Changing Package to Arrive a Day Earlier

[AUHendo]

We are visiting WDW in October. Originally, we planned to drive and arrive on Saturday. We found a flight that we felt made sense and will now arrive on Friday. I called and tried to change our package to arrive a day earlier. I had already looked at what was available and saw that our room type at PO-Riverside was not available for Friday; however, we will be arriving late on Friday and really don't mind if we have to switch to a different room on Saturday. I would just prefer to already be at the same resort. The WDW Travel person that I spoke to told me that there were no rooms available at Riverside on Friday and also acted as though she was having a hard time finding a room at any of the resorts. I can clearly see that I can book a room at Riverside myself under a separate reservation for that night (or just about anywhere else for that matter). Is it better to do that myself or should we call back and see if we get a different answer? I didn't know if it caused a problem to book 2 different reservations. There are no deals available for the date I am booking so I wouldn't think pricing would be the problem.

 

[cbettua]

I decided to add an additional day to my stay at riverside too, but it wasn't available. So I booked a split stay. Then I just kept watching and searching on my spare time and someone dropped a reservation for the next category up. So I grabbed that one which released my original reservation, which in turned allowed me to add the extra day on my original reservation.

In turn the system is weird, and me releasing my reservation allowed me to grab it with the additional day. Isn't that dumb?

What I am saying, is yes. Just book the extra day and then keep checking back to see if you can find the full stay.

 

[AUHendo]

Was your reservation part of a package or was it a room only reservation? Our's is a package, so I didn't know if the rules were different.

 

[Rob562]

Was your reservation part of a package or was it a room only reservation? Our's is a package, so I didn't know if the rules were different.

If you just book a separate reservation, it doesn't matter what your original reservation is. The system treats them as two separate things, even if one was a package and one is a room-only reservation. Just keep them straight in your head as being separate, discreet entities.

A few things to keep in mind:
-Try to book the same room category if you can. Otherwise you will have to move rooms after your first day. If you do get the same room category, tell the CM at your first check-in that you have a "continuing reservation" and they will link the two so that you don't have to move rooms.

-In either case, you'll still have to visit the front desk the morning of the change-over to handle some paperwork.

-Since you mentioned your original reservation is a package, you cannot get access to any part of the package (tickets, dining plan, etc) until you check in to that reservation. So plan on doing non-park activities that first night.

-If you're using Magical Express, you'll need to make sure you associate your arrival flight info with the new reservation (departure can stay with the later reservation). Also make sure to throw away the luggage tags from your original reservation and only use the ones for your new reservation. (Luggage showing up the day before the tag says it should might cause delays)

-One bonus of having two reservations is that you'll get a free Magic Band for each reservation. They can be used interchangeably during both reservations (assuming both reservations are linked to you in MDE), so feel free to order different colors for each reservation to give you more "fashion" choices.


-Rob