Disney to cancel FPs if room is cancelled

[Iowamomof4]

I have a split stay with part 1 currently active in the 60 day window. The window isn’t open for part 2. Others here have reported the same thing, effective yesterday.

I understand that. Sorry, my attempt to clarify something seems to have failed.

 

[PatMcDuck]

My booking window opens Monday morning. I have one night at AoA LM room, before moving over to Copper Creek for 5 nights. I will see how many days FP I can book Monday morning and report back here. It does seem odd to change this continuous reservation policy, compared to other debatable "abuse" behavior. I am staying all 6 nights on property, and not going offsite. I am glad it is a 1/5 split, not 3/3, that's for sure.

 

[Scoobie]

I'm glad everyone who will be making FP will be reporting back, thank you everyone! It will be very interesting to see how this plays out, and thank goodness this wasn't in effect in Dec. Not sure how that would've worked for my trip. We had a RO on the front of a 2 week res., then another RO at the end. All at one resort, but it did cause some confusion with parking fees (we had no car, I kept having to tell them that) and our scheduled room checks.

 

[PolyRob]

This is my hope as well. Split stays should have seperate 60 day windows for this reason.

There are so many valid reasons to have a split stay that a guest should not be penalized. Sometimes people stay at a cheaper resort on check-in day since they won't be there the whole time. Sometimes people split within the same resort for CL and non-CL days. Sometimes a promo isn't available the whole duration of a trip and something is pieced together between general public and Disney Visa. Sometimes people like to experience different resorts, amenities, and park locations (I fall within this category). The list goes on!

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

I've skimmed through most of this thread, is this confirmed? if so I think it's a great idea! Finally Disney is cracking down. For one it will free up rooms for those that will actually use them and second, it will take the advantage people have by cancelling their first reservation when they only booked it to gain some days for FP+. I know for a fact (Someone I know has done it in the past more than once) that this person booked a 3 day stay in front of his actual 7 day stay so he could get a jump on everyone else. He told me how he has done it several times and would cancel the 3 day reservation right at 30 days out. I told him it was BS but he didn't care. He still uses DAS also to jump the line. I'm glad Disney fixed that loophole too.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

There are so many valid reasons to have a split stay that a guest should not be penalized. Sometimes people stay at a cheaper resort on check-in day since they won't be there the whole time. Sometimes people split within the same resort for CL and non-CL days. Sometimes a promo isn't available the whole duration of a trip and something is pieced together between general public and Disney Visa. Sometimes people like to experience different resorts, amenities, and park locations (I fall within this category).

...Sometimes people book using AA miles from their account and their spouse’s since they each had to sign up for numerous business credit cards to earn enough bonus miles to cover their hotels...

(Wait was this example too specific to me?)

 

[rteetz]

I've skimmed through most of this thread, is this confirmed? if so I think it's a great idea! Finally Disney is cracking down. For one it will free up rooms for those that will actually use them and second, it will take the advantage people have by cancelling their first reservation when they only booked it to gain some days for FP+. I know for a fact (Someone I know has done it in the past more than once) that this person booked a 3 day stay in front of his actual 7 day stay so he could get a jump on everyone else. He told me how he has done it several times and would cancel the 3 day reservation right at 30 days out. I told him it was BS but he didn't care. He still uses DAS also to jump the line. I'm glad Disney fixed that loophole too.

Yes confirmed.

 

[Jimmy Mouse]

Yes confirmed.

You are the "info master" I really don't think there is anything you don't know lol

 

[canyoncam]

I was excited last week when I added a night at the beginning of my trip and thought I’d get SDD and 7DMT at least twice in my two week stay but alas with my four different resorts at max four nights each I may get neither at all. Real disappointed in this timing and change. I am not at all trying to scam the system, just wanted to try a few different resorts for my last trip until 2021. First FP+ window opens 3/6 so there is a chance things change or I can get assistance from the AP HelpDesk

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

I was excited last week when I added a night at the beginning of my trip and thought I’d get SDD and 7DMT at least twice in my two week stay but alas with my four different resorts at max four nights each I may get neither at all. Real disappointed in this timing and change. I am not at all trying to scam the system, just wanted to try a few different resorts for my last trip until 2021. First FP+ window opens 3/6 so there is a chance things change or I can get assistance from the AP HelpDesk

I’m sorry you’re caught in the middle of this when you had no reason to suspect that your perfectly reasonable on-site vacation would have a simple FP booking process. I hope people posting how “good” this change is will read these stories and see how it is affecting legitimate folks just trying to enjoy their trip.

 

[anomamatt]

Yes confirmed.

Can you clarify what you are confirming?

As of right now, FPs have not been deleted from a deleted leading reservation. It might take a few days, I’ll report back. But I’ve seen no confirmation that the leading reservation loophole has been addressed.

It appears to me that all Disney did was made FP booking more complicated and problematic for people with split stays.

 

[SouthFayetteFan]

Can you clarify what you are confirming?

As of right now, FPs have not been deleted from a deleted leading reservation. It might take a few days, I’ll report back. But I’ve seen no confirmation that the leading reservation loophole has been addressed.

It appears to me that all Disney did was made FP booking more complicated and problematic for people with split stays.

And remove the rolling 60 window from people who were doing an on-site/off-site split. (I know your statement covered that in general but just adding for clarity). Obviously a lot of our current discussion is focusing on a full on-site split.

 

[anomamatt]

I was excited last week when I added a night at the beginning of my trip and thought I’d get SDD and 7DMT at least twice in my two week stay but alas with my four different resorts at max four nights each I may get neither at all. Real disappointed in this timing and change. I am not at all trying to scam the system, just wanted to try a few different resorts for my last trip until 2021. First FP+ window opens 3/6 so there is a chance things change or I can get assistance from the AP HelpDesk

Yes, call them and ask them to book the key FPs for the second half of your trip. I used to call dvc member services to do this with ADRs across the back half of split stays. They always did it without an issue. It’s annoying to have to call, but don’t let the madness win!

 

[rteetz]

Can you clarify what you are confirming?

Article from WDWmagic confirms it.

 

[cel_disney]

The part I am struggling with most here is how Disney has so many different deadlines in this fight.

Packages can be changed or cancelled up until 45 days before.
Room Only can be changed until 5 days before.

I think that changes to reservations that are perfectly well intended per the booking rules should not result in a loss - as unpopular as that might sound. If Disney wants to cancel FP if a room only is cancelled and someone moves offsite - they should change the cancellation policy of the room to be 30 days instead of 5.

I do think the removal of rolling 60 is very important and will go a long way to improving the FP Pool/Availability.

I just don’t appreciate that my FP could taken away if I have changed Resort reservations aligned with the cancellation policies. These seem at odds to me.

If someone cancels between the 30-60 days, it’s a no brained - cancel the FP. If you cancel a Room Only 15 days out - cancelling all FP - given that we can’t reset the clock to the 30 day window seems unfair.

 

[Doug M]

Why? If I want to stay three nights at CR (or Poly) and then three nights at BC, I shouldn’t be able to book FOP across my 6-night on property stay in deluxe rooms? Why not?

It might be that Disney needed to make this change to eliminate a loophole. But there is no reason someone should be against legitimate split stays having one booking window.

I am not against legit split stays, it was more against doing so to game the FP window then dropping the first reservation, I didn't make that part clear. I was suggesting that dropping the first should eliminate the FP for all, or alternative would be have separate FP windows to those that book them. My post was supposed to have a quote grom another poster who suggested that as options at booking, my apologies.

 

[Branderson610]

I am sure that Disney has done it's research and has run analytics on split stays to justify the change. There has probably been more people than we realize booking split stays just to obtain fast passes to just cancel the leading stay. Which, equals a loss of money for Disney. This past summer my DH wanted to stay at the All Star Movies. When we went to book the room about 5 months out they didn't have avalibity. So we booked Pop. However, when I checked again less than 30 days out I saw that Movies had open rooms which I thought was odd. This trip for March we are staying at POR, I was being nosey and checked rooms for our trip less than 30 days out and there were a lot of open rooms. I even saw that the Floridian was offering a room around $300 which is cheap for that hotel. I have always been told, one person can spoil things for everyone. This is just a case and point for it. With that being said, we are about two weeks away from our trip and I am going to check what rooms are now available.

 

[Runnsally]

Article from WDWmagic confirms it.

Thanks. The article doesn't quote any source from WDW and is pretty vague about how any new limits will actually be operationalized. Who is WDWMAGIC anyway and why is what they write considered a "confirmation"?

 

[TheMaxRebo]

Just a thought...

I know some are upset about the idea that changing dates inside 60 days could cause FPs to be cancelled. I’m not sure this, in Disney’s mind, is a bad thing. In fact, they may see it as a benefit.

Seems likely to me that they don’t get many new bookings less than 60 days in advance. If you’re going to go to a Disney resort, you book 60 days out for FP. If you’re less than 60 days, might as well save money and book off site.

While they don’t want to change the actual cancelation policies to more than 60 days, they are using FPs to discourage cancelations less than 60 days. You want to make your trip shorter by a day by arriving later? Go ahead. But it’ll cost you your FPs. Or, you can just go ahead and pay for the room, even if you won’t be using it that first night, to keep your FPs.

Win for Disney!

I get that and agree if it is people shortening their trip. But if they are just changing from all in one resort to now splitting but exact same days I don’t see why that would be a negative for Disney. In fact I would think more often people doing the split are doing so to have a few days at a high level resort and now will stick with their entire stay at a lower level one.

I think it would be easier if their systems treated you stay as when you checked into a Disney property and ended when you no longer were staying at a Disney property. This would likely be a big change for their systems I am sure vs each resort being independent bookings but would be a better system (plus then only ship one set of magic bands, ME would work better, etc)

 

[billlaurie]

Hopefully Disney will resolve the issue with legitimate split stays, it doesn't make sense to treat people who are staying at two separate resorts, continously, differently than those who stay at one. I do think that people who cancel any part of a reservation, split or continous, should lose all FP made with the ressie and have to start over. This has to be more of a problem than people think or Disney wouldn't be dealing with trying to fix the virtual line cutting tactics, that both tie up rooms and deplete the FP pool. This is a consequence of the 60 day FP +14. For me, I wouldn't be happy if I saw people "cut" in line at the parks, am I am not happy about them doing it with the anonymity of a system. For Disney, maybe it is about $$$, public perception, guest satisfaction, who knows?