Resort sold out for our dates booked - higher chance of an upgrade?

[Sue M]

At Disney your room is assigned 4-5 days out and that room will be waiting for you. Your assigned room is part of the reason it’s showing sold out. It’s not like they will give an assigned room to someone else.
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Sure they will! If you arrive and don’t like your room, ie: I had the worst room at YC possible so I went back to front desk to ask for another room. I had to wait (I got there early at 9am) but was given another room. It could have been assigned to someone else as Resort was at 100% cap. But possibly the people assigned to room hadn’t arrived yet and didn’t have room #.

 

[bryanb]

Not sure if the CSR has a convention going on. It's also possible that blocks of rooms are being held back right now for attendees, and they'll let them go later if not booked.

In a related practice, I see that the All-Star Sports are sold out on certain dates this summer, but you can still book them if you're going through the spectator and participant portal at ESPN.

Hotels usually actually don't let themselves get to 100% occupancy, in practice, although certainly it can happen sometimes.

 

[writerguyfl]

Hotels usually actually don't let themselves get to 100% occupancy, in practice, although certainly it can happen sometimes.

Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding you. But, I worked in multiple hotels, including many years as a Revenue Manager. (The Revenue Manager is responsible for maximizing room revenue.) We always tried to get to 100% occupancy. In practice, that meant overbooking the hotel virtually every week. Pretty much every hotel that has more than a couple rooms practices targeted overbooking.

One hotel had 350 rooms. On a normal night, we could be 20-30 rooms overbooked for the following week without issues. It was extremely rare that we relocated (aka "walked") a guest.

For a date several months away, we could be 50-60 rooms overbooked without issues depending upon the situation. As buzznina noted earlier in the thread, it's typical for groups of book more rooms than necessary. We'd always look at the past history of any groups to determine how far overbooked we could go.

 

[JAMIESMITH]

In March of 2011, my cousin and her sorority sisters were booked in three rooms at All Star Music. One room was moved to Animal Kingdom Lodge, One room was moved to Old Key West. The last room was moved to The Polynesian.

We were upgraded from a standard view to a garden view at The Polynesian in September of 2012. The longhouse we were in was practically empty that week!

In January of 2015, we rented DVC points and got the standard view we paid for at Boardwalk Villas.

In April of 2016, we spent a single night at Coronado Springs and a single night at Animal Kingdom Lodge. We paid for standard views. We had a garden view at Coronado and a pool view at AKL.

 

[buzznina]

Earlier I posted that we have had a decent number of view upgrades. I want to say that we always arrive after midnight, so for me I do not believe that arriving late effects our room. I think reading the DIS forum you get the sense that a lot of people checking in will ask to change their room if they do not like something about it and leaving all bad rooms, but I think that it's a very small number. Sorry if this is long A good example is the trip I just came back from. I had a conference at CSR and there was 5 of us going, and out of the 5 there was only 2 of us that really go to WDW regularly. The other WDW regular person knew about MDE to customize his MB but that was all he did, while I not only customized my MB, I also called and added a request for Casitas 3. Well we arrive and my room was 3290 Casitas 3, luckily for one coworker, she got a CM next to me and they had her in Ranchos (which she was going to except) but I leaned over and asked the CM if they had any rooms in the Casitas section and they moved her to Casitas 2 Once we met up with the other 3, they were all in the Ranchos section. Of course then they noticed mine and the other WDW regular with our non-gray MBs and gave us a hard time about that So even though the other 4 were not pleased to be in Ranchos when they were shown their room, none of them asked if they could change rooms except the one I helped. BTW, yes we rubbed it in on the rainy day that are rooms were much closer and that we could get there totally under cover

 

[kaytieeldr]

Earlier I posted that we have had a decent number of view upgrades. I want to say that we always arrive after midnight, so for me I do not believe that arriving late effects our room.

It may even be an advantage. I arrived at POR (possibly so long ago it was still Dixie Landings) around 11:30 one night. The CM showed me a list of rooms i could choose from!

 

[bryanb]

Maybe I'm completely misunderstanding you. But, I worked in multiple hotels, including many years as a Revenue Manager. (The Revenue Manager is responsible for maximizing room revenue.) We always tried to get to 100% occupancy. In practice, that meant overbooking the hotel virtually every week. Pretty much every hotel that has more than a couple rooms practices targeted overbooking.

One hotel had 350 rooms. On a normal night, we could be 20-30 rooms overbooked for the following week without issues. It was extremely rare that we relocated (aka "walked") a guest.

For a date several months away, we could be 50-60 rooms overbooked without issues depending upon the situation. As buzznina noted earlier in the thread, it's typical for groups of book more rooms than necessary. We'd always look at the past history of any groups to determine how far overbooked we could go.

Happy to clarify, but I'd ultimately defer to your expertise on this, as revenue management is a science/art that is outside my field. I had been taught that, for most hotels, optimal profitability is somewhere lower than 100% occupancy, but could vary depending on situations. I tried to Google for some articles to illustrate what I mean, and here is an example of one from a vendor. But in general, a lower occupancy target (at least earlier on) allows for higher room rates and more dynamic pricing strategies. I'm totally not an expert in this area (it's more of a business curiosity), so I could be misunderstanding the model completely. It's interesting that a hotel catering to business travelers will probably have higher cancellation/no-shows, and should overbook. And perhaps that applies to WDW as well, in a way I hadn't considered.

 

[Melanie230]

That would be awesome if you do get an upgrade! Good luck, and let us know if you do! Have a fun trip!

 

[writerguyfl]

Earlier I posted that we have had a decent number of view upgrades. I want to say that we always arrive after midnight, so for me I do not believe that arriving late effects our room. I think reading the DIS forum you get the sense that a lot of people checking in will ask to change their room if they do not like something about it and leaving all bad rooms, but I think that it's a very small number.

Because Disney Resorts blocks most rooms several days in advance, it doesn't make much difference when you arrive. It's likely that the room you get will be exactly the same for a guest arriving at 3pm or midnight.

The same late-night arrival might play out very differently at a "normal" hotel. Most hotels assign rooms when you arrive to check-in. The later you arrive, the less choice you may have. But, it really only matters when the hotel is at high occupancy.

Happy to clarify, but I'd ultimately defer to your expertise on this, as revenue management is a science/art that is outside my field. I had been taught that, for most hotels, optimal profitability is somewhere lower than 100% occupancy, but could vary depending on situations. I tried to Google for some articles to illustrate what I mean, and here is an example of one from a vendor. But in general, a lower occupancy target (at least earlier on) allows for higher room rates and more dynamic pricing strategies. I'm totally not an expert in this area (it's more of a business curiosity), so I could be misunderstanding the model completely. It's interesting that a hotel catering to business travelers will probably have higher cancellation/no-shows, and should overbook. And perhaps that applies to WDW as well, in a way I hadn't considered.

Some of that is true. There's little point to lowering rates just to hit 100% occupancy. And I could certainly see how a small hotel owner might need a company (like the one to which you linked) to point that fact out.

But, for the most part, that's not a factor for any hotel that's part of a chain. Chain hotels generally have strict, pre-determined rate structures. As those rate structures are used to set corporate rates, they don't get changed much...if at all. (There are two types of corporate rates. One type is a locally negotiated rate. Those only apply to single hotels and are often huge discounts. The other type is a percentage off of the normal rates. Those percentage off rates are granted to companies that give the entire chain a lot of business.)

While the Revenue Manager may alter your rate structure slightly at various points throughout the year, once the rates are set, they're set. At that point, your main goal is going to be to get to 100% occupancy as often as possible. But, that's not the sole goal. You also want to use the busy nights to increase occupancy on shoulder nights. For example, every hotel in Las Vegas could sell out with people staying only Friday and Saturday nights. Through the use of stay controls, you'd work to build up occupancy on Thursday and Sunday by requiring a 3-night minimum stay.

I'm old. When I started working in revenue management, we did calculations using Excel spreadsheets. Today, it's all done by wildly complex computer software. The software using in major chains (including Disney) takes most of the decisions away from people. (Good software can analyze more in a minute than I could in a month.)

Anyway, it's true that 100% occupancy shouldn't be the ultimate goal...profitability should be. But, in practice, large chain hotels and Disney Resorts with reasonably inflexible rate structures aren't in a position to alter rates just to chase 100% occupancy. In effect, 100% occupancy is reasonably equivalent to profitability.

 

[buzznina]

Because Disney Resorts blocks most rooms several days in advance, it doesn't make much difference when you arrive. It's likely that the room you get will be exactly the same for a guest arriving at 3pm or midnight.

The same late-night arrival might play out very differently at a "normal" hotel. Most hotels assign rooms when you arrive to check-in. The later you arrive, the less choice you may have. But, it really only matters when the hotel is at high occupancy.

Exactly the point I was trying to make. The arrival time really does not matter.

 

[jsbowl16]

Hi this is what has happened to us. We arrived very late one time and we got the worse room/view possible. When I asked about any other rooms they said this was the last one. I will not arrive late at a hotel/resort again for that reason.

Maybe but my wife and daughter also had them and they worked fine.