Ramifications of Cancelling Onsite Package in Favor of Offsite Stay

[Weather_Lady]

Hello, all! I Googled around and found conflicting answers on other sites, so here I am -- just a girl, standing in front of a forum, asking for the most reliable and up-to-date info.

As you may have seen from my comments in some other threads, I currently have two alternative trips booked for August 2021:
- offsite stay (2-bedroom AirBnB townhouse at Fantasy World Resort with rental car for the week, paying for WDW parking, would purchase tickets from UT)
- onsite stay (Poly standard room with "2 ticket days free" promo, paying for some ground transportation and rideshares but using onsite transportation while at WDW)

The cost savings by going offsite is appreciable -- about $820 over a 4 night/5 day visit. We're still waiting for Disney to release some more information (e.g., early park entry, park hours, monorail status, Poly construction status) before we make a final decision, and the first cancellation deadline we'll hit is the 30-day one for the Disney package (cancel by 7/22 to avoid fee). However, I suspect we may need to act even earlier than that if we want to be able to cancel the onsite package without creating any problems for ourselves. So with all that introduction, my questions are:

Question 1 - If we were to purchase and link UT tickets before cancelling the onsite hotel-and-ticket package, would we be able to keep our park reservations? Or will I need to make sure that if we're going to cancel, we do it before park reservation availability for our dates starts to become limited?

Question 2 - If we made ADRs at 60 days while we still had the onsite hotel-and-ticket package (using the benefit of the additional "length of stay" window for onsite guests), but later decided to cancel the package and stay offsite, would our ADRs get canceled, too?

Thanks for your help!

 

[DarthVader]

You'll always save a ton of money by going off site, but you lose some of the intangibles, such as the ease of hopping on a bus/boat/monorail and being at your resort. Some resorts are in walking distance.

There's some advantages with the booking restaurant reservations, if memory servers me, you get to book all of your weeks worth of reservations at once once your first day gets to the 180 day mark, where as off site you can only book a reservation 1 day at a time (as each day gets to the 180 mark). There's something to be said for using the magic bands and buying stuff - charging it to your room.

Overall you need to balance the look/feel and experience of staying on property vs. off. My family and I all love the experience and feels its worth the money. It all boils down to whether you find if its worth it or not. There's no right or wrong answer

 

[Tuvalu]

If you link UT tickets before canceling, your current park reservations will not apply to those tickets. If you try to choose park reservations with the new tickets before canceling, you'll likely get an error message. Canceling your package will cancel the park reservations.

Dining ADRs are independent from a room/ticket package and will not get canceled if you cancel your package.

 

[Weather_Lady]

If you link UT tickets before canceling, your current park reservations will not apply to those tickets. If you try to choose park reservations with the new tickets before canceling, you'll likely get an error message. Canceling your package will cancel the park reservations.

Dining ADRs are independent from a room/ticket package and will not get canceled if you cancel your package.

Thanks, @Tuvalu! You always know all the things!

This helps tremendously. Looks like we've only got about 3 weeks to make our decision. Yikes! Let's hope Disney does some major announcing in the meantime.

 

[nickys]

If you link UT tickets before canceling, your current park reservations will not apply to those tickets. If you try to choose park reservations with the new tickets before canceling, you'll likely get an error message. Canceling your package will cancel the park reservations.

Dining ADRs are independent from a room/ticket package and will not get canceled if you cancel your package.

I kinda disagree about the park reservations.

I know they are cancelling “orphaned” park reservations, but the email they send gives you a couple of days to link new tickets. Just like they were cancelling fastpasses without any linked tickets, it seems to be the same here.

I haven’t heard of people losing reservations when upgrading from a regular ticket to an AP, for example, for those eligible to do so. Which is exactly the same as moving from a resort guest to an offsite guest.

Nothing’s guaranteed, but I’d be surprised if @Weather_Lady lost park reservations as long as she linked new tickets before cancelling the package.

By the way, @Weather_Lady , bonus points for the Notting Hill reference.

 

[Minnesota disney fan]

LOL, I loved the Notting Hill reference, too. We just watched that movie and absolutely love it.
If I were you, I guess I'd opt for onsite; however, if you want to visit other places, then offsite would be the choice for me.
Please let us know what you decide and why? Thanks!

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

I gotta say I'm a little shocked you're considering giving up Poly right after the refurb!

As long as you link new tickets either before you cancel OR within the grace period you shouldn't lose your park reservations.

And ADR's are separate since anyone can make ADR's. Once they are made they are made.

 

[Weather_Lady]

I gotta say I'm a little shocked you're considering giving up Poly right after the refurb!

I don't want to give up the Poly - for a number of reasons - but if we're going to spend an additional $800+ for the privilege, there's a minimum of things we need, or rather, my budget-minded DH needs, to justify it. At present, the Poly has no monorail, no early entry or other touring perk for onsite guests, no rope drop arrival advantage to be had using park transportation, truncated housekeeping, and half the resort dining venues are closed. All it would take to sway us is Disney finishing/restoring/implementing a few of these things before we go. I'm hopeful they will.

If they don't and we end up going offsite, it's for the best. I love the Polynesian and I don't want to ruin it for myself by staying there under circumstances that are likely to make me feel disappointed or regretful. If we opt to go elsewhere this time, the Poly will still be on the short list if we decide to stay onsite in the future. But it looks like we've still got some time to figure out what to do.

 

[Queen of the WDW Scene]

I don't want to give up the Poly - for a number of reasons - but if we're going to spend an additional $800+ for the privilege, there's a minimum of things we need, or rather, my budget-minded DH needs, to justify it. At present, the Poly has no monorail, no early entry or other touring perk for onsite guests, no rope drop arrival advantage to be had using park transportation, truncated housekeeping, and half the resort dining venues are closed. All it would take to sway us is Disney finishing/restoring/implementing a few of these things before we go. I'm hopeful they will.

If they don't and we end up going offsite, it's for the best. I love the Polynesian and I don't want to ruin it for myself by staying there under circumstances that are likely to make me feel disappointed or regretful. If we opt to go elsewhere this time, the Poly will still be on the short list if we decide to stay onsite in the future. But it looks like we've still got some time to figure out what to do.

I hear ya. I do hope that by the time Poly fully reopens the dining and monorail will as well.
My guess is housekeeping will pick up soon with all the DCP and other CM's coming back.
I also think that once normal capacity returns perks like early entry will come with it.

This will be my first and likely only time staying at Poly so I have no prior experience to base my stay on but I can understand that for someone who does have prior experience that if the stay ends up not matching the prior experience it could be a let down.

 

[slipperalwaysfits]

LOL, I loved the Notting Hill reference, too. We just watched that movie and absolutely love it.
If I were you, I guess I'd opt for onsite; however, if you want to visit other places, then offsite would be the choice for me.
Please let us know what you decide and why? Thanks!

GOOD LUCK @Weather_Lady !! We go at the end of July and are also hoping for major announcements before then...mainly later hours. That said, it's still Disney and we'll be happy to be there and make the best of it even with all the limitations. Frankly, knowing this trip will be COVID-modified, you might as well use the savings of staying off-site and then end up at the Poly in a couple years when everything is "back to normal."

I'm a HUGE Notting Hill fan, so I loved the reference. For me, being at WDW, and especially all the conveniences of staying on-site are "surreal but nice."