Room Block Panic

[BaBeeCee14]

Hey Ladies,

I just received my contract and I'm in a little bit of a panic over this whole room block thing. The contract states that I need to fill a minimum of 68 nights, but I'm not sure that I can. I don't even know how many of my guests can even come. I don't want to end up having to pay for these extra nights that I can't fill. Should I adjust my room block so that my minimum comes out less than 68? Or am I really freaking out over nothing ? Please help.

 

[figmentfan814]

Out of curiosity how many guests are you inviting? You can always adjust your amount. I know with 60 guests we are only required 25 nights which was pretty easy to get for us.

 

[BaBeeCee14]

Really? Thats strange, I told my WC that we were having no more than 50 guests...

 

[lurkyloo]

This is very weird - the requirements are something like...

10-39 guests: 25 nights
40-74 guests: 50 nights
75-100 guests: 75 nights


However lately there's been talk that this is flexible and that you can block fewer rooms to lower your requirements (i.e., you have 100 guests but only block 30 rooms so you only need 25 nights).

 

[figmentfan814]

Not sure why we lucked out, but our contract stated we only needed 25 and then after we reached 25 in our room block our coordinator's assistant booked our room at the Grand Floridian for us. In fact, even though we're at 60 guests now we originally booked for 50 people, so that would have still be in that 50 room range.

Right now we're already up to 48 rooms as of yesterday with only about half of our guests having made reservations. Believe me, it's not as hard as it may seem to reach your block.

 

[audisight]

Out of curiosity how many guests are you inviting? You can always adjust your amount. I know with 60 guests we are only required 25 nights which was pretty easy to get for us.

I'm having 60 guest and we only needed 25 rooms as well. I even asked my sales manager if it was right before we sent our contract out and she said it was correct. Maybe it's the time of year that has something to do with it?

 

[Keira1387]

We are having 75-100 guest, and were required to have 50 rooms. I told my CM about my concerns and they lowered it to 25. So, it never hurts to ask!

 

[caryndisneydiva]

wow. i told them 50 people (at first) and was told i needed 50 nights...this isn't an issue for me though, i already have 40+ booked...and only 20 something responses...i was surprised at how fast the block booked, but since my wedding is on a thurs am, people are coming for a long weekend, so it's taking up a lot of nights...

 

[Island Mouse]

We are expecting around 60 guests as well and we were only required to guarantee 25 room nights. We actually have 50 room nights in our block so we only have to guarantee 41 of those. It shouldn't be too hard to meet since a lot of our guests plan on staying at least a week anyways.

 

[BaBeeCee14]

Thanks for the replies! I'll talk to my coordinator and see what she says.

 

[shaylih]

Be careful to make sure you book enough. So far, we have about 90 people coming and about 115 nights booked. We had to guarentee 109 nights. It's based on 80% of how many you ask for. We figured most families would stay 2-3 nights and we based it off of 130 rooms I think. Our rooms at BoardWalk are completely booked and they can't get anymore, now they had to open up rooms at Yacht Club for us. We still have some left at POR and ASM, but it's getting tight.

 

[BaBeeCee14]

I know and that was another one of my concerns. I'm afraid I'll book too many and won't be able to fill them all and then I'm afraid I won't book enough. I think this is one of the more annoying parts of the whole process. Its hard to have you guess when a lot of your guests don't even know if they will be coming or not. Let alone try to guess how long they will stay and where..

 

[shaylih]

I know and that was another one of my concerns. I'm afraid I'll book too many and won't be able to fill them all and then I'm afraid I won't book enough. I think this is one of the more annoying parts of the whole process. Its hard to have you guess when a lot of your guests don't even know if they will be coming or not. Let alone try to guess how long they will stay and where..

A lot more people are coming than we were anticipating. We thought we'd have about 75. And it just keeps growing. People really threw us for what hotel they'd stay at too. We thought more people would stay at all stars, but we only have 2 people booked there. You can always add rooms as long as they are available, which in our case they're sold out for BoardWalk. Also, you can get the rate for the villas. We're going to stay at the BoardWalk villas in a 1 bedroom for a couple of nights after the wedding. They're coming us one of those nights too. I know it's frustrating, but everything will work out.

 

[orangetiggs]

we had to guarentee 25 nights and we have a total of 30 night blocked at 3 resorts and most of the guests have booked here in the uk witha travel agent and i think we are up to 90 odd rooms booked cos alot of them are coming over for 14 nights at a time

 

[BaBeeCee14]

Can the guests still get the discount on a room if the resort they choose is not on your room block? For example, we picked AKL, CBR, and All Star Sport for our room block. If we had a guest who wanted to stay at GF, would they not be able to get the discount?

 

[lurkyloo]

Can the guests still get the discount on a room if the resort they choose is not on your room block? For example, we picked AKL, CBR, and All Star Sport for our room block. If we had a guest who wanted to stay at GF, would they not be able to get the discount?

That is correct - they only get the discount at resorts that are in your block. That's why we blocked the Contemporary even though no one is staying there - we wanted a discount for our honeymoon!

However, if you have a case like Shaylih where one of your resorts sells out, they will extend that discount to whatever resort your guests stay at instead.

 

[shaylih]

Can the guests still get the discount on a room if the resort they choose is not on your room block? For example, we picked AKL, CBR, and All Star Sport for our room block. If we had a guest who wanted to stay at GF, would they not be able to get the discount?

Nope, you'll have to add a couple rooms at GF to get the block. You can have as many hotels as you want from what I understand, it just makes it more managable to have fewer.

 

[shaylih]

Can the guests still get the discount on a room if the resort they choose is not on your room block? For example, we picked AKL, CBR, and All Star Sport for our room block. If we had a guest who wanted to stay at GF, would they not be able to get the discount?

Nope, you'll have to add a couple rooms at GF to get the block. You can have as many hotels as you want from what I understand, it just makes it more managable to have fewer.

 

[BaBeeCee14]

Perfect! I knew I could count on you guys

 

[BayouPrincess]

I have a call in to Bill for tomorrow, but I want to see what you girls say first.

So let me see if I have this right. If I want my room nights to count for my guarantee nights, it must be at one of the hotels in our block? So If I want my room at the Beach Club, then my block needs to include that hotel.

We were thinking we would do Yacht Club, Boardwalk and Carribean Beach as our block, because we wanted some getaway time. But if that's the case then we'll just block enough room nights at BC to cover our time and use the other 2 hotels for the rest of the room nights. Because who doesn't want a good room night after paying for a huge Vow Renewal?!

This room block stuff gives me a headache!