I love this. It also opens up a potential opportunity if you want to data mine around whether requests for specific room number blocks (eg 8X42, where X is the floor number) are more/less likely to be filled than generic requests (eg near elevator on high floor).
It probably depends on the room assigner and luck - I’m just curious about trending. 
Regarding the Pick a Specific Room / Room Finder link - with the new Room Finder, is it able to turn filters into requests, or just specific rooms?
For example, if I’m searching Riviera for a resort view studio on the Room Finder and I end up selecting filters like West Wing, Higher Floor and am happy with any of the 12 resulting rooms:
I realize that this may seem obvious, eg just put in the optional field box “West Wing, Higher Floor” - although personal priorities may not match the filter ordering in the room finder.
Personally, I tend to keep away from the specific room number requests because I worry that if I’m too specific, I’ll end up where if they can’t give me those rooms, they’ll just give whatever’s available. I do not know if this is rational worry. 
Eg. AKL Kidani: “1st preference Sunset Savanna, 2nd preference near lobby or first two elevator banks on either side” - versus listing out all the room numbers that might fit.
For those curious, this effort is still plugging along. The “How well did your Room Request Work?” piece will likely be added on later, but other adjustments to the room request process (and the related adjustments to how trips/reservations/requests are handled on our site) should get rolled out this month.
A screenshot of my current in-progress version of a Room Request page is attached. Feedback is welcome.
Note that the “Contact” and the “Room Type” fields are gone because they’re not useful or necessary. (Disney has access to that info, if it’s needed. And prompting for contact info implies to some that Disney will contact you about your request, when the chances of that are effectively zero.)
I am having a frustrating time trying to find a room to request at the Poly. I feel like there are some errors.
I search Resort View rooms and the two choices shown are 1 King+ Daybed and 2 Queens. Are there no Resort view rooms with 2 Queens+Daybed? When I click individual rooms, the descriptions indicate that room has 2 Queens+daybed. Shouldn’t that be added to the drop down box under room type?
Secondly, when I am looking at certain buildings and click on a specific room and then want to go back to look at a different building, I’ll click the prompt that says back to the specific building, and then “back to hotel map” to look at other buildings, the buildings with that room type will be red, but when you hover over the building it says “0 rooms available”.
I also wanted to confirm that there are no balcony rooms on the North facing side of the third floor of Aotearoa from 3217-3229?
I thought all 3rd floor Aotearoa rooms had balconies? They have had them when I stayed there. Floor 1, has patios, and 3rd floor has balconies?
That’s what I assumed but the TP room finder indicates no balcony in the rooms on the 3rd floor numbered 17-30 that are North facing but the 3rd floor rooms on the other side of the building have balconies which doesn’t make any sense. That’s why I’m wondering if the TP room finder is accurate.
This is also a problem for the Fiji building. Third floor rooms on both sides of the building both say “no” in the balcony field.
So this too makes me wonder if the TP room descriptions are accurate or not.
It sounds like an issue with the Disney data file.
@len, @JenniferB1975 and @mkmuzzy have found 3rd floor Poly rooms that the room finder states there is not a balcony. We think that is wrong?
They have balconies. I can fix it. If someone doesn’t mind posting here the rules for balconies at the Poly, just so I know it’s correct, I’ll get it updated.
I appreciate y’all finding these things so we can fix them!
The spreadsheet has a single column for storing things like “this room has a balcony”, “shower only”, and other information. But only one thing is stored in the column. So if one thing is in the column, the thing the resort thinks is the most important, is in that column. And there’s something else in that column. It’s non-public information, and it has to remain non-public.
I’ll work with our folks on the other side to see if we can get separate columns for these things.
Thanks. I appreciate it!
I have created a new forum badge* for this discussion:
I will be giving them out shortly to those of you who are helping with this.
Please congratulate @JenniferB1975 and @mkmuzzy for being the first two recipients.
*yes, it’s intentional
Congrats @JenniferB1975 and @mkmuzzy !
DVC buildings added balconies. All other buildings (including Hawaii) have balconies on the 3rd floor.
There are patios on the 1st floor and 2nd has nothin….
Ohmygosh! I’m so honored. And….its my birthday today, so this is a birthday I’ll never forget. Thanks @len
Happy birthday!
I was going to ask.
Happy Birthday!!!
Is there a way to help folks prioritize their needs/wants in the request? For example, I think that we tell people if they want connecting rooms to make that their only request. Could there maybe be a box for “most important characteristic” and then other nice to haves? Or does that make everything too complicated?
This is intriguing!
There is one other piece of data that has been swirling a bit on chat and I think has been discussed here. There are a few niche DVC locations where the Murphy beds don’t fit and they have to have sofa beds. The top floor at Boulder Ridge I know for sure has this issue and it sounds like there are some rooms like this at Copper Creek as well. Is this in the Disney file or is there a place this could be stored? Or should we just stick to comments for this. I know many people would like to filter these OUT as part of their room request.
