Throwaway room (read post #2041 or #2710 before posting)

[kaytieeldr]

Agreed. Seven Magic Bands plus two days' parking is about $125. An AoA suite discounted 30% with tax is about $285 in May. That seems like a lot of money for some convenience and a restaurant FastPass.

 

[alktdknckmom]

Agreed. Seven Magic Bands plus two days' parking is about $125. An AoA suite discounted 30% with tax is about $285 in May. That seems like a lot of money for some convenience and a restaurant FastPass.

Is it possible these people are trying to combine this "loophole" with possible free dining in the fall, which would allow them more dining credits to use if they add extra people to that "throwaway room"? Maybe that's why it seems worth it to them? It still seems shady, but was just curious as to why you'd want to pay nearly 3X the cost of MB and parking just for a few FP+.

 

[kaytieeldr]

The "Dining Plan Free" promotion requires paying full price for the room, and a minimum two day ticket purchase for each person in the room age three and above. Not sure that's any better value. Good thought, though

 

[Minniesgal]

Amazing what dishonest lengths people will go.

What's dishonest about using services that come with a room you paid for.

 

[Minniesgal]

hmmm... let's see, booking a Disney resort for 7 nights with a one night deposit , taking advantage of the 60 day FP window offered to resort guests when you don't really plan on being one... then canceling, getting a refund and staying offsite so you don't have to wait the 30 days for offsite guests... hint: that can be described as dishonest. Also... please understand I am not saying anything about the partial on-site/off-site .... just those that completely lie about being a resort guest altogether to avoid a 30 day wait for FPs.

That wouldn't work, FPs would be cancelled when the room was cancelled.

 

[ckelly14]

That wouldn't work, FPs would be cancelled when the room was cancelled.

I don't believe this is true.

 

[ampc3]

our reservation is at the campground not AOA. We are paying less than $90 It is worth it to us for our big family.

 

[mom2mickeyfan]

our reservation is at the campground not AOA. We are paying less than $90 It is worth it to us for our big family.

Ours is too. We have 10 in our party. MBs for 10 guest and parking for at least 2 cars for 2 days, we are saving good money to book the throwaway room.

 

[wn01aa]

That wouldn't work, FPs would be cancelled when the room was cancelled.

I think if you cancel the room within the 30 day offsite window (but you would have to make sure all park days are 30 days out - so if you have a 7 day ticket, don't cancel until 22 days from first arrival day), then the FP+ reservations will not be cancelled since all the FP are within the legitimate 30 day offsite booking window.

 

[ckelly14]

I think if you cancel the room within the 30 day offsite window (but you would have to make sure all park days are 30 days out - so if you have a 7 day ticket, don't cancel until 22 days from first arrival day), then the FP+ reservations will not be cancelled since all the FP are within the legitimate 30 day offsite booking window.

I think this would only be an issue if your tickets were part of a package. Since everyone has FP+ booking privileges, and FP+ is linked to your tickets, I think FP reservations would still be there during the 30-60 day window if you cancelled a room only reservation, similar to ADR's.

 

[iheartjuppy]

With all the website glitches and the fact that IT said canceling the room WOULD cancel the FP+ (but not ADRs), I'm not rolling the dice. Keeping the room and doing in-person check in to be safe!!

 

[Canuckbiggs]

A Throwaway Room is an interesting idea.

I am headed down in the beginning of November with my family of four and another family of 5. So 4 adults and 5 kids.

We have a house booked at Reunion Resort for 10 days.

And, we have talked about buying Magic Bands because they are cool and because the kids will love them.

If I am reading this right I "could" book just a tent campsite for a party of 9 at Fort Wilderness for the night of our arrival (not a package). I still get the MBs even without park tickets in the package? As I am a Cdn they won't mail me our Magic Bands. I will need to go check in and pick them up.

Then I could let the kids explore Fort Wilderness, since we cannot check into our house until 4 pm.

Does this make sense to you guys?

Also - my intention is to buy our park tickets from Undercover Tourist.

Now - considering my reservation does NOT include park tickets I assume I would not be eligible to book FP+ just based on the reservation. I would need to buy my tickets from UC and have them in hand, to book FP+ 60 days out? Is this correct? Or am I still limited to 30 days?

Not sure how I could "double up" on FP+ with this strategy though.

Any and all comments appreciated.

Cheers.

 

[sretav]

We decided to go a day early for our 12 day trip so booked Fort Wilderness for one night. We brought a tent and blow up mattresses. That's it. We checked in, got our Magic Bands plus the ability to book Be Our Guest FP for lunch. We were staying just one night so we went to one of the pools after setting up the tent, had our mickey ice cream bars, went to dinner at Trails End, then the Chip and Dale song along and movie. Lots to do at Fort Wilderness. Next morning, had breakfast at Trails End, then explored the Circle D Ranch before breaking the tent down and heading over to our offsite hotel. It was great.

 

[itchin2go]

A Throwaway Room is an interesting idea.

I am headed down in the beginning of November with my family of four and another family of 5. So 4 adults and 5 kids.

We have a house booked at Reunion Resort for 10 days.

And, we have talked about buying Magic Bands because they are cool and because the kids will love them.

If I am reading this right I "could" book just a tent campsite for a party of 9 at Fort Wilderness for the night of our arrival (not a package). I still get the MBs even without park tickets in the package? As I am a Cdn they won't mail me our Magic Bands. I will need to go check in and pick them up.

Then I could let the kids explore Fort Wilderness, since we cannot check into our house until 4 pm.

Does this make sense to you guys?

Also - my intention is to buy our park tickets from Undercover Tourist.

Now - considering my reservation does NOT include park tickets I assume I would not be eligible to book FP+ just based on the reservation. I would need to buy my tickets from UC and have them in hand, to book FP+ 60 days out? Is this correct? Or am I still limited to 30 days?

Not sure how I could "double up" on FP+ with this strategy though.

Any and all comments appreciated.

Cheers.

I think this is correct. And if you link your tickets to MDE, you'll be able to book FP+ 60 days out. I *think* .....

We are staying offsite (for free, no less), and I booked one night onsite. I went ahead and booked a package with tickets. The cost of one night covers our magic band cost, and the cost of parking at the parks for 2 days. In addition, I get to book ADRs at 180+10, and FP+ at 60 days out. I keep waiting to find a flaw in my logic ...

 

[Canuckbiggs]

I think this is correct. And if you link your tickets to MDE, you'll be able to book FP+ 60 days out. I *think* .....

We are staying offsite (for free, no less), and I booked one night onsite. I went ahead and booked a package with tickets. The cost of one night covers our magic band cost, and the cost of parking at the parks for 2 days. In addition, I get to book ADRs at 180+10, and FP+ at 60 days out. I keep waiting to find a flaw in my logic ...

Thanks.

I am looking to just book a room, and then get our tickets from Undercover Tourist because it will save about $100 just for my family of 4.

I originally planned to buy the tickets about 45 days in advance. So I would have them in hand and recorded on MDE account before the 30 day FP+ window. But with this strategy I assume I would need to buy them 75 days in advance so I can use them for FP+ 60 days in advance.

Given our early November travel dates I don't think the limited dining reservations will be too hard to get.

But this should allow me to us the special FP+ to book a BOG restaurant on our first day - which is scheduled to be a MK day already.

 

[TISHLOVESDISNEY]

I am curious for those who have a throwaway night soon, did they change the FP reserving to 30 days after the 1st night onsite reservation is up?

 

[sugarnspicex4]

I am curious for those who have a throwaway night soon, did they change the FP reserving to 30 days after the 1st night onsite reservation is up?

We don't have a true "throwaway" night, as we're actually using it, but I booked our first night at AofA Family Suites for July 8. We are staying offsite for the remainder of our vacation. At the 60-day window (May 8), I was able to book FP+ on July 8 and 9 (for the check-in day of our onsite stay and the following day). Then on May 11 I was able to book FP+ for July 10, on May 12 I was able to book FP+ for July 11, etc. Hope this helps. I had been stressing about this very question and was so relieved to find that this worked for us!

 

[TISHLOVESDISNEY]

We don't have a true "throwaway" night, as we're actually using it, but I booked our first night at AofA Family Suites for July 8. We are staying offsite for the remainder of our vacation. At the 60-day window (May 8), I was able to book FP+ on July 8 and 9 (for the check-in day of our onsite stay and the following day). Then on May 11 I was able to book FP+ for July 10, on May 12 I was able to book FP+ for July 11, etc. Hope this helps. I had been stressing about this very question and was so relieved to find that this worked for us!

Thank you for the response! I have been worried about SDMT availability at 30 days. Hopefully this doesn't change by December.
Enjoy your trip, you are almost there!!

 

[Canuckbiggs]

We don't have a true "throwaway" night, as we're actually using it, but I booked our first night at AofA Family Suites for July 8. We are staying offsite for the remainder of our vacation. At the 60-day window (May 8), I was able to book FP+ on July 8 and 9 (for the check-in day of our onsite stay and the following day). Then on May 11 I was able to book FP+ for July 10, on May 12 I was able to book FP+ for July 11, etc. Hope this helps. I had been stressing about this very question and was so relieved to find that this worked for us!

Thank you for this info.

Even though we have a house booked off site, this morning I went ahead and booked a Fort Wilderness tent/pop up campsite for 1 night for our group of 9 in early November. Total cost was $60 and it includes 9 Magic Bands - which would have cost us $120 (I know we don't HAVE to buy them). It should also save us on parking for our "check out" day as we are headed to MK that day.

As a Cdn I will have to go "check in" to get our Magic Bands. But that doesn't bother me. I would have had to go to Downtown Disney to buy them all and then have them all linked to our MDE accounts. Hopefully the linking will all be done upon "check in".

It also opened up dining reservations (by phone only). So I booked Cinderella's Royal Table, Mickey's Backyard BBQ, Fantasmic Dinner package and a lunch at Whispering Canyon Cafe.

I plan to try and book my Fastpass+ reservations 60 days in advance rather than 30 days. If it works - BONUS.

I also plan on using the "Be Our Guest" FP+ lunch that is available only to guests.

Overall a "GOOD" use of $60 split between 2 families IMO.

Now - what are the pools like at Fort Wilderness? :dunno: It might be a nice place to kill some time after we check in, before our off site house is ready.

Thanks for all the info in this thread.

Cheers!

 

[bluwater]

We are not throwing our room away...but we are only staying one night on site. We'd always planned to arrive on a certain day and at the last minute I decided to fly us down the night before so we'd have a full day in the parks on the first day. We are staying offsite a Hilton Doubletree suites and using points to pay for it. But, the flight in the night before left us with a need for a night someplace and the Doubletree is booked, so after realizing that I could get magic bands and 60 day FP+ ressies with an on site room, I booked ASMu for the one night. Sure enough, this got us into the 60 day windown (we are in the 60 window now) and I was able to make FP+ reservations and also custom order magic bands. Really, for the cost of the room, with the 4 magic bands, an EMH, 60 day FP window and the option os using DME one way, the room is more than paying for iteself. Now I'm only sorry we wont be arriving earlier in the day to use the pool more - we have previously stayed here and my DD16 loves the pool there.