Question about Special Requests

[DizDays]

Does anyone know how special requests are fulfilled (or not)? Do those reservations that get booked earlier than others get assigned first? Is it completely random? Or do they ignore them completely and if you get what you requested it's purely by happenstance? Just curious. As I look at the posts on the board, fulfillment seems to be about 50/50. I know three times now we did not get what we requested.

Just wondering if there is any rhyme or reason to this and if there is anything we can do to better our chances of getting what we ask for. Thanks in advance!!

 

[tjkraz]

Years ago they used to give preference to those who booked the furthest out (i.e. 11 month reservations had best chance of getting requests.)

Best advice I can give you is:

1. Do not be too specific in your requests. Maybe a floor/building number or general location. But the more specific you get, the fewer rooms that will meet your criteria. And if they cannot easily match you, they probably just assign a random room.

2. Do NOT use the on-line check-in service. With on-line check-in, they place a higher priority on getting you into a room--ANY room--at your listed arrival time. This increases your chances of having a room available right when you arrive, but it's done at the expense of your requests.

If you place a higher priority on having requests met, just arrive at the front desk and politely ask the CM what he/she can do in order to help meet those requests.

 

[vicki_c]

I also believe checking in first thing in the morning helps - it's anecdotal, but it works for us. We often have a night in a moderate before starting our DVC vacation or a split stay and we always make sure to check in to the resort really early in the morning before going to the parks. Our room is never ready then (once they had something, but it didn't meet my request) and we have gotten our requests on every single DVC trip when we made one, and that's been most of our visits in the last 2.5 years.

I don't do online check-in either.

 

[DizDays]

Great advice! Thanks. I can't wait to try it out.