Stalking Questions

[Nikki G]

Hello all! My attempts to book Bay Lake and Boardwalk at the 7 month window were a complete fail, thanks in part to the website messing it all up. Anyway, I have wait lists in place but I am also stalking just in case I find something before the wait list does. As of right now I'm just searching willy nilly, whenever I think of it. This got me wondering whether anyone has found that searching at a particular time of day worked better than others. Or really if there are any other tips that might help in stalking success. It seems like booking at the 7 month window is harder and harder and stalking might become the norm...

 

[MICKIMINI]

I think the days of just switching out at 7 months is mostly a distant memory. I just got an additional one night OKW 1BR early in the morning (before 8 am) and there were two available for multiple nights. I have no scientific knowledge whether stalking early am is better, but it wasn't there one morning and then it was the next day - pixie dust?
Don't give up...

 

[Sandisw]

I have had good luck about 10 am.. a few hours in, I have also gotten lucky quite a few times later at night as well.

 

[Marionnette]

Hello all! My attempts to book Bay Lake and Boardwalk at the 7 month window were a complete fail, thanks in part to the website messing it all up. Anyway, I have wait lists in place but I am also stalking just in case I find something before the wait list does. As of right now I'm just searching willy nilly, whenever I think of it. This got me wondering whether anyone has found that searching at a particular time of day worked better than others. Or really if there are any other tips that might help in stalking success. It seems like booking at the 7 month window is harder and harder and stalking might become the norm...

I’ve been lucky in the wee hours of the morning. I’m talking like 3-4 AM Eastern Time. And then right around 8:00 AM as the walkers move forward. I’m not sure why there is movement by walkers at 8 AM because, in theory, they can walk forward at any time of the day. But I see availability open up right around 8:03 many mornings.

 

[Nikki G]

I’ve been lucky in the wee hours of the morning. I’m talking like 3-4 AM Eastern Time. And then right around 8:00 AM as the walkers move forward. I’m not sure why there is movement by walkers at 8 AM because, in theory, they can walk forward at any time of the day. But I see availability open up right around 8:03 many mornings.

Thanks for the input. I will continue to stalk my little heart out and hopefully it works out. Or my waitlist comes through. Either options works!

 

[heapmaster]

Do note per my own testing, that the waitlist system does work it appears without any issues with a caveat. When someone cancels their reservation for the dates you have waitlisted and all days match the system searches right after the cancellation for any waitlists to fill, so if yours matched and no one is ahead of you with the same search then you will get a fulfillment. BUT, you will not see this in your DVC members page until a CM grabs the held room(s) and pushes them to a reservation. The reason being is there has been complications in the past that the system cannot automatically handle such as the system taking the points from where its suppose to take them under certain conditions, so a human doing it is safer for those corner cases. So your waitlist might fill before you even see it on the RAT for stalking, so do make sure to check in every few days with MS via chat or phone to see if they are not "searching" or "active" anymore. I wish it would right away show you in your DVC area at least something like "Pending Reservation" so we know it matched but is waiting for a CM to push it to a reservation.

 

[Nikki G]

Do note per my own testing, that the waitlist system does work it appears without any issues with a caveat. When someone cancels their reservation for the dates you have waitlisted and all days match the system searches right after the cancellation for any waitlists to fill, so if yours matched and no one is ahead of you with the same search then you will get a fulfillment. BUT, you will not see this in your DVC members page until a CM grabs the held room(s) and pushes them to a reservation. The reason being is there has been complications in the past that the system cannot automatically handle such as the system taking the points from where its suppose to take them under certain conditions, so a human doing it is safer for those corner cases. So your waitlist might fill before you even see it on the RAT for stalking, so do make sure to check in every few days with MS via chat or phone to see if they are not "searching" or "active" anymore. I wish it would right away show you in your DVC area at least something like "Pending Reservation" so we know it matched but is waiting for a CM to push it to a reservation.

That is great information to have! I had been contemplating getting into the habit of checking in with a CM every so often just to see where things are. I will definitely start to do that now. Thanks!

 

[mousestruck]

I have had luck stalking at all times of day. Most recently was about 5 p.m. I feel like a lot of people make changes in the morning, lunch time and after work (or end of work day) - but that's just a guess! I've also had great luck with the wait list. In many cases I did not know there was a match until I called MS for something else, so it pays to check with them! Only one time time did my wait list fail to come through - and that was for AKV Club Level. I've had wait lists come through for holidays and very busy times of year, including 4th of July at the Poly. People change their reservations all the time! Good luck!!!

 

[Nikki G]

Figured I would follow up on my successes. I took the leap and ended up splitting the 8 nights into pieces of 1-2 night chunks. In the past 5 days I've managed to get everything almost exactly how we want. One more night at Beach Club and it will be perfect. And if it never changes from here we'll be totally happy. But splitting it into pieces was key. Should have done that from the beginning.

I've been checking all times of the day but my most successful times have been 4:00a and 8:30p. That is when I've grabbed everything.

 

[kboo]

Figured I would follow up on my successes. I took the leap and ended up splitting the 8 nights into pieces of 1-2 night chunks. In the past 5 days I've managed to get everything almost exactly how we want. One more night at Beach Club and it will be perfect. And if it never changes from here we'll be totally happy. But splitting it into pieces was key. Should have done that from the beginning.

Yes - my first DVC booking, I had a 6 night backup reservation (LV studio at BLT) and stalked my way, night by night, into a 1br std. I'd book the 1st or last night, as it opened up, then modify the LV reservation, and slowly stalk and waitlist until I filled the rest of the week. My points were a little messed up because I had to borrow a little to book a few nights in the 1br std without letting go of the LV studio backup.