Room only reservations in 2020...out of luck?

[R&RsMom]

And then you get into situations like mine, where 3 out of seven in my party have tickets. My daughter is a nurse and had to hold off buying when we bought because of Covid. So today, I made park ressies for three. We will only go this year (October) if they can get tickets and we can get the same park days. Checked with my TA to see if there was any ability to convert daughter’s family to package Wednesday, and got the same “no” everyone else is getting.

 

[K Fluharty]

I have a "Room Only" reservation for Pop at the end of Nov/beginning of Dec. This is absolutely ridiculous...I agree that they want people to cancel. I will try on the 24th but I don't think I am going to get anywhere. I "chatted" with a cast member the other night who told me I would receive an email later in the summer giving a date when I could buy tickets.
So frustrated!!

 

[persimmondeb]

I've spoken with two cast members today (and I bought room only on the advice of a cast member for more flexibility--although I often do that and add tickets, for a bunch of reasons). First one couldn't do it, but thought guest services could. Guest services could not. I'm not sure what the heck is up.

The second CM seemed to be unsure if any tickets at all would be available for purchase for 2020.

This is weird, even for Disney. I'm wondering if someone actually did forget about room onlies when they were figuring it out, or assumed they were all APs/previously purchased tickets/resort only.

It should be a straightforward reservation modification, and I'd be surprised if they're actually close to the reduced capacity from guests with existing packages, even allowing for AP's etc. Plus they've got to be desperate for revenue by now, so you would think they'd want the business.

The only other reason I can think of for this as deliberate strategy is that they may be afraid of a surge of offsite bookings with existing tickets (which would be difficult to count) and the resultant bad publicity if a lot of those people are shut out of the parks, although even a small number of people with reservations for their expensive hotels and no ability to buy tickets are not good for publicity either.

 

[Sandisw]

I was on the phone with reservations and Guest Services today for four hours. Neither CM could tell me when room only 2020 would be able to upgrade to a package. I am frustrated that Room Only 2021 can upgrade on June 24th, but 2020 is in limbo. Shouldn’t they take care of 2020 guests first?

2020 is really about the capacity and it’s much more limited they need to see who actually uses the tickets already out there. I think they know by 2021 they will be closer to normal and they don’t need to limit yet.

I feel good that 2020 won’t have to wait that long. After the 28th of June, the park reservation system will have opened to everyone with tickets so maybe it won’t take too long for them to decide to start selling.

 

[Sandisw]

Problem with all this is, their data analysts should be able to run a report that cross-references room-only reservations with the list of AP holders (and names on purchased tickets that aren't in MDE or somehow not associated with a room in the DB yet). So Disney should know exactly how many rooms with no form of park access exist, so they could offer these people tickets. This tells me:
A. They didn't think of that (which I find very hard to believe).
B. They are aware, but don't care.
C. They are way over park capacity on Room+Ticket/AP, so they are hoping room-only cancels to mitigate the issues. (Most likely, and reinforced by the delay in allowing non-room APs to reserve parks.)

Don’t forget day guests who bought tickets who are not on property. Also, all the date based tickets from March until July opening have become flexible date tickets...Disney would have no way of knowing for sure when people will use these tickets unless they were part of onsite reservations.

 

[TeresaNJ]

We're DVC members with a room only booked for October on DVC points, so can't upgrade to a package. I had all intentions of upgrading my park pass to an AP on our July trip, but who knows if we'll be able to do that. My sister has an AP, so she's fine, but her husband doesn't have a park pass yet, and she was planning on getting him his after we found out if MNSSHP was still a go. So now only one out of the four of us has a ticket for our October trip, which is to celebrate both of our 20th wedding anniversaries. Obviously if we had known Disney was going to do this we would have purchased our tickets earlier. I'm so angry.

 

[The Sasquatch]

We're DVC members with a room only booked for October on DVC points, so can't upgrade to a package. I had all intentions of upgrading my park pass to an AP on our July trip, but who knows if we'll be able to do that. My sister has an AP, so she's fine, but her husband doesn't have a park pass yet, and she was planning on getting him his after we found out if MNSSHP was still a go. So now only one out of the four of us has a ticket for our October trip, which is to celebrate both of our 20th wedding anniversaries. Obviously if we had known Disney was going to do this we would have purchased our tickets earlier. I'm so angry.

we have a safe space for you lol!

https://www.disboards.com/threads/l...ervations-and-no-tickets-crying-room.3805296/

 

[P'colaBeachBum]

Not sure if you know this.....I read the fine print on my park reservation. I states that even if you have a PR, it does not guarantee you can get into the park.

 

[amandolin]

I can confirm that room only folks without tickets already are in trouble. We have a room only reservation in Sept where 3 of the 4 of us are AP, and we were planning to buy the 4th a regular ticket closer to our check in date. I called today. They will not help us out or sell us a ticket for her. (which I understand, but I don't) So 3 of us can make a park reservation Monday. But then what?

What a colossal mess! It makes no sense to me why they won't allow room only folks to buy their tickets NOW so they can reserve Monday.

Thanks for the info! That was a question I had. I have an AP but the rest of my family does not and were planning a November trip...

 

[Sunnywho]

In rumors and news, they are saying that there are two buckets of park reservations (one for resort guests, one for AP and off-site) which should be good news for resort only reservations. There may be availability in the resort guest bucket even if the other one fills up.

 

[JM23457]

I am frustrated Room Only 2021 can upgrade on June 24th, but 2020 is in limbo. Shouldn’t they take care of 2020 guests first?

I think they want to discourage 2020 bookings, for capacity reasons and because future closures are more likely in 2020 than in 2021. From that perspective it makes sense.

They want guesrs' deposit money, but aren't really eager for too many guests to show up anytime soon. Prioritizing next year's bookings lines up with that.

 

[fabfemmeboy]

2020 is really about the capacity and it’s much more limited they need to see who actually uses the tickets already out there. I think they know by 2021 they will be closer to normal and they don’t need to limit yet.

I feel good that 2020 won’t have to wait that long. After the 28th of June, the park reservation system will have opened to everyone with tickets so maybe it won’t take too long for them to decide to start selling.

They definitely seem to be under the impression that people will overwhelm their system and everyone will want to go to the World once things reopen. I'm skeptical of that for a number of reasons, including how few days are limited thus far (only a couple days that first week, mostly for DHS). We'll see once APers pick their days, but I suspect they'll open room-only reservations to tickets or start allowing people to buy packages again soon once they realize that travel is still way down from capacity. I would guess they'll start selling by mid-July for the rest of 2020. We may not be able to do the first week or two of reopening, but into fall/winter I expect we'll be fine. Certain days may be tricky (e.g. don't expect a Saturday during F&W once APs have booked in, Christmas week will still be a mad dash once those reservations are opened), but they'll have to start selling new tickets before too long.

Honestly, as a Californian, this is reminding me a lot of the pre-SWGE stuff. You needed reservations to get in, there was a mad dash of die-hard fans desperate to get in during the first couple weeks(when reservations were in effect), and then no one showed up the entire rest of the summer/fall. Why? Because DL spent months telling everyone they would be at or above capacity, warning everyone about mammoth, unheard-of crowds, so most people said "forget it, I'll come back next year when it's not insane!" Right now, WDW is largely in the same boat: How many people are going to want to come to the park when everything feels dangerous but you're sick of being cooped up and can't go abroad? They have no way to know or to track that. We on the Boards are about 50-50 on who wants to race back immediately and who isn't going to chance it until there's a vaccine. What is that number like outside of the Boards, outside of the AP and DVC communities, people who hadn't already booked for the year? They have no idea yet. Once they see how much space is available after folks who have already paid their money get their park reservations, they'll start offering tickets to "the rest."

 

[K Fluharty]

Did anyone with a regular room only reservation try to get tickets today (June 24th)?

 

[tinabina919]

From what I hear they are only allowing you to rebook your room only 2021 reservation for a ticket package.

 

[RobDoc]

Please try to keep this discussion limited to Room-Only reservations in 2020. For those wanting to share their thoughts on COVID-19, there are threads on the Community Board better suited to such discussion.

Thanks in advance for your future cooperation.

 

[fabfemmeboy]

From Disney's own site:

"Later this summer, we will resume sales of 2020 tickets and Disney Resort hotel arrivals, based on availability of park reservations, while we continue to provide Guests with existing tickets and Annual Passholders the opportunity to make park reservations for 2020 dates."

Obviously they haven't attached a date to it yet, but I would expect it will be sooner rather than later. They're just trying not to overwhelm the system (both electronic and CMs!) and have some idea of roughly how full the park will be with AP and existing ticket-holders at any point in time before they start offering other tickets and new room reservations for the year. So for those of you with hotel-only reservations hoping to add tickets, don't worry too much/lose hope just yet.

 

[persimmondeb]

I'm also wondering if they're having trouble turning on the system to take care of room only reservations without turning on everything for 2020, Disney IT being what it is. A cast member on the phone told me last night that the room only and package reservations are completely separate, so to change they have to cancel and rebook, and right now she can't rebook anything.

It would make no sense that they are trying to bully this small group of customers into cancelling. Not only are we probably not talking huge numbers of tickets, this is revenue on the hoof. Even the idea that they're making us wait so offsite existing tickets can make reservations doesn't really fall in line with regular Disney logic (and would prioritise money they've gotten already over money coming in).

 

[fabfemmeboy]

I'm also wondering if they're having trouble turning on the system to take care of room only reservations without turning on everything for 2020, Disney IT being what it is. A cast member on the phone told me last night that the room only and package reservations are completely separate, so to change they have to cancel and rebook, and right now she can't rebook anything.

It would make no sense that they are trying to bully this small group of customers into cancelling. Not only are we probably not talking huge numbers of tickets, this is revenue on the hoof. Even the idea that they're making us wait so offsite existing tickets can make reservations doesn't really fall in line with regular Disney logic (and would prioritise money they've gotten already over money coming in).

Right now they are not selling any more tickets, period. They are only accommodating the tickets that are already purchased and are waiting to start issuing new tickets until they know how much space they have, so they don't end up with an entire group of people who bought tickets but can't get a park reservation.

I'm speculating here, but if I were trying to wrangle all of this right now, my concern would be that if people with room reservations can buy tickets but no one else can, people might book throwaway room reservations to get around the restriction. There would not be an easy way to limit the number of days of tickets a person can purchase based on the number of nights they're staying in a hotel (e.g. what about someone with a split stay? do you count arrival and departure days? etc.), so someone could very easily buy a one-night reservation, buy tickets, and then either cancel/postpone the hotel reservation (keeping the tickets) or simply lose the cost of a single hotel night.

 

[persimmondeb]

Right now they are not selling any more tickets, period. They are only accommodating the tickets that are already purchased and are waiting to start issuing new tickets until they know how much space they have, so they don't end up with an entire group of people who bought tickets but can't get a park reservation.

I'm speculating here, but if I were trying to wrangle all of this right now, my concern would be that if people with room reservations can buy tickets but no one else can, people might book throwaway room reservations to get around the restriction. There would not be an easy way to limit the number of days of tickets a person can purchase based on the number of nights they're staying in a hotel (e.g. what about someone with a split stay? do you count arrival and departure days? etc.), so someone could very easily buy a one-night reservation, buy tickets, and then either cancel/postpone the hotel reservation (keeping the tickets) or simply lose the cost of a single hotel night.

Easy way would be to limit any sales to existing room only reservations and DVC members booked on points, BUT I'm wondering if their system won't easily let them do that. Obviously taking new reservations wouldn't make sense until they've figured out how their capacity is doing, and while I think they are taking new DVC on points, I'd be surprised if there were enough of those (particularly without existing tickets or AP's) to make a huge difference.

The scenario you brought up could be an issue if they opened new ticket sales only to those booking with a reservation, but doesn't really pertain to those existing reservations (some of whom might buy more ticket days than nights, some probably less and none of whom booked rooms to get ticket access).

And I believe (this is on what a cast member told me) those with packages can make modifications (adding or subtracting people, number of days etc.) so the ticketing system isn't completely frozen, they just can't make new bookings. Room only to package requires making a new booking in the system (or so I was told) and I assume just selling tickets to DVC members or people with partially ticketed parties requires a different system or part of the system entirely.

They might just be tackling one problem at a time, and will get around to us next week, or the week after, or just have us all wait until general ticket sales open up, but it seems unlikely that they're trying to get rid of customers they have semi-locked in already and want to spend more money.

 

[Joyful Disney]

I have room only also. If they don't work it out I will still go for my 12 days and hang out. I only get to go once a year. I buy tickets separately because it is cheaper than a package for me. If we are able to buy room only in the future I will just buy tickets at the same time. Who knows what will happen going forward.