walking a reservation

[Greg36]

I am new to DVC. I have had my online membership account for maybe three weeks. My home resort is AKL and I have been checking out 11 month availability since I got access. I definitely see where it could be difficult to reserve value studios and club level at the 11 month mark. Often when I have checked over the past three weeks the first day of the 11 month mark has been gone. Some days though have not been gone and this has got me thinking about the concept of walking a reservation. I think I understand the concept.

Lets say there are ten value studios at AKL (I believe this is true, but I am really just trying to illustrate the example). Lets say tomorrow morning (Oct 5, 2017) there is availability for a stay starting on September 5th 2018 (11 month window) for the full seven days. Lets say someone books a room for the week. Just for simplicity, lets say nobody else has any rooms booked from this category. Theoretically, this would mean that come October 6th, 2017 the person holding the week long reservation could call up MS and request them to slide their stay by one day and they could be reasonably assured that this day would be available. I am basing this on the fact that there are only as many as nine rooms available for September 5th-11th, but there is an extra room available for the 12th. Thus, again, theoretically, nobody else should be able to book that extra room on the 12th other then the individual holding the preceding nights on that reservation for that room. Is this accurate? If so, I am wondering if anyone has ever tried this and still something has happend that made the room unavailable as they were walking it. I guess one issue that comes to my mind would be room maintenance where a room gets pulled out of circulation. This process seems like a lot of work for both the 'walker' but also for MS so I guess I am just wondering if there are obstacles I am missing or if it is really a relatively effective approach to getting a hard to get reservation.

The other part of this I wonder about is how early would you tend to start walking a reservation. I see some availability in early September, but without having history with this system, I do not know if this will continue. My understanding is that fall is a really busy time. If somebody wanted a hard to get reservation in the fall (like AKL value or club level), and saw an opening, would you start walking it weeks in advance or would you just assume another opening would come?

Thanks, Greg

 

[chalee94]

It has come up a number of times, like this one:

https://www.disboards.com/threads/please-walk-me-through-walking-a-reservation.3575914/

I haven't done it but I would guess you would start a week or two ahead of time, depending on dates...

 

[Marionnette]

I am new to DVC. I have had my online membership account for maybe three weeks. My home resort is AKL and I have been checking out 11 month availability since I got access. I definitely see where it could be difficult to reserve value studios and club level at the 11 month mark. Often when I have checked over the past three weeks the first day of the 11 month mark has been gone. Some days though have not been gone and this has got me thinking about the concept of walking a reservation. I think I understand the concept.

Lets say there are ten value studios at AKL (I believe this is true, but I am really just trying to illustrate the example). Lets say tomorrow morning (Oct 5, 2017) there is availability for a stay starting on September 5th 2018 (11 month window) for the full seven days. Lets say someone books a room for the week. Just for simplicity, lets say nobody else has any rooms booked from this category. Theoretically, this would mean that come October 6th, 2017 the person holding the week long reservation could call up MS and request them to slide their stay by one day and they could be reasonably assured that this day would be available. I am basing this on the fact that there are only as many as nine rooms available for September 5th-11th, but there is an extra room available for the 12th. Thus, again, theoretically, nobody else should be able to book that extra room on the 12th other then the individual holding the preceding nights on that reservation for that room. Is this accurate? If so, I am wondering if anyone has ever tried this and still something has happend that made the room unavailable as they were walking it. I guess one issue that comes to my mind would be room maintenance where a room gets pulled out of circulation. This process seems like a lot of work for both the 'walker' but also for MS so I guess I am just wondering if there are obstacles I am missing or if it is really a relatively effective approach to getting a hard to get reservation.

The other part of this I wonder about is how early would you tend to start walking a reservation. I see some availability in early September, but without having history with this system, I do not know if this will continue. My understanding is that fall is a really busy time. If somebody wanted a hard to get reservation in the fall (like AKL value or club level), and saw an opening, would you start walking it weeks in advance or would you just assume another opening would come?

Thanks, Greg

In order to be able to book a villa, the first day of the reservation needs to be available. IOW, when you logged on this morning and saw nothing available for 11 months from today (Sept.4, 2018), it would not matter that Sept. 5-11. 2018 are open. If you can't get that first day, you can't book the rest. The real challenge is not walking the reservation. It's getting the room booked to begin with.

But following the rest of your example, it appears that you have the concept down.

Yes, there have been threads where someone has seen a gap where no rooms are available in the middle of their "walk". It's not foolproof, especially when you're dealing with Disney's software.

As to when someone might want to begin a walk, I guess that it depends on the individual. I doubt that anyone would begin walking a Thanksgiving stay 18 months in advance. But I'm sure that there are people who begin walking more than 12 months before their trip because I've seen no availability at BWV in September and then it opens up again when October booking starts.

 

[mustinjourney]

I walked a 2 BD standard view at BWV for about a month prior to my start date since my vacation was starting the saturday after thanksgiving. I knew there was no chance in hell I'd get that Saturday if I waited.

I had bought some BWV points from someone (transferred them into my account), and the amount of points worked out perfectly for 4 nights in a 2 BD standard and 5 nights in a standard studio, so it was imperative for me to be able to get the standard view room in order to make the points work out most efficiently.

The biggest problem I had was finding a day to start. My original plan was to only walk for a couple of weeks, but I noticed people had already started walking much earlier. To make matters more difficult, since I was using transferred points, I had to wait an hour before the phone lines opened in order to start my walk. So basically, the first day I saw an opening, I jumped in and started the process. It was somewhat of a pain--but overall, it was worth it. I didn't call in every day -- I just made sure to call in every 3 days.

I've only heard of once case where a walker at 11 months didn't get to finish his walk. We never found out definitively what happened, but the consensus was that either Disney had a glitch or they took a room or two out of inventory for maintenance.

 

[disneynutz]

IMO walking is like waitlisting, a pain in the rear. That isn't why I will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on Disney vacations, I want to to stay where I want, when I want. I would budget enough points to get a savanna view regularly.

Bill

 

[Sandisw]

I agree with Bill, walking can be time consuming and a real hassle. However, there are certain rooms, like club level, in which that might be the only option for many times of the year. So, yes, starting earlier can be a good thing, and allow you to get a jump on things. I don't think I'd ever do it more than a week or so ahead of time, but then again, I just finished adding on lots more points this year so I am fortunate that I have enough points to do the more expensive options when I want to go. And, right now, because I teach, that coveted time between Thanksgiving and January 1st is not an option for me for vacation, so its easy for me to say walking isn't needed!!! LOL