Fashionista007
Active Member
I am seriously planning a trip to WDW in October 2010 and I was just wondering how far in advance can I book it? The disney website won't give me a quote for that far in the future.
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How far in advance?
- Thread starter Fashionista007
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sbkline
Well-Known Member
They always release package rates in August of the year before. So next month, you can book a package and know for sure how much it will cost.
However, even now, you can book a room only and pay a deposit which would be roughly the equivalent of the current rate for one night. They will give you an estimate, which is usually on the high side, of how much the total will be. Once the official rates are released in a couple weeks, your total will be locked in at the new 2010 rates.
I've always found the website to be hard to use. If I remember correctly, you can't use the website to book until you are actually in that calendar year. I know I always used to have trouble when I would try to use the website just to get an idea how much it would cost without actually booking. But it would always tell me that it can't do it until January of that year or something like that. But you can call Disney right now and book for next October.
However, even now, you can book a room only and pay a deposit which would be roughly the equivalent of the current rate for one night. They will give you an estimate, which is usually on the high side, of how much the total will be. Once the official rates are released in a couple weeks, your total will be locked in at the new 2010 rates.
I've always found the website to be hard to use. If I remember correctly, you can't use the website to book until you are actually in that calendar year. I know I always used to have trouble when I would try to use the website just to get an idea how much it would cost without actually booking. But it would always tell me that it can't do it until January of that year or something like that. But you can call Disney right now and book for next October.
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Thanks for the info! Actually, I just remembered that we booked our last trip with AAA so I'll probably contact the travel agent who helped us. I'm guessing that they can also book a trip right now, it's just the Disney World website that doesn't let you do it so far in advance. That's a pretty bad business practice if you ask me. :shrug:
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sbkline
Well-Known Member
Just in case you're curious, I'm thinking that you can book a room only as far as 18 months in advance. But I may be wrong. I just know that you can book a room only pretty far out, and have a deposit paid and a room guaranteed. You just won't know the official rates for a calendar year until August of the previous calendar year. And for those people interested in booking a room+ticket package or the dining plan, those things cannot be booked until August of the year before.
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CAPTAIN HOOK
Well-Known Member
We booked our Christmas 2008 trip in April 2007 - 20 months !!!
UK guests can basically book as soon as the travel agents brochures appear on the shelves - we booked within 3 or 4 days. The only downside is its such a long time to wait
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justdru
New Member
I also think Disney is sort of cutting themselves short by not allowing guests to play around with rates. Once the August prices come out, you should be able to put together packages for the entire next year. Of course, they'll be rack rates, but it will at least allow you to dream a little.
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sbkline
Well-Known Member
I don't think it makes any difference one way or the other. If you book the room early, they just charge you a one night deposit based on what a current one night stay would be, if I understand correctly. Even if they give you a high estimate for the next calendar year, before the official rates are released (the estimates they give are usually on the high side), and you pay it in full before the package rates become available, it is my understanding that they would refund you any overpayment, or apply such overpayment to the rest of the package, since the total would now incude the tickets and DDP if you chose to purchase that. No matter what, once the rates are released for the year in question, that's how much you're going to be paying, no more, no less. So it's going to be neither cheaper, nor more expensive to book ahead of time before the rates are released. Booking ahead of time just guarantees you the room and that you won't call to book when rates are released and find out that the resort is booked up. But your final rate is always going to be the locked in rate of when they release the rates in August.
Now, you can buy your tickets early and beat the price increase, since tickets always tend to go up in price in August, as well. Only problem with that is, if you are actually planning to book a room and ticket package with dining, you've already bought your tickets. So in order to book it as a package, you would have to buy at least a one day pass, and by doing that, you would cancel out some of the value of the dining plan.
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