It’s exhausting listening to all the frustration.
Maybe just cancel if you don’t have the information you want on the timeline you’d like it.
Sorry, I’m just over it by now.
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I don’t take ‘very intentional’ to mean that they already have every little detail worked out. Rather that they are taking the time to work out all the details rather than just haphazardly opening everything. I understand everyone’s frustration, but I do still think that WDW is still working on things and not intentionally being misleading.
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I totally understand what you mean @OBNurseNH.
I do understand people are frustrated not knowing if and when your resort is open.
But I started this thread to try and help put out what we do know. So when I came back on and saw all the anger it made me question why bother to even try to keep the first post updated.
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The frustration isn’t with you, @Nicky_S, but with Disney’s handling of this.
I get there are unknowns. I get they are figuring things out. I get that they have to get a reservation system in place, etc.
But many of their actions when it comes to people being able to plan themselves are VERY clearly things that they ALREADY know how they are handling, but are withholding details on. It is clear they know what resorts they plan to open, and it is clear they have SOME IDEA as to when they may (or may not) open others. They don’t have to give everything.
But Disney has always made it so that planning WAY WAY ahead was not only recommended, but in some cases, required. They have “created” a clientele that plans well ahead. But now, they are being bit by that decision…and rather than recognize that they have a bunch of planners wanting to get back to the parks, they are release information that now makes it IMPOSSIBLE to plan.
Well, not impossible. Because we made a plan, then a backup plan, and then a backup backup plan. We’re in a holding pattern for that backup backup plan. But we have sitting in the wings a backup backup backup plan.
If Disney announced, today, “Sorry, everyone. But if you have a booked reservation for any Value resort through the remainder of the year, we’re going to cancel your reservations unless you do X or Y, which may cost more…” then we would be bummed, and then go, “Okay. I guess we now know. Time to invoke plan D!”
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Personally, I love the sarcasm here! Like Disney is very intentionally meaning to frustrate us, lol!
It’s hard for all us planners to not have answers, but let’s think of it as a way to test our planning ability. We now have to be prepared for Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D…
@Nicky_S Please continue to post updated information either here or in other posts! It is truly helpful and makes me less worried about missing something important! We really appreciate your updates! 
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It is exhausting listening to the frustration.
It’s not the first time Disney has frustrated guests.
First in mind was several months in 2019 when no one knew what to expect with Star Wars Land opening. Especially if a guest’s trip started the first week of SWL.
Add to the lack of planning info regarding crowd levels, EMH morning hours were in 3 out of 4 parks. Eventually a guest simply figures to be happy to be in the bubble.
Then Dorian decided to visit at the same time. Now the airlines are on and off until guests are canceling trips because they can’t keep changing their reservations to keep up.
This is during regular old times.
I can clearly recall two other trips where changes in Disney policy directly impacted - to a negative degree - guests’ experiences. Anybody here that’s been visiting Disney for several decades probably has stories.
For myself, I can not imagine being selfish enough to need to have my hand held to the degree that I’ve seen recently - on Facebook primarily, yes. These are not normal times. To be still breathing, and anticipating a WDW trip is extra special all by its onesies.
If you’re a Disney fan why not relax and see what shakes out. I’ve been unhappy with Disney in some specific instances, but overall, Disney has always come thru.
To be sure, I can simply scroll past the venting. Going forward, I will.
And thank you for allowing my venting.
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To be clear on this, it has been a roller coaster through this. Some days I’m feeling happy and looking forward to our trip, feeling hopeful. The next, I’m extremely frustrated by it all.
But TP Forums is one place that I figure fellow Disney planners can understand the roller coaster. Ask me again how I feel in an hour or tomorrow, and you’ll likely get a very different answer. 
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I was initially really frustrated and upset about it too.
I’m slowly starting to accept that this is just the way Disney operates. Looking back I can remember incidents as far back as 2001. The internet has made it even more complicated… when people used to primarily book through TA’s, it was much easier to disseminate information and control it. Now we know things weeks before Disney officially announces it. We’ve changed but they have not.
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I am not frustrates - I am a very patient and calm individual. I know from personal experience it is best not to pin down specific dates when there are a lot of variables so I can understand why Disney may be reluctant to release definite information until all the boxes are checked. One thing to consider is that quite a few reservations are done online as well as via TA. CMs are probably having to manually go through all reservations, ADRs and special events making cancellations - how many thousands? FPP can easily be done with a bit of code but that would still leave thousands of items to process which is most likely why it is taking so long - quick to book a pain to undo all.
Must have swapped keys on keyboard - frustrated!!
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Updated main post with:
Health screening at resorts and parks
Resort-hopping discouraged (need an ADR)
Resort reservation re-booking
And general tidy up.
Still waiting for details on park reservation system, which may come out on Saturday June 13th or the following week.
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Not really, other than for the guest not being able to go. No doubt if you cancel your stay, your park reservations are cancelled too.
So worst case is you wasted time trying to book your parks.
So I thought I’d post this to try and explain why DIsney cannot deal with everyone’s summer reservations immediately.
The problem they have is that no other resorts have had opening dates announced, so for now the only options are DVC or the cabins at FW.
Plus they only have a plentiful supply of rooms they can use within a rolling 60 day window, when they can use any available DVC room that hasn’t been booked, in other words take it from the DVC inventory.
Right now, that would be up until Aug 11th.
Beyond that they can only use “their own” 2-3% of rooms.
Until other resorts have an opening date announced, availability will be harder as time goes on. And for the moment DVC “Fall Frenzy” is still happening, people aren’t moving their Fall dates just now. I’ve read of one person who had 2 people booked at POP who got. GV (3-bed) at SSR, suggesting availability is getting tough.
They will have to open up other resorts at some point, and I suspect it will be sometime in August or September. When those are announced, they’ll start moving people there.
Initially those will likely be the other deluxe resorts that have a shared DVC component, because some of the resort amenities etc will already be operating. Which is where this “only deluxe resorts are opening” rumour doing the rounds stems from. It’s probably true for a while, but only until rooms run out.
Remember the TA emails that talked about the “take it or leave it” limited options to people being rebooked? Well that’s why, all about the fact that at the moment, all they can offer people are the DVC resorts or FW cabins, and the more people who rebook, the more limited options they have.
That’s my understanding of the situation.
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That is high level bonkers!!!
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Yeah, I saw that on the Dis thread. Along with groups of 5 being booked into studios with a capacity of only 4. Disney is really struggling trying to work this all out right now.
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Good answer to a confusing situation.
I might add that the existing reservation system is going away and a new system is supposed to take its place. If that is happening that explains why you can only cancel a current reservation on-line and make no modifications.
So the only way to modify an upcoming reservation is to have access to the new system, which is why CM only can make changes. WDW is prioritizing modifying reservations in date order. I would guess that when a full online DIY reservation system is place then more resorts will be open and available.
I think they’ll be announcing a new set of resort openings fairly soon.
Interesting about the new reservation system? Any idea as to timeframe?
But I think the reason for no modifications is that they want to do it in a controlled way, so those with earliest reservations get moved first. Plus If they allow modifications, that means people can start adding people and son before park reservations open up.
They shouldn’t allow public online access to resort reservations until park reservations are done for onsite guests, except to add tickets.
The day of the re-opening announcement, Bob Chapek said on an interview on Bloomberg that they would be “switching millions of reservations” to the system and it would take time and that was why they were waiting till July to re-open. I think the Universal quick re-opening caught them by surprise. My guess, WDW was hoping to take advantage this pause to implement changes to their much maligned systems and have been forced to roll it out early.
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Agreed, WDW has enough worries at the moment without guests make all kinds of changes.
Although they have let DVC members make new reservations but that is a separate reservation system.
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