I agree that something needs to be done to discourage the practice.
Sooo, I just modified my Aulani reservation by a day b/c the airlines had flights open for booking but not on the first day we had booked for Aulani. I guess that’s considered walking, but I needed to adjust the Aulani dates to work w/ the airline/flight schedule. I’d hate to be prevented from modifying my resort dates. More sharing… I booked our home resort at 11 months and it’s now 9 months out from our stay. I hope I won’t have to make any other modifications.
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I don’t think that’s walking. Walking is to secure a date that you aren’t yet eligible to book. So at your home resort you’d start at 11 months for the real date you wanted at a hard to get room that was, say, 10 months out. And at any other resort you’d start at a 7 month date in advance of your actual 7 month desired stay.
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Oh ok… it’s still confusing but I guess I get it. I don’t know if I’d ever do it. I just knew I needed to reserve our stay as soon as I could and deal w/ the flight schedule when it opened. Modifying was a bit unnerving, we actually downgraded our room to a standard view from a garden view too. just b/c we don’t think there are any bad views at Aulani. It’s surrounded by ocean and mountains. Last time we had an ocean view, and it was too noisy (pool view came w/ it) and bright; we knew we didn’t want that again.
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That’s a legitimate change to a reservation. And that type of modification needs to be protected. It’s the shifting as the calendar opens that’s the problem.
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You can only book 7 days though. What about when someone wants to book more than 7 days?
They could stop people dropping days at the beginning of a reservation and only add to the end. But like you say, there could be genuine reasons why someone needs to change dates.
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It would penalise those of us who have to call long distance with a big time difference though.
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Well it was walking if she moved her start date later and pushed out her end date. Technically that is exactly what walking is.
Totally understandable, no one is going to condemn what she did, but it was walking by definition.
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Right. But adding extra days to the end is also surely perfectly acceptable? The problem is, almost any change they make to stop walking would also prevent someone booking more than 7 days at a time.
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Oh…this is a good point I hadn’t thought about.
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That’s true. Leveraging human behavior I think by calling in to modify is the most effective solution. It certainly requires more staff. And is not a problem that DVC has incentive to fix, so that’s not going to happen.
I’m still left with my original question though — in the example in the first post, how would a person even start to walk when the next available date to book is always after the 11 month window?
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People who walk might start 2 months or more before they could book their real dates.
If they really must have a standard studio at BWV for the first week in December, they would look to be starting the walk before the “Fall Frenzy” starts.
So maybe in early October 2021 they book for September 2022. Assuming they booked a full week then every week they would modify that to roll the reservation on by a week. As long as they move the dates before the last day of their booking no one can jump in front of them. The only things stopping them would be either they forget to walk or rooms are taken out of service.
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Stopping walking could be done if they stopped people dropping days at the beginning of their reservation.
Alternatively, or in addition, they could limit the number of modifications you can make, which would prevent the months of walking.
And make people call to do either kind of change.
But I doubt they will.
And there is also a drawback. People who have a lot of points could simply add on days at the end and end up with an entire month booked, and then just drop the days they didn’t really want with one modification. Of course they can do that right now, but if it became the only way to walk it plays right into the hands of the owners with the most points - like Disney themselves.
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That’s serious dedication.
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OK and I just want to say that every time i see the title of this thread I want to come in and give a wiseass answer about how it’s a form of locomotion, usually upon a set of feet which may vary in number based on species.
Maybe now that I’ve said it and it’s out of my system I’ll feel better.
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Damn, now you made me curious for my dates and 11 months is not available at the Boardwalk either! Grrr. I have another 10 days before my actual dates so I will keep my eye out earlier in the day, but tomorrow is already sold out too!
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Keep checking/stalking. 
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AKL CL rooms (studio and 2bdrm) are always going to be the hardest to book, regardless of time of year. It takes dedicated stalking or the luckiest of lucky lucks to book one. If you want the room, you start months in advance just trying to find a day to jump in and book…and then walk. Often times it will be weeks before an opportunity even arises. Then you have to be fastest on the draw when booking opens that morning. It’s a nightmare. If you have the points and party size for a 1 bedroom, that’s the easiest to book. Far more availability, relatively speaking.
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From September through right before Christmas you can have luck picking up after the walkers move on through. I booked. A standard studio end of September and I could have changed my BW view to a standard if I wanted to at that time. In 2020 (booking January 2020) I did the same thing for a December booking.
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