I am very late to this party! LOL. Is there anyway I can find a quick tutorial on booking through PLE? For instance, I just looked and there are some location categories such as: WDW Maingate, WDW AREA, and then some actually say Walt Disney World, WDW Disney Springs and WDW Bonnet Creek. Now, I know I don't want Maingate or Area, but would I actually get a Disney hotel if I did WDW, WDW Springs and/or WDW Bonnet Creek? Also, is there a cheat sheet or crash course I can read up on? Thank you so much!
Unless something changed in the last day since I checked, Priceline is still mostly a dead zone for Disney resort deals, but Hotwire does have a good amount.
If you are a glutton for punishment, you can
read back through my last few years of blog posts for various tips on searching.
I try to put a tip or two and examples in each post along with the deals I find for a given period.
Quick versions: All Disney resorts are either in Bonnet Creek or Disney Springs. (There are also non-Disney resorts in each, of course.)
To help identify resorts, you want to compare Star and Guest ratings, location, and review counts (if they are showing) to narrow down the possibilities.
Looking for mandatory (aka resort) fees on a booking are also helpful: Disney resorts do not have them and the others tend to remain the same.
(Although Priceline sometimes randomizes the prices a little because PL is crazy, but that has been rare lately.)
The good news is I have some resort matcher spreadsheets that can help you with that process. Just enter the star and guest ratings, review counts (on the Priceline sheet only) and choose location. It will tell you all of the resorts that match the deal info you entered. Often it is obvious - especially now that only some resorts are open.
Hotwire Resort Matcher
Priceline Resort Matcher
On Hotwire it is often easy to spot the hidden resort even without my handy dandy matcher: If you see a hidden HotRate deal, note the ratings and review counts as well as the crossed out "normal price" on it. Then scroll down the results until you find a non-hidden deal with the same ratings etc and a normal price that is $1 different than the crossed out one. (Very rarely it is off by $2.) That should tell you what resort the hidden deal is for.
Good luck!