How far in advance should reservations be made?

cap396 · Post by **cap396** » Oct Thu 30, 2008 12:05 pm

My family is looking at taking a trip to WDW in June, most likely staying at one of the cabins at the Fort Wilderness campground. Does anyone know if these get filled up quickly? How soon should we make the reservation?

Thanks!

spodie · Post by **spodie** » Oct Thu 30, 2008 12:46 pm

A lot of people start thinking about booking their summer trips around January, so if you know the dates you want to go, you may want to book before then. The travel season might be a little slow this year because of the economy, so you'll probably be fine booking later. It's a risk, but some really good deals may come out the closer you get to June (if the economy gets really bad). For example, Passholder rates for January/Feburary are $49 for Value Resorts and $89 for Moderates.
Also, a couple of years ago, we booked our end of June trip in late April/early May and I added on a couple of nights about a week and a half before we arrived, so you should be fine booking whenever. If you book a room only *by phone,* you only have to pay the deposit of a 1-night stay and can cancel the reservation up to 6 nights before your arrival for a full refund. The rest of the balance is due at check-in. Packages (room/tickets) work a little differently. You have to pay a deposit of $200 at the time of booking and the rest of the balance 45 days before your arrival (I'm not sure what the cancellation policy is though). Either way, book by phone because the cancellation policies are better than booking online.

Happy planning!!

boilerbabe · Post by **boilerbabe** » Oct Thu 30, 2008 12:46 pm

I don't think those fill quickly, we just made late reservations for our upcoming trip and the Fort Wilderness campground was available.

viking245 · Post by **viking245** » Oct Thu 30, 2008 5:58 pm

When you book your reservation (at least through Disney World online) they ask for a $200 deposit regardless of 8 months or 3 months in advance. The deposit is refundable up to a certain amount of time before your trip (not sure how long before).

If you go with say the 8 months in advance and then find on something like MouseSavers, 3 months before you go there's a special like free dining plan, you simply call WDW reservations with the code (something like "QXZ"), they should apply that to your package.

Case an point: we booked (for December coming up) in June [resort, dining, tickets], called October (about 3 weeks ago) with the 'new' code and went from an economy resort to a moderate and added 1 more day (9 total) for $800ish less (4 people in our group).

Short story long, book whenever, it can always be changed and even refunded (up to a certain time before the planned date).

Now airlines.... that's something different.

Post by **Len90** » Oct Thu 30, 2008 6:40 pm

I would say to book about 4-6 months in advance for anything. However, I would worry more about the Dining reservations. I recommend once you have the dates that you are going, to start planning where you want to eat your meals. Dining reservations open up 180 days before and the popular restaurants will always fill up. We barely got an ADR for Le Cellier five months in advance.

Post by **js3901** » Oct Thu 30, 2008 7:42 pm

I reccomend booking through AAA (if you're members). you'll get a bunch of perks, including aout 20% off the room, discounts on food and merchandise, parking RIGHT in front of the parks (right behind the handicapped parking), along with a few other extras. But, one good thing that AAA does, they will call you if there is a better deal that comes out for the time you're there (like free dining, lower costs, etc).

as for when to book... I say it's up to you. always good to book early to make sure the rooms/hotel you're looking at don't fill up. But, you may get a better deal/upgrade when booking late. now, if we're talking dining, ASAP.

Post by **Len90** » Oct Thu 30, 2008 9:40 pm

js3901 wrote:I reccomend booking through AAA (if you're members). you'll get a bunch of perks, including aout 20% off the room, discounts on food and merchandise, parking RIGHT in front of the parks (right behind the handicapped parking), along with a few other extras. But, one good thing that AAA does, they will call you if there is a better deal that comes out for the time you're there (like free dining, lower costs, etc).

as for when to book... I say it's up to you. always good to book early to make sure the rooms/hotel you're looking at don't fill up. But, you may get a better deal/upgrade when booking late. now, if we're talking dining, ASAP.

Good point. We got a special discount card that gave us 10% off at the World of Disney in Downtown Disney. It also was accepted at numerous other places throughout the world. It was a card you showed and was valid throughout your stay. Booking through AAA was extremely easy and stress free!

Jacca5660 · Post by **Jacca5660** » Oct Thu 30, 2008 10:41 pm

Try going to the DIS web site at http://www.wdwinfo.com/ , its' a great site and they are very helpful. You should make your reservations as far in advance as possible. Also the Dis should be able to get you some great discounts.

DisBeamer · Post by **DisBeamer** » Oct Thu 30, 2008 11:14 pm

I always figure 'book as soon as you know the dates and can pay the deposit'. The more planning time the better. Plus you have more time to look forward to it.

If any special rates/codes come out later, you'll be able to apply them to your existing reservation in most cases (sometimes you may have to cancel and rebook packages to do this but CRO can help with that kind of thing if the need arises).

Mr.ToadWildRider · Post by **Mr.ToadWildRider** » Oct Fri 31, 2008 7:19 am

DisBeamer wrote:I always figure 'book as soon as you know the dates and can pay the deposit'. The more planning time the better. Plus you have more time to look forward to it.

If any special rates/codes come out later, you'll be able to apply them to your existing reservation in most cases (sometimes you may have to cancel and rebook packages to do this but CRO can help with that kind of thing if the need arises).

Exactly. And sometimes the deals are made when you book well in advance. The trip I took in '06 we booked 13 months in advance, and when you factor in park tickets and airfare we ended up saving like $250-300 per person than if we had booked within 6 months.

I wish I did that for my trip this November, we booked our tickets later than we wanted and the prices for park tickets and airfare all increased leaving us something like $200 per person poorer

The good news for you is park tickets shouldn't be going up again before your trip.

That said, I advise you to make sure if you're dining get your priority seating numbers at least 6 months in advance. If you wait much longer than that, sometimes even calling 4 months out or so, you'll find that WDW Dining is asking you to make changes, albeit usually minor ones, to your schedule. I.E. You ask for a 3:00pm PS and they ask you if 3:30 or 2:45 is okay. I take this to mean they're already filling up their PS lists as early as 4 months out. You definitely want to make them at least 6 months out if you want something like California Grill window seat during the fireworks, otherwise they'll surely tell you you need to move your reservation either back 2 hours or ahead 1.

viking245 · Post by **viking245** » Oct Fri 31, 2008 7:55 am

DisBeamer wrote:I always figure 'book as soon as you know the dates and can pay the deposit'. The more planning time the better. Plus you have more time to look forward to it.

If any special rates/codes come out later, you'll be able to apply them to your existing reservation in most cases (sometimes you may have to cancel and rebook packages to do this but CRO can help with that kind of thing if the need arises).

Ok, a little more straight forward and to point than I stated.

As for AAA, they didn't appear to have any better offerings during the peak Holiday season (over Christmas). We did however use them for DL several times in the past for non-peak seasons, and YES, definately a good way to go!

Post by **js3901** » Oct Fri 31, 2008 1:55 pm

viking245 wrote: As for AAA, they didn't appear to have any better offerings during the peak Holiday season (over Christmas). We did however use them for DL several times in the past for non-peak seasons, and YES, definately a good way to go!

it depends when during the holiday season you book with AAA. if it's the time after Thanksgiving week until the week before Christmas, you can get some great deals there, as it's technically off-peak time. If you go during the Peak times, Disney will not allow them to do any discounts, and blackout dates apply for any special cards (parking/discount) they give you. also, going during the Peak times is just CRAZY. that off-peak window I mentioned is the best time, as you get the Christmas experiences (holiday specials of the fireworks, the lights/decorations, the parties, etc), with the minimal crowds/wait times...

WVParkfan · Post by **WVParkfan** » Nov Thu 06, 2008 8:19 am

Anyone else use this website: http://www.pscalculator.net/

It is free and you can enter the date of your arrival. It calculates backwards and tells you the exact date you can begin making reservations for character breakfasts, tee times for golf, etc. It is very useful.

According to that website, you can make reservations at Fort Wilderness 499 days out. You can rent a golf cart at Fort Wilderness 365 days out.

sherabby · Post by **sherabby** » Nov Thu 06, 2008 9:06 am

I really need to start my planning. I saw on DIS boards that there is supposed to be a new announcement today about a discount of some type for early 2009. Anyone heard yet what it could be about?

spodie · Post by **spodie** » Nov Thu 06, 2008 12:37 pm

sherabby wrote:I really need to start my planning. I saw on DIS boards that there is supposed to be a new announcement today about a discount of some type for early 2009. Anyone heard yet what it could be about?

Well, I know about a week ago, the AP rates for January and February were announced and they are as low as $49/night at the All Stars, so they're probably going to have some sort of discounted rate around the same time that's almost as good as the AP rate. This fall, the regular rates were generally $5-$10 more per night than the AP rate, so I wouldn't be surprised if they did something similar for early '09.