What's the best way to guarantee "requests?"

waspnest

Mouseketeer
Joined
Aug 26, 2005
Messages
129
How likely are you to get "requests?"

We (4 of us) are traveling with MIL/FIL and SIL and her family (4 of them) - 10 in all. We've requested the following:

non-smoking

two rooms adjoining (with the door between them), with the third as close as possible.

fridge in one of the adjoining rooms

crib for one of the adjoining rooms (should I bring our pack-n-play, just in case?)


I think that's all the requests we made, but of course they tell you they can't guarantee any of it. Our reservations are for preferred All Star Sports rooms (which buildings are prefered, anyway?). I'm imagining that the resorts will all be very full that week (Thanksgiving week). We put in the requests when we made our reservations. Should we call again to verify them? Is there anything else we can do to try to get them? We'll probably all be arriving noon-ish on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, so we'll do check-in as soon as we arrive.

Thanks for any advice.
 
waspnest said:
non-smoking

two rooms adjoining (with the door between them), with the third as close as possible.

fridge in one of the adjoining rooms

crib for one of the adjoining rooms (should I bring our pack-n-play, just in case?)

Most rooms are non-smoking.

You want connecting rooms with the door, not adjoining. Disney refers to the rooms with a connecting door as connecting rooms, rooms close by are adjoining.

A fridge needs to be paid for at the value resorts, I have never heard of someone not being able to get a fridge.

Cribs are free - I have also never heard of them not having enough cribs...
 
You have done everything you can do. Calling will not help as the calls are answered by a Call Center for the entire property not at the individual resorts.

But yes make sure you call Reservations and note connecting rooms. The fridges are a first come first served pay situation and you will get one unless they are sold out, the crib is a call to housekeeping.

You can check in as soon as your arrive, but official check in is not until "after" 3pm so be prepared that you might not get your rooms.
 
Thanks. I know I used the wrong term here, but when reserving we were specific about having the door between two rooms, I just always mix up adjoining and connecting. I'll double-check our confirmation to be sure.

OK - we'll just hope for the best!
 

We made special room requests for every one of our trips and each time they were honored. I guess it depends on how booked they are and if you are a little lucky. When we stayed spring break week in April and wanted a specific building at POR they told us they may not be able to honor it because they were very busy. We faxed our request to the resort directly the day before we were to arrive and got everything we asked for. Don't know if this helped, but it couldn't have hurt :earsgirl: Twice we have needed a crib and never had a problem. Good luck!
 
So effectively, there's no way to guarantee requests. Rather, you can increase their likelihood, by limiting your requests to the bare minimum number of requests, requesting only things that are discretionary (i.e., NOT something that you'd normally have to pay extra for), and, of course, visiting during the off-season.
 
bicker said:
So effectively, there's no way to guarantee requests. Rather, you can increase their likelihood, by limiting your requests to the bare minimum number of requests, requesting only things that are discretionary (i.e., NOT something that you'd normally have to pay extra for), and, of course, visiting during the off-season.

Bingo! I think throwing out the word "guarantee" in the original post and replacing it with "giving us the best chance" is more the reality of the situation.
 
waspnest said:
crib for one of the adjoining rooms (should I bring our pack-n-play, just in case?)

I don't think you'll have a problem getting a Disney pack-n-play. Apparently, both "real" cribs and "portacribs" (just like a real crib but about 1/2 size) are in short supply, but there should be plenty of pack-n-play's.
 
I read a thread on the transportation board about a week ago that said guest ME would get their request honored over other guest.


The poster said once you check in at MCO, they alert the resort that you are on your way. You have the same room request as a nonDME guest, and there's only one room, you’ll get it.

I have no idea if this is true or not

I'll try to find the post.
 
disneyjunkie said:
I read a thread on the transportation board about a week ago that said guest ME would get their request honored over other guest.


The poster said once you check in at MCO, they alert the resort that you are on your way. You have the same room request as a nonDME guest, and there's only one room, you’ll get it.

I have no idea if this is true or not

I'll try to find the post.

This would be no different than a situation where 2 guests have the same room request and one checks in at 11am and one checks in at 11pm.
 
Have you checked the rent/trade board on this site for a DVC. A grand would be wonderful or a two bedroom and a studio. The cost may not be that much different.
 
because we are a family with small children [her words]. She could not guarantee a king room connecting to double room so we had to go with 2 double rooms [king rooms are handicap accessible]. It says guaranteed on my copy. "Request non smoking, request 4th floor ,guaranteed connecting rooms.

Trish
 
Sammie said:
This would be no different than a situation where 2 guests have the same room request and one checks in at 11am and one checks in at 11pm.

Of course it's different. Consider two guests on the same flight. One has carryon luggage and takes a cab and the other takes DME. As soon as the DME guests checks in at the Disney welcome desk a room is assigned. If there is only one room available the DME guest will get it even if the guest who takes the cab get to the resort first and checks in first.
 
disneyjunkie said:
I read a thread on the transportation board about a week ago that said guest ME would get their request honored over other guest.


The poster said once you check in at MCO, they alert the resort that you are on your way. You have the same room request as a nonDME guest, and there's only one room, you’ll get it.

I have no idea if this is true or not

I'll try to find the post.

Sammie is correct. When a DME reservation is sent to the hotel as checked in basically it is alerting the room assigner that that guest is on the bus and should be at the hotel within an hour. From there it is the room assigners job to find a clean/avalaible room (if there are any) so that they can check right in when they arrive. Just another reason to use DME...

Room requests on average are not pre-assigned to a reservation. It is a first come first serve, so if you check in at 11am with the same requests of someone that arrives at 11pm you will get the room because you were there first.

The original poster has the benefit here though because there are multiple rooms traveling together. They WILL be pre-assigned. The room assigner pre-assigns requests that are for medical needs and reservations that have multiple rooms or travel with parties about 3 days prior to their arrival (which gives them a better chance of getting what they want). If you are traveling as a single reservation (no other rooms) and have a requests the room is assigned by the front desk CM that is checking you in at the time you are checking in...(the exception to this is...if the hotel is close to sold out and they have to pre-assign for other reasons, example, you are here for 3 nights and there is a reservation that has medical needs checking in on the day you check out, in order to pre-assign the medical they would have to find a reservation that would fit "the hole" a 3 night res in this scenario.)
 
TnTWalter said:
because we are a family with small children [her words]. She could not guarantee a king room connecting to double room so we had to go with 2 double rooms [king rooms are handicap accessible]. It says guaranteed on my copy. "Request non smoking, request 4th floor ,guaranteed connecting rooms.

Trish

Your scenario is the only way that connecting rooms are guaranteed (unless you are staying at Wl for example and require a handicap accessible room, because they are all king beds the connector is guaranteed if needed). For your situation, they mark it as "Guaranteed For Family" this means that there are only 2 adults and the rest of the party consists of children. They are not going to split up mom and dad so they will guarantee connecting... if there are 3 or more adults traveling they will usually only mark it as a request as it is not splitting mom and dad up.
 
I don't think your requests are unreasonable and Disney will usually honor all requests when it's possible. I've never not been honored a request (that is because I've never asked for anything that I didn't pay for, ie pay for garden view and ask for water view, that to me would be unreasonable). Disney really does try to accomodate everyone's requests, so I would say that your chances are pretty good!

have fun!
 
Also, if you request non smoking for medical reasons (asthma, for instance) your reservations will say guaranteed non smoking.
 
waspnest said:
How likely are you to get "requests?"

We (4 of us) are traveling with MIL/FIL and SIL and her family (4 of them) - 10 in all. We've requested the following:

non-smoking

two rooms adjoining (with the door between them), with the third as close as possible.

Can I ask if you are booked as a Grand Gathering? I was told by CRO when I booked mine that I was able to get guaranteed 3 rooms...in a row...with the connecting one sandwiched in between. The grown-ups are going in the outer two rooms and some of the kids in the middle (connecting) room. There are 11 of us travelling....4 adults and 7 kids (2 families).

Maybe it has nothing at all to do with it being a GG or not....I have no idea, but the CRO rep was very nice and was able to accomodate all of our requests.

HTH.
Jennifer.
 
As stated your requests are reasonable and if there is any possible they will probably grant them. They do try, it is just impossible to give each and every person what they want.
 
We've always had our requests granted, and I believe there are two key reasons:

as long as you are making it clear that you are kindly, respectfully making a "request," we've found that CMS go out of their way to be helpful. When we've heard other guests making "demands," or talking about guarantees*, we've noticed the CMs are not quite as delightful (catch more flies with honey, as they say!).

as long as you nicely explain why you are asking for something, it also seems to help. not "we want it because we deserve it" or whatever, but, "we're asking for this because we are allergic to smoke/light sleepers" or some other legit reason -- it also helps the CM be able to offer you alternatives if he or she understands why you are requesting something.

*it's not to say that some things aren't guaranteed when you pay for them -- I don't mean that; I'm talking more about an attitude than a legitimate reason to expect what you have paid for....

We actually had a CM say to us, "Oh, I love being able to do things for nice people!" and she really seemed to mean it! We also don't go overboard!
 


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