We booked our Oct/Nov split stay about a month ago as we wanted to secure dates. Not only are we risk adverse people, we are coming from Australia, have a Universal stay before hand, wanted to fit in between potential party dates, and also set hotels at a set time. So all this to say we had to make sure we got what we want, hence the early booking.
At the time, I thought if any deals come up we can just apply them and save some desperately needs dollarbucks. However when we try and apply the two available deals to our existing booking its saying there are no rooms available. I even called at 5am this morning and talked to two different cast members who couldnt help.
But this is the response I get. The same happens at our contemporary stay where I am eligible for the 20% off. But no garden view rooms available.
To help placate my wife who thinks Disney are just being dicks and since they have our money, they wont discount for us, how is this explained? Is it a case of the AoA rooms are allocated a certain inventory for certain days, and that inventory is sold out already? Or it could have just never been allocated inventory for this deal? In which case why would it say we are eligible?
At least with the Contemporary, I have the option to “upgrade” to Main Tower at a discounted rate, but its still way above what our current price for Garden View is.
We are a little bummed as we keep hearing to “wait for the deals” and now the deals arent even available. How do people normally take advantage of these deals? Do Americans just wait for the deal to come out and take whatever is left and then domestic flight is easier to book 3 months out?
I noticed when I attempted to book a bounce back for 2027 on the day they were released, there were no standard rooms at CBR for March 2027. It didn’t matter how short or long I made the stay. It appears that discounted rooms are very limited or the categories of rooms are only the more expensive ones. Keep looking though. Some may pop up.
You cannot apply a discount to every single open room on property. There are only some resorts which qualify and within those resorts only some categories of rooms. And then, there are only a limited number of rooms that qualify. Sometimes availability is much greater and other times it is incredibly sparse to a degree that it feels like a discount is offered almost a name only because it is so challenging to secure a room to which the discount can be applied. I’m sorry you’re not finding the room that you need and want for the dates you are traveling. Unfortunately, that’s just the way it works out sometimes.
@OBNurseNH’s answer is the definitive one of course.
In past when I had issues grabbing a CBR room with the current discount, I ended up trying various combinations of my dates and found at that particular time the earliest dates had availability but the last ones did not.
I ended up booking most the days I wanted and then stalking the last two dates - they eventually did show up (I assume after someone cancelled their own booking, but who knows?)
I just kept a tab open in my browser for a few weeks and randomly tried a search at different times of day until I got lucky.
I have a split stay booked in Oct and was able to apply the discount to the AKL reservation with no problem (very nice to be able to DIY instead of having to call), but I see the same thing you see on the OKW part of the trip. It just seems like there’s nothing at that resort for this promo.
Disney has created a new room category. It’s called the preffred room. These are rooms close to the Skyliner like at POP, A of A, CBR. If you are trying to book a standard room as I have you may find they are few and far between.
The Disney Plus deal has limited dates. There is a gap between 10/31 and 11/15, so no dates in the 11/1 and 11/14 range qualify. I have only been able to get availability to show when the whole stay falls in the date range. You would have to break your 10/28-11/5 reservation into a split stay of 10/28-10/31 (eligible for deal) then 11/1-11/5 (regular price or maybe some other deal).
Disney has had preferred rooms for quite some time at several resorts. Disney recently increased the number of preferred rooms at CBR to include three buildings in Jamaica and three in Aruba in addition to all of Martinique and Barbados. There’s still plenty of standard rooms at the resort. They just aren’t included or can’t be found in the discounted rooms for the BB offer.
I ended up booking a preferred room at CBR.
Thanks everyone. I guess I just thought because I was online at 5am (your time) on day of release I would have snagged something. Is it possible they never released any of my particular room/combination? Its just so enticing seeing it there to be applied but not actually being able to apply! Unfortunately the way we have the trip set up, and the international flights we are very limited in what we can modify.
That does stink. I book rooms at full price, at a price point I am comfortable paying, hoping for a discount later. A lot of times, I am able to get a discounted room, but may have to change the room category.
Disney discounts rooms where they have more inventory still remaining. If a given resort/room type is filling well on its own, then they have no need to discount.
But I will say - keep checking! I too am locked into a specific week, and I’m only looking at value resorts. I was very disappointed Thursday morning to only see All Star Sports available with the discount. I checked so many times! But then Friday night All Star Movies popped up with the discount. I assumed someone had a reservation and cancelled, which freed up the discount. But even after I booked, Movies still shows availability for the discount, so there’s some Disney Magic Math at play here.
And for both hotels - the only discounted room was Preferred. So it’s basically getting Preferred for the Standard price. No discount on Standard for my week.
Ok, so I spent the night playing around. Our original plan was 8 nights at AoA, knock over Epcot, Hollywood studios and AK with a rest day as well then move to Contemporary for 6 nights and to MK and a party day. So 8/6 split. But we are stuck in those 14 days date range with everything else around booked (including international flights)
If I flip them and go 6 at AoA and 8 at Contemporary it opens me up to the 20% and I actually save over US$700. Even with an extra 2 nights at a deluxe.
This is probably a no brainer for most, but as a party of 5 the extra room at Cars suite is not nothing. The other downside is “backtracking” to Epcot area but that’s minor. The space and extra bathroom and toilet is a big plus.
The positive is $ savings which is the whole point of this thread. Plus we are now at Contemporary on a Wednesday which should open up an Extra Evening Hours somewhere. We are not keen on rope drop so this is a plus. And food options much better (but will eat into cost saving).
Thanks everyone for explaining the inventory. It’s now down to save AUD$1000 and gain extra evening hours to put up with 1 shared bathroom for 2 days the most 1st world problem ever right!
the most 1st world problem ever right!