Room Block Question

[starflower]

We're going to be signing our contract in just a few weeks and I've managed to get the guest list together for when Disney sends out the save the date packets, but I'm a little confused about room blocks. I know the woman we've been working with (who is an assistant coordinator, I think) said she'd set up the room block when we put down the deposit, and we've picked the hotels we'd like to offer people, but how many rooms do we get per hotel?

Do we say that we want X number of rooms at the Beach Club and X number at the All Star Sports Resort, etc. etc.? If that's the case, how do you determine where your guests want to stay? I know my close family will probably stay at the Sports, since they don't have a lot of money to spend, and my fiance's family will probably stay at the Beach club, but I have no idea about our friends. If your guests book rooms beyond their allotted number at a particular resort, does that automatically get added to your room block, or do you have to call and set up more rooms? Conversely, if your guests don't fill a room block in a particular resort, do the rooms cancel automatically or do you get penalized for not filling them?

I'm very confused about how they actually work. We've got enough people coming down that I'm sure we'll meet our minimum, but I need to know how to set the room block up soon, since the deadline is coming up in just a few weeks.

 

[allisonswonderland]

The way my coordinator told me was to select a deluxe, mod and value and they refer to everything by nights, so if you want 5 rooms for Tues 5 rooms for Wed that is 10 nights(I kept getting confused about this). As long as there is avaliability at that resort they will still get that rate and as far as I know there is not a penalty for not booking as long as you meet your min also any disney operated resort on property counts, they just do not getthe wedding rate.
Hope that helps

 

[chipscinderelly]

Your DFTW Wishbook should also walk you through the how to's. They should suggest a number of nights you are going to guarantee and then you can block 20% more than your guarantee. You take the total number of nights and split them over the resorts and the nights you think your guests will reserve - typically the wedding night and the night before have the most rooms - and then fill in the form.

If you have questions your coordinator can help - they are used to them on room blocks!

 

[starflower]

Allison, thank you, that does help.

Chipscinderelly, I can't seem to find where that's located on Wishbook. What do you click to get to it? And, I guess it is like I feared. I will have to guess when and where my guests want to stay. I may have to poll my friends to see what they can afford which I was hoping to avoid. Oh well.

 

[chipscinderelly]

It's under Planning tools - do you see that as an option at the top? After you select that tab then select Guests and it's right under where you input your guest list. I was told that they are moving everyone to putting their guest lists in to the wishbook as well as the room block so we had to use those formats.

If not ask your Coordinator to "attach" themselves to your wishbook as it opens up more options. The same will happen when you get a planner - more options will show up.

 

[allisonswonderland]

I did not get the wishbook block until until I had my planner

 

[chipscinderelly]

I did not get the wishbook block until until I had my planner

My wishbook planning tools were available when I was assigned a coordinator, well before my planner, as I had to complete the block portion in order to go to contract.

 

[starflower]

I found them on my Wishbook. For some reason, I had never clicked that tab. My fiance suggested just booking a room block in each hotel a week before and a week after the wedding, but I don't think Wishbook lets you do that. I've got to call my coordinator at some point this week (when I get my voice back, I'm sick at the moment) so I'll ask her if they'll let us do that.

 

[JonetteA]

What happened to us may help you. You pick how many nights you want per hotel per day. Adding up to your total amount of rooms nights that you need to meet. If you have someone that books outside that block (ie AAA, or travel agent) you can have them added to your nights to cover your amount of nights obligated by the contract. Disney is more than willing to work with you if you need to move some nights around, say from the Beach club (b/c not many people booked there) to the All stars, or your moderate. I hope that this makes sense!

 

[Sunkissed]

Thanks Jonette...That was much more concise than the Wishbook!

 

[heathrow42]

We were told that we had to guarantee 80% of what we reserved, and that we would be responsible for the difference if we didn't meet the 80%.. can anyone else confirm this? We weren't told this when we went down a few months ago, and now I am worried about it. I have this irrational fear that *no one* except our local friends (who don't need rooms) will come, and having to 'guarantee' any number of room nights isn't helping. I think we have a minimum of 25 nights.. if you had to guarantee 80% of what you block, why would anyone block more than 32 nights? I must be missing something.. ?

--h

 

[Sunkissed]

According to Wishbook, our block is something like 75!!

 

[starflower]

Yup, mine is something like 50. I *think* we'll have enough people staying onsite to meet the requirement, but I don't understand why anyone would want to stay offsite since we're providing a value resort and transportation to and from the wedding. I forsee a huge disaster on the wedding day when god knows how many people staying offsite don't show up on time and miss the bus.