Throwaway Room - Offsite to Onsite Stays

[mesaboy2]

I already bought park tickets for my family for June and they are in MDE. I decided yesterday to book a throwaway room for our first night. Right now I can see fast passes at 30 days out at a time. Will it automatically switch me to 60 days at the 60 day window in April for my June trip? Or do I need to further sync something? I hope this makes sense.

Normal MDX behavior, and yes. Addressed in the Booking Windows post in the FP FAQ.

 

[kondjott]

Has anyone else had any problems booking a campsite for a single night? We're getting a couple (non-consecutive) nights at the campsites in June, and in each case the online system would not complete the order. I tried multiple times, with different credit cards, even using another MDE account for someone in the travelling party, and in every case it got to the point of hitting the final Purchase button, then gave an error saying it could not be completed. I was able to call and get them booked without any trouble, but it left me wondering if Disney for whatever reason is trying to make it a little harder to get throwaway rooms.

 

[ckelly14]

Has anyone else had any problems booking a campsite for a single night? We're getting a couple (non-consecutive) nights at the campsites in June, and in each case the online system would not complete the order. I tried multiple times, with different credit cards, even using another MDE account for someone in the travelling party, and in every case it got to the point of hitting the final Purchase button, then gave an error saying it could not be completed. I was able to call and get them booked without any trouble, but it left me wondering if Disney for whatever reason is trying to make it a little harder to get throwaway rooms.

I think you are overestimating Disney IT....

 

[BostonEd]

Wondering if it's worth getting a throwaway for mid-April.

Cost with tax: $91.
Will be parking both days: $40
Have some 2 year old magic bands, don't really care that much about getting new ones, but OK, let's assign a value of $5 ea for 4 people: $20

That means the "cost" is down to $31. Is early FP access worth that much for a moderate crowd week?

 

[mckennarose]

Wondering if it's worth getting a throwaway for mid-April.

Cost with tax: $91.
Will be parking both days: $40
Have some 2 year old magic bands, don't really care that much about getting new ones, but OK, let's assign a value of $5 ea for 4 people: $20

That means the "cost" is down to $31. Is early FP access worth that much for a moderate crowd week?

I have not done a throwaway room, but from what I've seen on this thread:
$91-$40 parking brings the cost down to $51
2 year old magic bands may not work on the ride pictures, but they will work for admission, FP+, etc. New magic bands are around $13 each if you buy them. $51 - $52 ($13 x 4) brings the cost to $-1. where you just broke even.
It's hard to put a price on time or priority, but the throwaway gives you 60 day FP+ and a much better shot at some of the "biggies". And along with that, EMH which also gives you a more park time and early/late access to rides.

 

[BostonEd]

2 year old magic bands may not work on the ride pictures...

Yeah, they might or might not. I have not seen any sort of definitive report of when exactly the battery doesn't work anymore for that. Some say up to three years, but without any hard proof.

 

[Disfamily2018]

10 of us going in Sept. Staying offsite but 60 day access to fpp, use of emh, magic bands, & free parking is intriguing. A couple of questions.

If we want 4 day emh access and parking on 9/17, 9/18, 9/19, & 9/20 can i book 2 seperate stays? Checkin 9/17 & checkout 9/18.
And then do another check in on 9/19 & checkout on 9/20. This will save me a day. Also would DME be an option on arrival day?

There's 3 generations, so 3 extended families. We plan on using the campsite as a meeting point to have picnic lunches on certain days, and to have campfires at night. Well only use the offsite rooms to sleep. I realize that after checking out on 9/18 We wouldn't have access to a site until check in on 9/19 but we are ok with that.

TiA

 

[brady3194]

I am booking a campsite for my immediate family plus my cousin and her 10-year-old son. Our MDE accounts are linked so I can easily add my cousin to the reservation. Since a child can only be managed by the adult of the MDE account her son doesn’t appear on my list. Does anyone know how I can associate him with a campsite reservation? I’ve tried adding her to see if his name then appears as an option but it doesn’t. If I just type his name how will it then be associated with him on her MDE account? Thank you.

 

[danabalana]

I've added another guest to our reservation who will be joining us. Our trip is in less than 3 weeks. Since I've added her within the 30 day window I'm wondering how I'll get her magic band. Will I need to go to the resort or can I get it at any guest services?

 

[Brisingr]

Thanks so much for all the information in this thread
The throwaway campsite trick worked perfectly for us last week.

 

[ChristineOH]

Wondering if it's worth getting a throwaway for mid-April.

Cost with tax: $91.
Will be parking both days: $40
Have some 2 year old magic bands, don't really care that much about getting new ones, but OK, let's assign a value of $5 ea for 4 people: $20

That means the "cost" is down to $31. Is early FP access worth that much for a moderate crowd week?

The only two FP you can't get at 30 days, right now, are FoP and 7DMT. And FoP you can't seem to get unless your trip is at least four days long, because it's generally not available on days 1-3. So, if those rides are important to you, then it has more value. If they're not important to you, then the 60 day FP access isn't worth it.

 

[mckennarose]

The only two FP you can't get at 30 days, right now, are FoP and 7DMT. And FoP you can't seem to get unless your trip is at least four days long, because it's generally not available on days 1-3. So, if those rides are important to you, then it has more value. If they're not important to you, then the 60 day FP access isn't worth it.

We've had no issues getting 7DMT several times over several trips at 30 days out. FEA is harder and definitely FOP.

 

[travelingmom4]

The only two FP you can't get at 30 days, right now, are FoP and 7DMT. And FoP you can't seem to get unless your trip is at least four days long, because it's generally not available on days 1-3. So, if those rides are important to you, then it has more value. If they're not important to you, then the 60 day FP access isn't worth it.

Why $5.00 for Magic Bands, I thought they were $12.99?

Sorry, I meant this to be for the other poster, but I can't find how to delete.

 

[ChristineOH]

We've had no issues getting 7DMT several times over several trips at 30 days out. FEA is harder and definitely FOP.

That's good to know. I helped my friend who is going next week, and she could get FEA and not 7DMT at 30 days. FEA was evening, but it was available. FEA is easier to get now that they have started distributing FP at 9:00 instead of 11:00.

 

[hiroMYhero]

Why $5.00 for Magic Bands, I thought they were $12.99?

Sorry, I meant this to be for the other poster, but I can't find how to delete.

*You can Edit your post.

The other poster is factoring $5 per MB because he really doesn’t need new MBs. He already owns a set. Otherwise, a new MB is $12.99.

 

[BostonEd]

The other poster is factoring $5 per MB because he really doesn’t need new MBs. He already owns a set. Otherwise, a new MB is $12.99.

Correct. I figure "Hey it would be nice to have new MBs, but I'm not paying $13 for them."

 

[mckennarose]

That's good to know. I helped my friend who is going next week, and she could get FEA and not 7DMT at 30 days. FEA was evening, but it was available. FEA is easier to get now that they have started distributing FP at 9:00 instead of 11:00.

That's interesting! The only time that we had difficulty getting 7DMT was in the first year after it opened. By the next year and up till now we have not had an issue getting it at 30 days out. Sometimes it is a later time, but usually early afternoon into evening.
We got FEA as on-site guests at 60 days but it was a "one and done" for us so I haven't been keeping up with recent availability at 30 days. We really only rode it to see how different it was from maelstrom and what the hype was about.

 

[tiffne]

I just want to confirm - if I have a throwaway room only for the first night of our stay, and our AK day is day 6, with the rolling FP booking availability, I would still be several days behind "real" resort guests to book FoP FP, correct? Since resort guests can book for their entire stay on the first day of their reservation?

 

[ckelly14]

I just want to confirm - if I have a throwaway room only for the first night of our stay, and our AK day is day 6, with the rolling FP booking availability, I would still be several days behind "real" resort guests to book FoP FP, correct? Since resort guests can book for their entire stay on the first day of their reservation?

Yes. It would be unlikely that you could score FOP....

 

[DisneyChris2016]

Here is my recent experience... we are going March 5-18. No parks on arrival day, so I booked the throwaway night for March 6. I just finished booking all of my FP+. For my family of 5, the total cost with tax was about $103. Parking ($40), Magic Bands (5x$12.99=65) and I've more than broken even. I was planning to buy Magic Bands this trip anyway, so it was a no-brainer, and my kids are super-excited to have them. Early FP+ booking was just a bonus. We have 10-day tickets, so it was a big help in my mind.

I was able to get:
7DMT x 4 (one for each day at MK)
FEA and everything else at pretty much the exact times I wanted
I even got FoP at exactly 60 days for the 6th park day of my trip, Sunday March 11 - the start of spring break season (6:35PM for a party of 5)

In the past, I have had good luck with getting most of the FP+ I wanted at 30 days, and same day FP+ in the parks. Recently, it does seem that FEA is relatively easy to get at 30 days, while 7DMT has been harder (even at 60 days, there were days when the earliest times available were after 1:30PM), and FoP is virtually impossible. Although I do have friends that snagged same-day FP+ for FoP when they were there in October, so it does happen.

When I first tried to book the campsite online, I had the same problem as a previous poster. It wouldn't go through, no matter how many times I tried. I logged in under my husband's account instead, and it went through. Not sure why that would make a difference. The Disney website has been wonky for me lately anyway - I've been getting a lot of "ate the page" messages, don't know why.

Anyway, the throwaway night is definitely worth it for us, as long as I'm able to do online check-in and our magic bands show up when they're supposed to. I'll report back if anything goes awry.