We are staying at the Animal Kingdom Lodge in late March in a savannah view room. I’m checking in because I read on another forum that Disney is no longer reviewing fax requests and just takes the more general online requests. I already have my room request set up through Touring Plans, but now I’m concerned that it won’t be reviewed. Can you confirm that Disney is still taking these requests?
That information on another forum is not correct. People have requested in the last week.
That’s great to know. I figured it was an error but wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing anything.
We just went in January and got the exact room we requested through a TouringPlans fax, so it worked like a charm for us! Good luck!
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I have had great success with room requests at BWI and OKW. However, just got back from my first stay at AKL. Started out with the crappiest savanna view room imaginable for an anniversary trip (corner room across from elevators) and nowhere near our request (and no acknowledgement of our anniversary, which was cited in the fax). AKL staff initially denied receiving the fax. Eventually spoke to a very sympathetic and helpful cast member who told me that management at AKL had directed room assigners to ignore fax requests from TP. The reason given was that there was some heartache over TP charging for something that Disney would do for free. According to the helpful CM, some assigners still tried to honor the requests if they could, but others simply ignored them as instructed.
As I said, great success with the tool at other properties, but I will not rely on it at AKL in the future. Seems like there might be some anti-TP sentiment in the upper echelons of AKL that is suppressing the magic a bit.
But TP doesn’t even charge for the FAX feature - at least not beyond needing to be a member, but I don’t think anyone ever signed up for TP just for the FAX. That’s pretty poor behavior by AKL management if true. That can’t make for happy customers and I’d presume TP members that FAX are more likely to be heavy DIS users so they are alienating their best customers. Smart business plan there…
Funny , I just returned from a AKL CL stay. Online check in did not allow any room requests. I made the mistake of not making a room choice. They assigned three adults to a bunk room and then said basically “too bad, so sad- no club room for you”. Oh yeah- charged me for it…Make the requests at AKL- it is your best chance.
So you didn’t get a club level room, but got to pay club level prices? 
I reasoned along similar lines. I want to be careful because I don’t want to repeat anything that might identify and harm the helpful CM I spoke to. I was really grateful for that person’s candor. Apparently there is a school of thought among the worker bees at AKL that guests are free to spend their money where and how they will, and it’s not their job to punish us for it. However, given Disney’s recent penchant for cutting hours and eliminating jobs I can’t blame a worker bee for not trying to circumvent the will of her queen. Conversely, I appreciate those cast members who are willing to assume some personal risk to provide a great customer experience, or at least mitigate a bad one that obviously should have never happened, despite the anti-magic attitude of their superiors. This incident is just the latest example of a trend I’ve been noticing for a few years, especially last year as Disney appeared to be covering its China cost overruns and ESPN losses with domestic labor cuts, particularly among first line CMs at the parks and resorts. Happy CMs make happy guests, and I’m noticing that Disney CMs are (understandably) a lot less happy these days.
It’s a wonderful world 
. I got to eat the CL food-
Wow. This really concerns me now. We had good luck with the fax request last year, but I spent extra for the savannah view room this time. I don’t need to the exact room, but I’m looking specifically at areas with a solid view and close access to the lobby and the Mara. I’d be interested for thoughts from Len or another TP representative on this issue. If the faxes won’t be viewed, I want to see if I can contact Disney in another way (phone, fax, etc.) to get a more specific request than the online tool.
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It’s probably a good idea to see if @len has an thoughts and/or contacts to reach out to AKL management to see what the problem really is.
You can always FAX directly to Disney if you wanted - on my last trip the resort’s FAX machine was down so my FAX failed and I was panicking looking for workarounds. All worked out, but if TP is the issue, maybe FAX’ing the same info directly from you would be a solid backup?
Given the food seems to be the key for club level, I guess that’s not all bad then, but I also presume it was a longer walk to get to the food making it less convenient and less likely to be fully enjoyed. I’d have been quite upset if DIS had hosed up my room like that & didn’t offer any discounts as a mea culpa…
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I responded in the other “room request fax” thread, but in short: it’s very unlikely Disney is ignoring faxes. We see room photos being sent in from Liners who requested those exact rooms at AKL, for example.
And I don’t think Disney would ignore the request of guests spending thousands of dollars on vacation, because they didn’t like the method used to communicate the request. Imagine the customer service survey results and social media feedback.
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I’m not sure if this is helpful, but I stayed at AKL the week after Thanksgiving. We had a 2 bdr suite and a regular room. I got both room requests that I sent in via TP. The suite didn’t surprise me as much since there aren’t many, but I was surprised and pleased about getting the room I requested for the regular savannah view room.
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We made a request the second week of December at AKL and got the room we requested. It was great! We had a view of the animals in a standard room and we were close to the lobby as requested. Perfect!
I left 6 rooms on my room request for Presidents’ Day week and also stated being close to the West depot at POR was most important to us and we ended up not getting any of the rooms requested and being in building 18. It wasn’t a terrible room. It was close to the dining hall, which didn’t matter to us and about equidistant to the South and West Depot. Basically it seemed like they gave us the exact opposite of what we asked for, but whatever we were still at the D.
For those that requested multiple rooms, how is the best way to do this. We have three rooms booked. All separately as I was not able to book more than one at a time online. So it is three separate reservations but I’m am managing them all under my MDE account.
Hello! I was wondering if you only used the Touring Plans fax? Did you also make the online check-in request?
I’d send one request that includes all 3 reservation numbers. It’s less work for the room assigners.