Room block question?

[bspears88]

I am a little confused about this whole room block. I am planning a wedding for May 2013 so I have not been able to put my deposit down and speak to a wedding planner yet, so maybe I will get a better understanding of it then.

My main question is that how are we suppose to know how many rooms we need if we are unsure if guest count. My guess is I will not have a full head count till about 3-4 months before the wedding. So do we just estimate and pick how many rooms we think. Also, is a room block mandatory, and if not is it recommend by you previous DFTW brides?

Any info would help! Thanks

 

[mb187143]

You'll get more information - a better understanding, i'm not so sure.

With the block, you only have to guarantee to fill 80% of what you block off, and you can reduce the number of rooms 90 days out if you need less. For ease of computing, that means if you initially block off 100 nights, you're guaranteeing to fill 80 of them. At 90 days out, you can reduce that down (i can't remember the exact % but maybe 25%?), and that would be your guarantee. If you do a block, you get a free night if your guests use at least 25 nights.

I'm not going to speak to requirements because things change all the time, but as far as calculating a number without an exact guest count - this is what we did:

we talked to our parents, siblings, bridal party, and close friends that we were certain will be coming about where they would want to stay, and used that as our 80% number, and then added the additional 20% at a value resort. we have been able to update and change our block a few times, now that we're hearing from guests - we actually just added nights, but you can also drop them if you need to. Your consultant will send you a very complicated looking spreadsheet with instructions.

One more think to remember is that you're blocking nights, not rooms. so if your brother, for example, books a room from thursday to sunday, that's 3 nights - so you can see how that can actually add up easily.

For us, the block made sense - it doesn't for everyone though, so i'm sure you'll get other opinions from people who didn't do one or didn't like it.

 

[SheilaHeartsDisney]

I know for me we pretty much took a guess on how many poeple would most likely come down to Florida. I guess it just depends on how well you know the people who are invited and how close you are. As for me only 2 people actually booked a room using the room block and everyone else had DVC but those rooms still counted so I am good to go. It looked hard at first but once I sat down and really started to work on it it was actually pretty easy to figure out what we needed. My advice is to book just a tad less than you think you may need. I didn't ask becuase it didn't apply to me but I don't think you need to have a room block.