40%deluxe. If it comes out, I would rather use this than the free dining at BC b/c I'd rather have the qsdp with my little ones anyways. Overall it would knock about $800 off our trip to do one night at pop on arrival afternoon and then 6 nights at BC with 40% off and add the qsdp. That is my plan as of now...assuming the discount ever comes...

I would love the 40% off deluxe! Cheers to hoping!!!! I hope good things come our way!

 

[Susan595]

I'm so confused....... shocking I know. So IF the discount comes out and most of the resorts are fully booked already how do you get a discount, do you not have to cancel your room and find availability somewhere else, kinda hard if everything is full isn't it ? Or maybe I am misunderstanding how its done.

 

[disneymagicgirl]

I'm so confused....... shocking I know. So IF the discount comes out and most of the resorts are fully booked already how do you get a discount, do you not have to cancel your room and find availability somewhere else, kinda hard if everything is full isn't it ? Or maybe I am misunderstanding how its done.

If the place is mostly full for your dates and you can't get a room at a diff resort, then you get no discount.

 

[Susan595]

ya I figured, we're booked Oct 15-22 everything is full, only thing I could see is SS right now, or AK and considering I paid 3k for a package AK is 5100 a discount isn't going to do the trick for me even if it is amazing resort. Ugh I wish it would just come out so I can be at peace lol AND I was at peace now the rumors spring up again so now it leaves me hoping and wondering all over again bahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

 

[Tltorrez]

I'm so confused....... shocking I know. So IF the discount comes out and most of the resorts are fully booked already how do you get a discount, do you not have to cancel your room and find availability somewhere else, kinda hard if everything is full isn't it ? Or maybe I am misunderstanding how its done.

If your resort is full, then you likely won't be able to apply a discount. It's based on the percentage of bookings. To get the discount you would likely have to switch resorts or switch dates.

Based on discussions on this board you would think that most of the popular resorts are full for most of the rest of the year, but that's really not the case. There are some weeks where things are really filled up and others that are not. And some where mostly Values are full and others where mostly Deluxes are full. My dates (Oct 20-24) are somewhere in the middle. BC and the MK resorts are mostly full. But BWI, AK, POR and ASMu have plenty of availability.

That's why I don't book ahead unless i'm prepared to pay rack rate. There's no point. This time I need the discount so i'll go where the discount is. If location/room type was more important to me than the discount, then I would book ahead and hope for the best.

Hope that helps.

 

[DeepSouth]

I just paid in full. So, here comes the discount.

 

[Tltorrez]

I just paid in full. So, here comes the discount.

A lot of people paid this week. So Murphy's Law has to kick in sometime, right?

 

[micknme]

I also paid mine off this week. I'm wondering if Disney is watching how many people will bite the bullet and pay off their balance even without a discount???

Since they have been warning us of their plans to pull back their discounts, I'm wondering if they are now watching to see just how many people will pay off their balance when having to pay rack rate? Seeing how FD had people waiting for hours 'on hold' the day it was announced, plus the fact that consumers are paying off balances without discounts, it's easy for them to see what works to draw us in, but also which discounts work best in their favour.

I can see a lot more FD and fewer RO discounts in Disney's future.

 

[Tltorrez]

Generally speaking, FD doesn't fill Deluxe rooms. I think we can expect to see more targeted discounts going forward though. Those "upsell" PINS that went out a couple weeks ago were totally brilliant -- take a Value or Mod room that's sold out, convert it to a Deluxe and then you can resell the Value room.
And they only sent them out to specific resorts for specific dates. They've obviously got some very finely-tuned statistics that they are working from on this. I think we'll see a lot more of that.

Having said that, there are still empty rooms in the fall season. There always are and Disney just said that they will continue to offer discounts for this period as always. The context of pulling back discounts was really aimed at deep discounts in busier seasons; those that they put into place specifically during the recession. For the usual low-season discounts it just seems like they're delaying general discounts in favor of more targeted ones. I don't know what the logic is on releasing the FD earlier, but i'm sure they have a ton of numbers to tell them that's the right solution.

In the mean time, looks like nothing today. I'm not really expecting it over the holiday weekend with no overtime indicated. But i'm too obsessed not to check.

 

[LisaTC]

I also paid in full on Thurs. When the fall FD dates came out a few weeks ago the only date in our ranges that wasn't covered was 10/22. Now, they have changed that to include 10/22. However, when we called to add FD on that date, we couldn't because they said it wasn't available at POR (where we are staying) but could do it at the Caribbean. I didn't want to change, so we just left it as it. Suffice it to say, by the time we called 10/22 wasn't available at POR for FD and some have said on here that 10/29 was the problem for them. It wasn't too big of a deal because he have HDDR on the nonincluded night that we've already paid for and don't get in until 2 ish in the afternoon anyway. I'm guessing if a GP discount, room only comes out it will be for dates that aren't full. October is getting pretty, pretty busy!

 

[Tltorrez]

I'm guessing if a GP discount, room only comes out it will be for dates that aren't full. October is getting pretty, pretty busy!

Traditionally, RO discounts don't have black out dates except Thanksgiving. But all discounts are controlled by a percentage of rooms booked. From what i've read the percentage can vary by discount type, resort and room type. So while those dates may be unavailable for FD at specific resorts, they may still have availability for other discounts or (as you said) other resorts. Gartner week is definitely full across the board. But the week between that and Halloween seems to have availability. And one of the TAs commented that November (except Jersey week of course) seems to have a lot of availability. Early December too.

Of course, we're all focused on October, so you're right, it does seem pretty full. But i'm still optimistic that i'll get a discount at BWI for my dates. My first choice, BC, unfortunately seems to be all out of standard and garden rooms. And i'm not paying for a view of the pool, so that one seems out right now. I promised DS i'd try to get Stormalong Bay. But he doesn't know if I fail, he gets the Pirate Cruise so I think he'll be ok with that. And as long as i'm in the Epcot area, i'll be happy. And the discounts are still available at Swan and Dolphin as my backup plan.

So i'm hoping for this discount but it's not make or break for me. I just need to make a decision soon so I can solidify my secondary plans and let my parents know what day they should join us.

 

[sjs314]

I would almost bet a GP discount for October will be offered any day now.

We had planned on paying off our balance yesterday, then DH and I got to talking and decided to change our trip dates to March 2012 with the FD. We are ending up spending $859 more since we decided to change back to what was our original resort of choice CR TPV plus the change fees to change our airline tix.

By changeing our dates there is a posibility our DS and Ddil will join us

Have to change my ticker

 

[johnsonet]

I just paid in full. So, here comes the discount.

I'm not booking until a discount comes out. We don't have to go but it would be fun. My dates are a long weekend in Oct. and the only resorts sold out are CR, YC and BC. GF and Poly have very little left. WL, AKL, Kidani and BWI are wide open. So I wait...

 

[micknme]

For sure, I too think there will be an RO discount for the fall, but I do think they are trying to fill as many rooms as they can with the FD, AP and upgrade resort discounts (which is brilliant on their part) as well as getting stats for the percentage of people who will end up paying rack rate if the have too. I know for my resort, there are no AP rooms available as well as FD is not being offered, which makes me think I won't have much luck for an RO discount either.

It's not very pleasant biting the bullet and paying off my balance at rack rate, but at least I am staying where I want and hopefully by the time I travel, all these negative thoughts of $$$ will be a distant memory!

 

[disneymagicgirl]

Our week is still wide open...10/27 thru 11/3.

What Disney needs to remember is that often people spend more when a discount is released b/c they can justify their resort of choice, even if they are spending a few hundred more than they would've paid doing rack rate at a lesser resort. I bet a lot of folks would be upgrading if a RO discount comes out.
We are booked with FD at BC GV, but prefer the QSDP. Since we just found out we are relocating to TN in Oct, we now need to decrease our vaca expenditures this year. We will be downgrading to POR with FD to save ourselves $1500, unless a RO discount comes out. Then I will keep BC, do a RO ressie the first night, start a 6 night package with QSDP nights 2-7, and save myself about $700 off our current price.
Now I am thinking maybe I need to switch to POR and hope for an upgrade offer...that would be even better!

 

[Grumpy Grandma]

I would almost bet a GP discount for October will be offered any day now.

We had planned on paying off our balance yesterday, then DH and I got to talking and decided to change our trip dates to March 2012 with the FD. We are ending up spending $859 more since we decided to change back to what was our original resort of choice CR TPV plus the change fees to change our airline tix.

By changeing our dates there is a posibility our DS and Ddil will join us

Have to change my ticker

Sorry you had to cancel your Oct trip (explains why after waiting and checking so much you cancelled the Dessert Party) but your March trip sounds like lots of fun with your family!

 

[ktmo]

I just paid off my trip. I figure a discount will come out now. Well since I am resigned to the fact that I will pay Rack Rate, I looked around to see what else was available. I am please to say that I switched from VWL to BCV. Since 3 out of the 4 nights we are there are MNSSHP, I thought we'd switch to a non-MK resort. I am very happy about that.