Is There Really an Advantage to Booking Early?

[lebeau]

We are planning a trip for the week of Halloween. This is more than 6 months out (d'uh) and there are still a lot of unknown variables. Chief among them, Disney has not yet released any discount info.

A few folks (including obviously Disney castmembers) have recommended that I should go ahead and book my trip now and then apply discounts as they become available. But I don't see how this is an advantage to me. Maybe I'm missing something.

:shrug:

Obviously, when we get to 190 days out, there is an advantage in that I can book dining reservations 10 days before guests without a resort reservation. But I don't see the advantage in booking before then.

We are thinking about booking the one of the "Princess" rooms at Port Orleans. The Disney rep I spoke to suggested booking now before these rooms are all filled up. But it seems to me that if these rooms fill up early, Disney will not offer discounts on them. Aren't I shooting my chances in the foot for getting a discount if I book now?

I value a discounted room over the princess decorations. I'll take a regular moderate room with free dining over a princess room at rack rates. So it seems to me that it is in my best interests to not commit to a princess room until discounts come on-line.

Just because I reserve a specific room now doesn't mean Disney will let me apply a general discount to it later, right?

It's entirely possible there is some advantage to booking early that I am missing. So I leave it to you guys to point out the flaw in my thinking. What am I missing here?

Thanks for the feedback!

 

[dreamfinder]

My advice has always been if you NEED to have a certain room type, then book it now, and hope for a discount. But if you just want a room in a certain category resort, not caring which, then wait and see what happens. As PPs have said, they do discounts based on occupancy, so by getting people to book early, not only does WDW get some cash up front, they also get more cash by not discounting as many rooms. So the more people that want a certain room type, the lower the odds of getting a discount (or perhaps just a smaller discount). Outside of the certain room categories, this also pops up alot when WDW is holding events that are using a select resort as their home base. So you book the room to be at the center of everything, but pay full price, or wait and hope that it doesn't book up/not offer a discount. Some of the running events that only offer transportation from a certain resort will usually end up having just that one resort excluded from discounts since it's already pretty booked by the runners.

 

[lebeau]

My advice has always been if you NEED to have a certain room type, then book it now, and hope for a discount. But if you just want a room in a certain category resort, not caring which, then wait and see what happens. As PPs have said, they do discounts based on occupancy, so by getting people to book early, not only does WDW get some cash up front, they also get more cash by not discounting as many rooms. So the more people that want a certain room type, the lower the odds of getting a discount (or perhaps just a smaller discount). Outside of the certain room categories, this also pops up alot when WDW is holding events that are using a select resort as their home base. So you book the room to be at the center of everything, but pay full price, or wait and hope that it doesn't book up/not offer a discount. Some of the running events that only offer transportation from a certain resort will usually end up having just that one resort excluded from discounts since it's already pretty booked by the runners.

Very interesting. Thanks for the additional info.

If the princess rooms aren't available or aren't discounted, that just means I save the $200 upcharge and stay in a moderate room somewhere else. We stayed at POR last time and given a choice I wouldn't mind staying at a different moderate resort. Price is definitely going to dictate where we stay to a large degree.

 

[onesandzeros]

From CVG, the air fare is outrageous this far out. It will come down and then go back up again. Timing that low point is very tricky. I always wind up buying in before the true low point.

Right now, if I tried to buy for Oct/Nov, I'd pay about $300/seat. For four of us, that's $1,200.00 on top of the parks, room, meals, etc. Plus all the baggage fees and whatnot. If I wait, tickets will probably come down to the $200 range. Maybe even a little under that. But it's kind of like timing the stock market to buy tickets. Very stressful.

From California, I find the best prices 9 to 8 weeks out on a Tuesday, for departures on a Tuesday. Wednesday and Saturday travel are the next lowest. I've booked many flights this way.

 

[sheba]

I always book the minute I've planned my vacation just to be sure I get the room or resort that I want. My last visit, discounts came out about a month before my travel date, even though I had already paid in full for my room all I had to do was call Disney and they happily refunded the discount price to me. The key here is that you must take the initiative to ask for this discount, they won't automatically do it.

 

[ncstate7991]

Everything Evan said is correct. The only advantages to booking in advance would be of course dining reservations and room type. The dining thing is pretty cut and dry. If you must eat at Ohana, Le Cellier, etc you need to book at least 190 +/- days out. If you want a particular type of room at a particular resort you might have book even farther out than that. If all you are looking for is a standard room at a value resort then you can wait until promotions are released. If you want a turret room at the Yacht Club then you will most likely need to be on the phone 499 days out.

Very good job Master Yoda. The only thing I could add is that last year ticket prices changed in the summer for all new packages (previous years it had been late summer/early fall). If you book now it will lock the ticket prices. This is probably not a big deal b/c on a 7 day ticket it was an increase of ~$5/person.