Why on earth is everything booked....

[GaSleepingBeautyFan]

I booked us for a 3 day trip at that time frame becasue my husband wants to see isabella rossilini. I have 3 different resorts - so a different resort each night.

My husband cracked up at that but it was the only way I could get onsite resort reservations. Not the first time I've had to do that and not the last. LOL

 

[fla4fun]

I should have said that I'm a long time WDW vet and have been there over 25 times in the last 10+ years. I'm familiar with everything mentioned above. Thanks.

I've booked with Orbitz before so I've checked all the third party sellers and there was nothing. I've been there before during Pop Warner week and it was fine. That was only a couple of years ago and I booked 3 weeks before arrival. I even stayed at POP where the bulk of them were staying....only say them in the morning in the food court. I've also been there many times with the cheerleaders.

There are rooms available at many of the good neighbour hotels but the rates are prohibitively expensive. As in $360/night...plus resort fee and parking which if I stayed there I would need to rent a car. I'm in Canada so I have to add on approx. 35% for the exchange on the dollar. I have a found a couple of decent rates at WAY off property hotels but it's not all that appealing.

As to the thought process that you can't book anything unless it's 6-12 months in advance I have to strongly disagree with that. I rarely book more that a couple of months in advance and always get pretty much everything I want. It can take a bit of work searching for ADR's and changing of FP+ but I rather enjoy that party. My last visit was in August and I booked on Monday and arrived on Thursday. BTW....that Thursday was the day SWGE opened. That was extreme late booking but it was great.


For some reason I can't figure out how to search starting with a package. It keeps defaulting to the holiday room only offer. I don't need tickets but I would buy a 1 day to make it a package.

Maybe you are starting too early? If it’s really that booked, there might not be any openings until 30 days out when the package cancel deadline comes up. I know it’s still possible to book last minute. Last month I booked on a Monday to check in the next day for four nights. But it took four days of checking multiple times per day to do it.

To get to packages, when you go into the screen where it shows the holiday rates, pick any hotel, even one without availability. When that hotel comes up, there will be places to check Room, Package, and each individual promotion valid during your dates. Select Package. Then go to the top of the screen and click Show All Resorts. That should show which hotels have package rooms available.

 

[Lisa_M]

I should have said that I'm a long time WDW vet and have been there over 25 times in the last 10+ years. I'm familiar with everything mentioned above. Thanks.

I've booked with Orbitz before so I've checked all the third party sellers and there was nothing. I've been there before during Pop Warner week and it was fine. That was only a couple of years ago and I booked 3 weeks before arrival. I even stayed at POP where the bulk of them were staying....only say them in the morning in the food court. I've also been there many times with the cheerleaders.

There are rooms available at many of the good neighbour hotels but the rates are prohibitively expensive. As in $360/night...plus resort fee and parking which if I stayed there I would need to rent a car. I'm in Canada so I have to add on approx. 35% for the exchange on the dollar. I have a found a couple of decent rates at WAY off property hotels but it's not all that appealing.

As to the thought process that you can't book anything unless it's 6-12 months in advance I have to strongly disagree with that. I rarely book more that a couple of months in advance and always get pretty much everything I want. It can take a bit of work searching for ADR's and changing of FP+ but I rather enjoy that party. My last visit was in August and I booked on Monday and arrived on Thursday. BTW....that Thursday was the day SWGE opened. That was extreme late booking but it was great.


For some reason I can't figure out how to search starting with a package. It keeps defaulting to the holiday room only offer. I don't need tickets but I would buy a 1 day to make it a package.

On the offer page, click to "room only" scroll to the left. Then click on show all resorts at the top to see if anything is available. This was how I found my room that was only available at rack rate.

 

[APiratesLifeForMe2]

On the offer page, click to "room only" scroll to the left. Then click on show all resorts at the top to see if anything is available. This was how I found my room that was only available at rack rate.

This! I’ve been stalking the site to try and find rooms for adding on to our December stay. You can find more availability if you just do the room only vs the holiday offer etc. It’s kind of a pain to keep sorting but that’s Disney IT for ya.

 

[dancin Disney style]

Maybe you are starting too early? If it’s really that booked, there might not be any openings until 30 days out when the package cancel deadline comes up. I know it’s still possible to book last minute. Last month I booked on a Monday to check in the next day for four nights. But it took four days of checking multiple times per day to do it.

To get to packages, when you go into the screen where it shows the holiday rates, pick any hotel, even one without availability. When that hotel comes up, there will be places to check Room, Package, and each individual promotion valid during your dates. Select Package. Then go to the top of the screen and click Show All Resorts. That should show which hotels have package rooms available.

I'm constantly stalking the website and a room here and there has shown up. There are over 30,000 rooms onsite so it just doesn't seem possible that everything is actually booked. Since I started looking there are now a constant supply of rooms that are $900+ available.

I will look much more closely when we get to the point that people have to cancel for the dates I want.

 

[Babsy]

Just had All Star movies pop up for $128 per night from Dec 4-8. Standard room. I would book that and keep checking to change to something that I liked better later. At least this way you have somewhere to stay at an affordable rate.

Of course, the CR is also available for only $1476.50 per night (suite).....

depends upon your budget and need for space, I guess, but that rate at the CR is laughable it is so far above what I would pay for a night.

 

[fla4fun]

Just had All Star movies pop up for $128 per night from Dec 4-8. Standard room. I would book that and keep checking to change to something that I liked better later. At least this way you have somewhere to stay at an affordable rate.

Of course, the CR is also available for only $1476.50 per night (suite).....

depends upon your budget and need for space, I guess, but that rate at the CR is laughable it is so far above what I would pay for a night.

Those CR suites are nice though. The one and only time we ever lucked into an upgrade was at CR and we got a suite for the price of a standard wing room. I figured they wanted to block the room for a VIP because we were checking out September 30th and the 25th anniversary was October 1st. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I agree the actual price for the suites is too high. If I ever win the lottery I am staying in the best suite in each deluxe for a week at a time . . .

I agree with booking what is available that you can live with and try for a different resort later. It’s better to have something OK than nothing at all!

 

[Babsy]

Those CR suites are nice though. The one and only time we ever lucked into an upgrade was at CR and we got a suite for the price of a standard wing room. I figured they wanted to block the room for a VIP because we were checking out September 30th and the 25th anniversary was October 1st. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time.

I agree the actual price for the suites is too high. If I ever win the lottery I am staying in the best suite in each deluxe for a week at a time . . .

I agree with booking what is available that you can live with and try for a different resort later. It’s better to have something OK than nothing at all!

Wow! Nice upgrade! Guess I am always in the wrong place or wrong time - after so many trips that I have lost count, I have never had an upgrade like that!
Lucky you! Maybe you will win that lottery!

 

[cegreenf]

I booked six rooms for our group at POFQ for Dec 4-9th. We had discussed possibly changing to BW/BC/YC if anything came up, but nothing was available for months. This past Thursday, I happened to check before I went to work and all boardwalk resorts, both PO and WL all had availability wit the discount. We wound up staying at FQ with a 10% room only discount. Hopefully you will have the same luck and can find something too!

 

[Poohspaleeyore]

another issue that may be affecting availability is the length of your stay. when i was looking to book a room for our upcoming trip,, i considered a split stay and when i searched for four days and it would show less availability than when i added one extra day (five days). disney really is trying to influence guests to book longer vacations with tickets. i really don't like that they are doing this especially with such high rates. but it might help them with cutting down on having empty rooms for one or two nights. and they probably feel validated because so many other vacation destinations require weekly stays only. i have wondered if calling them directly would help. also making sure you are not on offers page may help.

 

[eMoneyBug]

Can also check DVC Members rooms and FB Groups for that have reservations looking to rent them out. Good luck in your search!

 

[dancin Disney style]

Just had All Star movies pop up for $128 per night from Dec 4-8. Standard room. I would book that and keep checking to change to something that I liked better later. At least this way you have somewhere to stay at an affordable rate.

Of course, the CR is also available for only $1476.50 per night (suite).....

depends upon your budget and need for space, I guess, but that rate at the CR is laughable it is so far above what I would pay for a night.

By the time I saw this and checked it was not showing up. Gosh, what did they do post one room?

$1476/night for a room.....I agree laughable, and for me it's an additional 35% to exchange into my home currency. CR is probably the last place I would stay anyway....unless it was free.

I booked six rooms for our group at POFQ for Dec 4-9th. We had discussed possibly changing to BW/BC/YC if anything came up, but nothing was available for months. This past Thursday, I happened to check before I went to work and all boardwalk resorts, both PO and WL all had availability wit the discount. We wound up staying at FQ with a 10% room only discount. Hopefully you will have the same luck and can find something too!

I've been checking morning and evening. My DD wants to go to the Christmas party on the 8th so now the plan is to stay until the 9th...so same dates as you. I still haven't booked a flight but that part I'm not worried about.

 

[dancin Disney style]

another issue that may be affecting availability is the length of your stay. when i was looking to book a room for our upcoming trip,, i considered a split stay and when i searched for four days and it would show less availability than when i added one extra day (five days). disney really is trying to influence guests to book longer vacations with tickets. i really don't like that they are doing this especially with such high rates. but it might help them with cutting down on having empty rooms for one or two nights. and they probably feel validated because so many other vacation destinations require weekly stays only. i have wondered if calling them directly would help. also making sure you are not on offers page may help.

I've played with all sorts of dates, including adding additional days. I've even tried searching for all one day reservations.

 

[DadofChristaSonofRay]

Might also try Swan and Dolphin through Marriott's website. We are staying on-site and already booked for November 16th - 21st but were looking to add a night on the front-end in the Orlando area and noticed both of these had availability as of the end of last week.

 

[dancin Disney style]

Might also try Swan and Dolphin through Marriott's website. We are staying on-site and already booked for November 16th - 21st but were looking to add a night on the front-end in the Orlando area and noticed both of these had availability as of the end of last week.

They are showing no availability.

 

[buckeye130]

So I'm fully aware that the rest of SWGE opens on Dec 5th but there is literally not a room to be had for that week. The only thing on the Disney site is a $650/night villa at GF. I wanted to bring my DD for a quick weekend visit from the 4th-8th so she could see all the Christmas stuff. She's been bugging me for years and this year I can finally rearrange work so that I can take a couple days off. December is a very busy time for me, work wise.

I just found a great flight that is affordable and I would probably even accept the worst room on property at this point.

We booked in June and it was like that then!! We’re staying 11/29-12/7 at AKL. It was literally our only option, I check every day to switch and nothing.

 

[buckeye130]

So I'm fully aware that the rest of SWGE opens on Dec 5th but there is literally not a room to be had for that week. The only thing on the Disney site is a $650/night villa at GF. I wanted to bring my DD for a quick weekend visit from the 4th-8th so she could see all the Christmas stuff. She's been bugging me for years and this year I can finally rearrange work so that I can take a couple days off. December is a very busy time for me, work wise.

I just found a great flight that is affordable and I would probably even accept the worst room on property at this point.

We booked in June and it was like that then!! We’re staying 11/29-12/7 at AKL. It was literally our only option, I check every day to switch and nothing.

I originally booked 12/4-9 over 12+ mo out, assuming that late fall for Disney meant that SWGE would be open by then. After Disney announced Aug 29 opening for SWGE and 12/5 for RotR, I’ve been checking availability for that week and also checking for discounts and have seen availability steadily decrease. We have gone the 1st week in Dec in 2013, 2015, and 2017, often overlapping with POP Warner. Have not seen similar limited availability in these prior trips. IMO, this is due to a combination of factors: (1) holiday room only discount & free dining (beg 12/8), (2) there are no low crowd times anymore thanks to popularity and tiered ticket pricing, and yes (3) due to SWGE. I think many who were planning their trip around SWGE thought that by Dec, some of the initial predicted crowds might moderate. Then when they announced 12/5 opening of RotR, I think that pulled in even more Star Wars fans. Just my take on things.

we booked this same week in June and there was still nothing available then. We’re at AKL but that was our only option and this was before SWGE and fall discounts were announced. I check daily to try to switch but nothing . I may be able to find a rack rate deluxe room here and there but who wants to pay rack rate. So we’re sticking with AKL I guess

 

[dancin Disney style]

We booked in June and it was like that then!! We’re staying 11/29-12/7 at AKL. It was literally our only option, I check every day to switch and nothing.


we booked this same week in June and there was still nothing available then. We’re at AKL but that was our only option and this was before SWGE and fall discounts were announced. I check daily to try to switch but nothing . I may be able to find a rack rate deluxe room here and there but who wants to pay rack rate. So we’re sticking with AKL I guess

It just makes no sense. There are over 30,000 rooms onsite....they can't all be full. Last night I booked a flight and an offsite room so at least I'm going.

 

[chicagodisneyguy]

EDIT: Same room available on Disneyworld.com Shows no availabilty in initial search but if you click on the All Stars Movies it's available for even less.

Not sure if you ever joined that Club1hotes but they have All Stars for $156 + tax ($707 all in)

 

[buckeye130]

It just makes no sense. There are over 30,000 rooms onsite....they can't all be full. Last night I booked a flight and an offsite room so at least I'm going.

I agree, it's super weird!! I even think i may have made a post about this exact same thing this summer. After we had our booked in June, then the Rise of Resistance opening was announced, i thought maybe Disney was holding back rooms related to that, but nothing ever opened up. Then last week there were room openings showing during our travel dates for nearly every resort under the holiday offer, so i assumed they released more rooms. Since i have an unactivated pass, I have to call to get passholder rates, when I called they told me they were undergoing system enhancements and to call back later. Once 'system enhancments" were completed it went back to zero availability. Full payment of packages are due at the end of this month for our travel dates, so maybe additional rooms will open up when people don't pay for their trips. I'm just glad I have a room booked on property, not our first choice, but happy we have something.