Totally booked in September?

[Lysistrata]

I'm a lurker here, and I have read quite a bit about how things at Disney work. From the boards here, and Disney books, I was under the impression that September is a traditionally slow time. So slow that they institued the free dining plan promotion. We decided to take advantage of that, and booked a vacation for September 12-17. We did the dining deluxe, and are staying at Carribean Beach. A few weeks ago we decided we would rather stay in the Contemporary (which we stayed in last sept), or the WL. When I called to upgrade, I was told all the hotels were totally booked. Not just the Contemp and WL, but all Deluxe hotels. The guy said to keep trying, so I have called back two more times, once at 7am b/c someone told me reservations not paid in full will wipe out overnight. Isn't this unusual? I know that the dining plan makes the hotels more popular during this time, but not one room? Not even a super deluxe fancy room. Does anyone have experience with this? I really want to upgrade and get on the monorail loop, or in the WL w/ the boat access. With three girls ages 4,2, and 6 months at the time, fast travel time is hugely important. Any ideas or suggestions would be fantastically appriciated. Thanks in advance!

 

[Bob P]

Hi and welcome to the DIS!

The free dining plan has made September a little busier than it used to be, but it is still one of the least crowded times to visit WDW.

Don't forget that free dining is a limited offer and there are only a certain number of rooms at each resort that are set aside for free dining. So just because a resort is sold out for the free dining promotion does not mean that that resort is completely booked.

 

[jmar2976]

I have this same question... I called to check availability at other resorts since we are booked 9/5-9/12 at Poly.... I was just curious and wanted to see what was up. I called two days ago and was told that Wilderness, CBR, and GF were all at 100% occupancy. I took this to mean that they were totally booked. Now me and DW are worried because we thought that September would be a good time to take the two dds (5 and 7). I would rather go in October and stay at a Value than go during free dining and have things totally packed out.

Can anybody verify for us if the results will be packed the first two weeks of September, or is it just that the free dining rooms are all booked? Thanks so much....!!!!

 

[mskayjay]

Well here is the simple answer...... If you go to www.disney.com and search dates you'll see that there is availability on 9/5-9/12 at WL and also for 9/12-9/17 so it may in fact be that rooms reserved for FDP are what are full. Try asking for room only, tickets, and eating OOP and see what they say.

 

[alisaheather]

You can try to book online, room only and see if there is availability. I know that for the next week (9/13-20 when we're going), the Grand Floridian is now completely booked and the Contemporary is limited to Club level and suites. The Poly had openings though. In addition to free dining which is now passed, there's a room only discount available so the rooms will fill.
Good luck!

 

[mirmartinez]

I did a quick check on wdw, and wl only has club level

This is our second trip, our first was in feb.
That trip was so spur of the monmet (decided 2 days before)
Anyways, when looking for a resort then AKL savahanna, movies, WL (i think any all), and another one which I can not remember were all booked.
When we were in the park, we had no waits except 15 minutes for everest and Space mountain.

I am writing this because, full occupancy at several resorts did not mean crowded parks

 

[Andrea]

www.disneyworld.com shows there are still room avaiable anywhere from the value, mods and even deluxes