I got one of those “are you sure this isn’t a savanna view?” rooms thanks to TP. The look on my kid’s face was priceless. I also got a “not a fireworks view” overlooking Space Mountain at BLT. I will very much miss this functionality and appreciate Len and TP so much for the memories.
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I don’t have much to add to this other than to say thanks for the tool while it lasted, and I really wish Disney would lay off pushing everything through MDE because it’s just not that great.
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This is a good idea to ask to have it added now. I just want “as early as possible” in this case because both my single days are resort days. Probably worth noting that!
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OK, but how is this going to affect this thread, my favorite thread, which I love reading whenever someone posts which room they got for their trip to WDW? Is everyone still going to post? Please? Pretty please???
[I’m way more upset about this thread dying than I am about losing the ability to try to ask for a room I never get.]
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I think we should keep posting as the service changes so that we know what to expect when requesting a room and what works and doesn’t work.
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We could post what we requested in the MDE options, what we were assigned, and success at getting it changed at the front desk.
Like someone else mentioned, that front desk staff better be prepared for the additional requests to change rooms after they are assigned if people aren’t happy.
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That’s an interesting question. I read a listener email on the show a couple weeks back about someone who couldn’t find a one-day stay through the website, until the day of checkin.
I suspect Disney either hides or reduces room availabilty for one night stays at certain points, so as to keep large uninterrupted blocks of available nights for the same room. That is, they first want to make sure they can book consecutive 5-, 4-, or 3-night stays (which are more profitable) before making Swiss cheese room availabilty by accepting one-night stays here and there.
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We’ve been talking about some alternatives for our automatic room requests that still do most or all of the work for y’all. Here’s what we’re thinking. This assumes Disney will continue to accept room requests on their side, which is an unknown at this point.
DVC rooms where they’re your points: We can create and send the room request via email to member services and cc you. That assumes Member Services will accept emails in which the member is cc’d, instead of the email coming directly from the member. (The alternative is described next.)
DVC rooms where they’re not your points: We can create and send the room request email to you, and ask you to forward it to the member to forward to member services. We’ve also started talking to some DVC points-rental companies about us generating the emails, sending to them, who’ll send on to member services. So as much automation as possible there.
Cash rooms: Apparently we can hire outtaskers at very reasonable rates to just sit on MDE Chat all day and make room requests. Also, MDE Chat has a “download this transcript feature to PDF” which we can send you via email as confirmation the request was made.
Let me know what y’all think of these. We’re open to ideas.
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Perhaps if their DVC memeber number is included, they will accept it?
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This seems like the easiest and most standardized way to do it, assuming it continues to work.
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Thank you for trying to keep this alive. I love the room request feature and have had great success as a DVC member with nice rooms. We are not “rope drop til close” people, so our room view matters enormously to us so I would hate to see it die. these seem like great options to me.
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Having a request option for cash rooms would be great, as we are usually doing that. Even if you don’t make the request on your end, it would be helpful having instructions on if and how we can request ourselves and what parameters Disney might accept such as just a high floor or can we specify what direction we want to face, etc.
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I think these are good alternatives. Davids makes it pretty clear that once the rental contract is signed, the member has no further obligation to the renter. Can the rental company send the request or would it have to come from the member directly?
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We’re checking on whether it can come from the rental company!
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Agreed
With similar qualifier - as long as it works.
I wonder how many chat sitters would be needed 
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I am so late to this thread and did not realize the room request option from TP was getting squashed! First of all, thank you @len for the many years of providing this service. It has been such a valuable tool. Secondly, our trip begins next Saturday, 4/25/26. This is our first stay on our own DVC points. Our configured room request was sent by TP on 3/26/26. What would you recommend I do at this point? Do you think Disney will honor the request that was sent, or should I use Chat, or should I contact MS at DVC? Thanks so much and sorry for missing this important discussion. I never thought to look at this thread before my trip.
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A long long time ago I spent some time at a smaller University assigning courses to classrooms, it was my favorite part of the job - and I thought that was a pretty big puzzle to solve. I can’t imagine working on it at Disney scale.
I hate the idea of AI taking that job from a whole team of people.
Thank you for sharing the article, I look forward to reading it!
And although I went 0-? (I think I only tried twice) on my Touring Plans room requests, I was always thrilled to see people score exactly what they were hoping for through your tool. I hope it is able to carry on in some manner, it’s some of that little extra vacation magic that TP is able to provide that makes us all look like expert travelers.
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I called DVC MS tonight and the CM took my request over the phone and added it to my reservation. I’m not sure if it will help, but at least it’s something. I would still like to know if the TP request sent on 3/26/26 will be considered. Any thoughts @len ?
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I am a bit confused about who assigns rooms. In the past, as a guest staying at a DVC resort, the front desk people always told me that the resort staff have no control over room assignments and that the rooms are assigned by DVC. The woman from DVC MS who took my request over the phone tonight told me she would add it to my reservation and it would be sent to the resort staff. She told me the resort staff assign all of the rooms and DVC has no control over room assignments.
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I believe neither answer is correct. I thought I remember that there is staff whose job it is to do room assignments. Not DVC, nor the resort staff workers. Something more central.
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