Room Block Help

[FizzingWhizzbee]

Hi all!

I am trying to figure out this room block, and it is making me want to give up on the Disney wedding entirely.

We have about 100 people saying that they want to go, but we know that a lot of them may not be in the financial situation to go. I am not in the financial situation to pay for a bunch of unused rooms.

Do we have to do the room block? I really want to be able to get our guests a discount, but the discount isn't even as good as the one we got on our recent trip.

How does dropping rooms work?

Say we block 100 room nights, what if only 20 get booked? Would we have to pay for 35 (100-20%-25-20) room nights?

Even if everyone comes, people may choose offsite hotels, or more people may choose to share.

I really loved how well Disney took care of everything on our vacation, it was completely worry free and I thought the wedding would be the same which is why I didn't mind spending more but this is freaking me out.

This whole room block thing is far more stressful than anything I was planning at home.

Does anyone have any experience with this?

Has anyone had any bad experiences with this?

Thank you for your help!

 

[tric8783]

Hi there!!
We estimated around 80 people attending and invited around 140. We blocked 61 room nights and had to guarantee 49. We have 58 so far, with 6 weeks to go until our wedding. At the 90 day mark, you are allowed to decrease your block by 25 nights. For us, this was dropping our block in 1/2 and by the 90 day mark, we already had more than 1/2.

I would go ahead and book the nights knowing you can drop them. Maybe reserve an amount similar to what we did? Worse comes to worse, you can post in the FB group or here on the boards that you need help filling your block and open up your discounted rates to fill the rest of the block. If you guarantee 25 nights and have them booked, you'll get a free night at any resort you choose, added bonus!

Don't stress! We also blocked 2 Deluxe (BW and BC) and a value (Pop) but were able to move some of our nights at BW over to CBR (mod) with no problem down the line. Good luck!

 

[lurkyloo]

Do we have to do the room block? I really want to be able to get our guests a discount, but the discount isn't even as good as the one we got on our recent trip.

No, but you won't get the free night, and you won't be able to guarantee your guests have rooms, of course...

Even if everyone comes, people may choose offsite hotels, or more people may choose to share.

Sharing won't really affect you—it's the number of room NIGHTS that counts, not the number of rooms.

Also, remember that you don't have to fill 100% of the room nights you block, even after you drop extras at 90 days out. You only need to fill 80% of what you block. So if at 90 days you dropped to, say, 30 nights, you would only have to fill 25 of them to avoid the penalty.

 

[FizzingWhizzbee]

Also, remember that you don't have to fill 100% of the room nights you block, even after you drop extras at 90 days out. You only need to fill 80% of what you block. So if at 90 days you dropped to, say, 30 nights, you would only have to fill 25 of them to avoid the penalty.

I thought at the 90 day mark I was only allowed to drop 25 nights? I can drop as many as I want?

 

[lurkyloo]

Look in your contract - the number you can drop may vary.

Other things to consider:

- 100 guests do not need 100 room nights. How are they mostly traveling? In pairs? Trios? How many nights do you think they will stay at WDW?

- Unless your wedding is in high season, your guests will have no trouble finding accommodations at Disney (and even if it is high season, there will still be plenty off-property). If the room block doesn't give a good discount and you don't absolutely need it to ensure your guests will have a place to stay, there's no reason to block off enough nights to hold 100% of your guests. For 100 expected, I'd just block 25 nights to meet the requirement for the free room (if all 25 are filled).

 

[SammyB1027]

I agree with lurky loo, just go with the 25. We had Bill helping us with our room block (which btw, confused the heck out of me as well!) and in the end he told us to low ball it; you can always add on later on down the line, but if you find out you won't be able to fill the block you can only drop so much. HTH

 

[princesswendy720]

I guaranteed (I think) around 31 or 32...so my 80% was 25 (just enough to get the free room). I'd say, always book on the low end unless your wedding is during peak season (like 4th of July or Christmas) when there are few discounts and the rooms are likely to book up quickly.

 

[FizzingWhizzbee]

Thanks for the help everyone. We went with 10 rooms. We should have way more than that, but our guests will book based on availability.

Since it is the off season, we should be fine.

I'm just glad I don't have to worry about it anymore. Onto the fun stuff!