Room Block

[Jessdisney0214]

Hello All!
Well it is officially time for me to start planning my wedding. I am looking for advice. We are getting married on October 22, 2016. We are inviting 150 and expecting maybe around 100. What do you think is a good number of nights? Its food and wine festival so I want to ensure guests have rooms but I don't want to over commit. Any all advice is greatly appreciated!
Thanks!!!

 

[Disney_Alli]

Personally I wouldn't worry about over committing too much. You can drop rooms up until 30 days out and as long as you meet the minimum you won't be charged. I'd make sure you have one room per family per night you think they'd stay and drop as needed.

 

[lurkyloo]

You can only drop 25 rooms at the 60-day cutoff point. October is a busy time and the Epcot-area resorts do fill up at Food & Wine Festival time, though, so it's tricky. I think @Disney_Alli's idea of blocking one night per group is a good one. Say you block 50, you can then drop those 25 nights 60 days out if you need to and only be on the hook for 25 nights. Which is pretty easy to fill considering that your own stay counts.

 

[Disney_Alli]

You can only drop 25 rooms at the 60-day cutoff point. October is a busy time and the Epcot-area resorts do fill up at Food & Wine Festival time, though, so it's tricky. I think @Disney_Alli's idea of blocking one night per group is a good one. Say you block 50, you can then drop those 25 nights 60 days out if you need to and only be on the hook for 25 nights. Which is pretty easy to fill considering that your own stay counts.

Whoops small wedding here so I didn't know there was a max you could drop... Or at least I didn't remember that anyway.

 

[Jessdisney0214]

Thanks. Yeah we are pretty much all from the northeast so everyone who comes will be coming down. If I assume everyone comes down for the weekend. Friday to Sunday. So if I block 2 night for say 100 people. Does that mean I'm blocking 200 nights?

 

[lurkyloo]

I would definitely not block that many nights, even for a group of 100. Not everyone will want to stay on property. And even if the rooms in your block do fill up completely, your guests will still be accommodated by Disney elsewhere on property. It just might not be at one of the Food-and-Wine-popular resorts. I'd block 50 nights.

 

[rachel09985]

I only have thirty guests and I am already at 55 rooms. It is to the point where we don't have any more rooms available at POFQ and Beach Club because there is not availability at all. Maybe start with 75?

 

[elphie101]

We were married on 10/12/14, the Sunday of Columbus Day weekend. We invited 125 and had 75 guests total, including myself and DH, and all but about 8 of those guests came from Massachusetts or New Hampshire. What's important to take into consideration is when you're getting married vs what's happening at WDW at that time, the habits of your guests (onsite vs offsite) and the hotels you want to block.

We decided to block Beach Club and Pop Century. Since we had an Epcot wedding (9 am ceremony) and a dessert party that evening we knew everyone would be staying 2 nights. Knowing that our wedding was during Food & Wine (and during a holiday weekend) we knew Beach Club would sell out, so when planning we definitely added more nights to Beach Club with the understanding that we could move those particular nights over to Pop if needed.

We ended up blocking 109 nights, with 91 being our minimum guarantee, and our guests booked 114 nights at WDW (we only ended up with 4 guest groupings off property, 3 of whom already lived in Orlando). However I would definitely talk to your guests and try to gauge what they might do. We knew that between myself, my parents and DH's parents we would have 35 nights, so that alone had us feeling more confident about a higher number. We also looked at say, our friends and predicted who would end up sharing rooms. Carrie/Alli's advice is absolutely the smartest, because you can always always add on, but dropping is far more restrictive, so being cautious about numbers is the smartest. What I would add is if you plan on blocking any of the Epcot resorts, focus a good chunk of your room nights there, if only so you can have the space reserved just in case, because those hotels will sell out.

Happy planning and holler with more questions if you have them!

 

[mb187143]

We had 59 guests on a Friday in November 2012 during food and wine and ended up with almost 100 rooms in our block, way more than what we set up with disney. Toward the end of the availability we had people unable to get rooms in the block who had to book on their own at disney resorts/off site because availability got snapped up by food and wine.

Also back in 2011 when we set our block up we were told that we could reduce the block down to 25 nights (we originally blocked 65 nights based on what our families and bridal party were telling us their plans were). Not sure if they're more strict about it now, but it wouldn't surprise me if they are since so much else has changed since then.

 

[lurkyloo]

Yes, it has changed. Now you can only drop 25 nights. Also, your guests shouldn't have had to book on their own. If they'd called the room block line and there was no availability at one of your blocked resorts, the agent would have helped them find a comparable resort and only charged them your discounted rate.

 

[kanadar]

Mine was very similar to you dilemma. I got married October 10, 2015 and we invited 125 guests and ended up with 108 guests. We originally blocked 60 room nights between Boardwalk, POFQ, and All Star Sports. I really regretted that decision! It was SOOOOO difficult to add more rooms. We ended up with 138 room nights in our room block. Most people stayed Thursday-Monday since it was Columbus Day weekend. Most of our guests were at the Boardwalk (thats were the wedding was as well). We did have a handful of people stay Thursday or Friday-Monday. If it help, we had 90 nights at the Boardwalk, 11 at POFQ, and 36 at All Star. We had 11 nights we manually added but we did add everyone to that either. We had a few families stay other places. And towards the end our block, we had at the same issue as a PP. There were no more rooms available in our block or through the wedding line, so they had to go through the disney site. We also had several people who said they would book at the Boardwalk then switched to All Star. I would say maybe do 150 room nights, just to be safe, you can always manually add people which will count toward your guarantee'd number.

 

[AshleyDisBride]

I'm having a wedding in Feb 2016, and I have found that the room block rates really do not give that much of a discount. With all the specials that are offered on the Disney website, my room block rates (2 Value resorts, 1 Moderate) are pretty much the same as what they are offering online for Feb 2016 now. I am glad I played it safe and only booked 50 room nights, because right now I only have about 26 room nights booked. (and like lurkyloo said, you can drop no more than 25 nights at the 60 day mark) I invited 120 guests, I anticipate about 85-90 coming, and I do not anticipate booking more than 50 nights.

You CAN add more rooms to the room block if you need to, so do not worry about not booking enough rooms!

What I have found helpful is that I can add Disney reservations booked outside my room block (like online) to my room night count. My guests are finding better deals for Disney resort stays elsewhere, and all I need to do is provide their Reservation number, and they add that number of nights to my total count.

 

[Disney_Alli]

With my block not a single room was actually booked in my block - even mine! - the AP rates and other deals were a MUCH lower price than Disney was offering.

 

[kanadar]

I would not count on adding extra rooms. We had to add rooms to our room block because we didn't have enough to start and it was VERY difficult getting enough rooms added. In fact we ended up not having enough. A few people had to book outside the room block. It was over Columbus Day weekend so I think that made it harder, but we booked 60 room nights to start with. Like I said it was difficult to add more. If I were you I would figure out how many room nights you think you will have people book, and if they book outside the room block then get their confirmation number and have them manually added.

Our rates were actually cheaper than AP rates, I think it just depends on the time of year. Our wedding was October 10, 2015