The bus all to ourselves

[Frau Farbissina]

Last December, my best friend and I stayed in the MK until the absolute last moment we could, about 45 minutes past closing, and then took the bus back to Pop. We were the only two people on the bus and the driver kept going in all these weird directions. I swear at one point, we were even off site. We were just about the dial 911 and say we'd been kidnapped when we saw the gates of Pop, but for a few mintues there, we were freaking out thinking he was some sort of crazed murderer!

Okay, so maybe our imaginations were a bit wild after 18 hours straight of touring the parks. :ROFLOL:

 

[PhilharMagician]

I would urge anyone who has had a problem booking a WDW resort during December to call their TA or Disney CRO. WDW currently has an abundance of vacant resort rooms at all levels (Deluxe, Moderate, Value and Campground) and advance bookings continue to be very low. The lack of substantial discounts has backfired on WDW which is one of the reasons why all their resort rooms are now listed on Priceline. You can also book online at the WDW website: [URL="http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/."]http://disneyworld.disney.go.com/.[/URL]

A person who frequents these boards and is also a specialized Disney travel agent will be spending their vacation in December off site because they could not get a room on property. I am shocked that this person or their agency would not know of this.

Do you work for Disney? Just curious how you know how many rooms are available.

The figures compiled by the Themed Entertainment Association are derived from information supplied by Disney. Let’s use resort occupancy figures as an example. WDW sells off large blocks of resort rooms to independent travel agencies such as AAA, Expedia, Travelocity and many others. When those room blocks are sold, two things happen. First, the rooms are removed from the Disney CRO inventory because only the TA can now book those rooms. The room blocks also have date stamps. The various travel agencies only control the rooms for a specified period of time and when that time elapses, the rooms go back into Disney CRO inventory.
.

The TEA numbers have nothing to do with Resort occupancy. They only deal with turnstile numbers for the theme parks.

I was not aware that they sell the rooms off to large travel companies like AAA, Expedia or others, I thought they were just temporarily reserved and blocked from CRO using them. Since they sell the rooms to these travel companies, does Disney have to pay the travel companies back when they put the rooms back into CRO inventory?

The interesting thing is that during the entire time the travel agencies have the room blocks, Disney lists them as occupied. It doesn’t matter whether or not the room actually gets rented. During busy visitation periods I often hear reports that WDW resorts are “booked solid”. Often guests will either call Disney CRO or book on the Internet and be told that no rooms are available. And, as far as the Disney CRO is concerned they have indeed booked all “available” rooms. So, if the Disney reservationist is sticking to the script, they will tell you to try again later and you might get lucky if another party cancels.

What they don’t tell you (they can’t tell you by contractual agreement) is that a whole block of rooms could open up when a travel agency date stamp expires and the rooms “magically” now come back into Disney CRO inventory. Experienced WDW travelers know to check multiple sources for resort availability. There is no one stop shopping for resort rooms at WDW.

DVC resorts which I know is not the same animal, have been booked for the first week of December well before 7 months out for most rooms. I have been trying to change resorts since the 7 month window opened and have had no luck. Have been wait listed to change resorts since the first possible day an still nothing as of today. We even tried to pay for our last night in BLT since there were no rooms available through points, but there were no rooms available to pay for either so we have to change resorts for our last night.

I want to add that someone just posted a few days ago in the December roll call thread that they were quoted almost $300 for the only rooms that the Allstarshad available, so that must be a suite. Also $3000 for contemporary rooms. That was all that was available

So when will these rooms be released? It is only 25 days till the first week of December.

So I guess it will be quiet in December since all of these rooms are really not booked. That will make me a happy traveler.

 

[Magenta Panther]

The holiday lights were on and it's beautiful on Main Street. The castle was lit, (although I thought it was being lit Monday night). We will be at MVMCP tomorrow night. Can't wait.

Boy do I envy you! Have a great time and keep us posted, please!

 

[Magenta Panther]

Beautiful! I hope to see it lit like this one day. I hate the crowds at Disney around Christmas but now it is clear I should go this time next year and get the best of the decorations and no crowds! Have fun at the party, hope no one else is there but you two!

You know, that is exactly what I'm going to do! I usually go in April or late October. But next year it'll be middle November for me. I can't wait!

 

[minniemickeyfan]

You may already know this.. but if you're looking for good explanations of Anything Disney related to earnings, expenses, attendance, etc. you can go to the sec.gov website and search for company filings, enter DIS for the ticker symbol and up will come all their filings. The 10-Q is the quarterly reports, the 10-K are annual reports. There's a lot of pages there including financial statements, but they are a great source of information in the paragraphs alone!
If this link works it will take you right to Disney's filings:
http://www.sec.gov/cgi-bin/browse-e...exclude&Find=Find+Companies&action=getcompany

I too have had times when we are the only family on the bus!

 

[Clever Name]

A person who frequents these boards and is also a specialized Disney travel agent will be spending their vacation in December off site because they could not get a room on property. I am shocked that this person or their agency would not know of this.

I just finished looking at several different major online travel agencies and found several Disney resort options available for that time period in value, moderate and deluxe resorts. There are also rooms available in several of the DTD resorts on property. Often times off site rooms are actually much better than any of the Disney resorts and I would guess that your travel agent friend is aware of these availabilities. I have found that sometimes people are so narrowly focused on getting an “on property” room that they needlessly exclude better off site deals

I was not aware that they sell the rooms off to large travel companies like AAA, Expedia or others, I thought they were just temporarily reserved and blocked from CRO using them. Since they sell the rooms to these travel companies, does Disney have to pay the travel companies back when they put the rooms back into CRO inventory?

Let me clarify. When I said that Disney “...sells off large blocks of resort rooms to independent travel agencies…” they are not selling the value of the rooms per se. WDW is selling a time window for booking the rooms and the window opens and closes based upon a number of factors. The main factor, of course, is profit. Travel agencies make a commission from Disney for booking rooms and the profit margins vary widely. Also, some travel agencies are preferred by Disney and they get better deals, more rooms and larger windows.

I want to add that someone just posted a few days ago in the December roll call thread that they were quoted almost $300 for the only rooms that the Allstarshad available, so that must be a suite. Also $3000 for contemporary rooms. That was all that was available.

The suites at the All Star Music go for about $286.00 including tax and those are indeed still available as are others. I found Disney resort room vacancies for December at three out of the five major travel agencies.

So when will these rooms be released? It is only 25 days till the first week of December.

That is the $64,000 question. If we all knew the date stamps it would be a very simple matter to wait for the appropriate time and pounce upon the available rooms.