Room Avail during marathon

[Jackie H.]

Another poster further down tells how she couldn't get a room at CSR (except for suites) or a standard room at WL the weekend of the marathon (Jan 7-8, 2006).

Here is my question: are those rooms likely to come open again before that time? I am not a travel professional, nor do I plan conventions or big events like the marathon...but do they (whoever "they" is) set aside a certain number of rooms for the participants then if they are not all taken the rooms gets released back to the public?

I know attendence is picking back up and everything, but January is supposed to be "off" time?

I appreciate any and all opinions on this! Thanks!

 

[Lisa loves Pooh]

I called the number for athletes to book special packages and they are showing the same unavailability.

I would book what you can--and at 90 days out (cancellation time for packages, I think) and at 5 days out (cancellation for no penalty) to see if something opens up.

 

[Bill From PA]

Here's my experience of booking for the 2005 Marathon. Sometime in Sept. 2004 I booked PoP Century just to have a place to hang my hat, 8 days at $77 per. In Oct. the BPD code came out, available to all. There were Moderates available but only waterview for a little more, so I switched to AllStar Movie for $55/night. Soon, Dreams Unlimited had Jan.1,2,3 @ Swan at the Teacher's Rate which I took. Later, Jan. 6,7,8 @ Dolphin was available through Starwood so I booked that. In sum, first 3 days in Jan. at Swan, two days at AllStar via PopCent then three at Dolphin which is where we were when the races were run. From Sept 2004 we had ressies for 4 different WDW resorts, never 'hoarding', just cancelling as we traded up', and those were just what was available on the cheap with a code. If we wished, we had Pop, AllStar or a Moderate for the 8 days but we chose to skip around to spend maximum time in S/D. Here's hoping you have the pickings we had.

Bill From PA