Disney World Just Shut Down a Longtime Trick for Booking Its Hardest-to-Get Rooms
Some Walt Disney World guests have spent years learning every possible strategy for getting the resort reservations they want.
One of those strategies just stopped working.
Disney Vacation Club has implemented a booking policy change that effectively shuts down “reservation walking,” a technique some DVC members used to gain an advantage when pursuing particularly competitive rooms and dates.
The change doesn’t increase the number of DVC rooms available. Instead, Disney is changing when members can modify existing reservations, removing the mechanism that made the longtime strategy possible.
Why Guests “Walked” Disney Reservations
Disney Vacation Club members can book their home resort 11 months before check-in. When that window first opens, members can reserve as many as seven consecutive nights.
For many vacations, that works perfectly well.
Problems arise when dozens of people are chasing a small number of rooms.
Instead of waiting for their actual vacation dates to reach the 11-month window, some members started earlier.
A member could reserve an earlier block of dates and then gradually modify the reservation. As additional dates approached, the member could remove an earlier night and add a later one.
Repeat the process enough times, and the reservation eventually “walked” into the dates the member wanted all along.
The technique could also be used when securing desirable confirmed reservations intended for rental.
Disney Just Closed the Door
Disney’s updated reservation policy makes that strategy far more difficult.
Members can now modify travel dates and room types on a confirmed reservation only when the reservation’s original check-out date falls within 11 months of the modification request.
It’s a relatively small change on paper with potentially major consequences for competitive bookings.
Members can no longer establish their place ahead of the normal booking window and simply move their reservation forward.
Instead, everyone pursuing those dates will have to wait until the appropriate booking window arrives.
There’s Still Going to Be Competition
The new restriction doesn’t guarantee members will get the rooms they want.
Disney Vacation Club still operates with limited inventory. If dozens of owners want the same handful of rooms, some people are inevitably going to miss out.
Longer trips could also require more planning.
Members attempting to reserve more than seven nights won’t have the same ability to secure an initial reservation and walk it toward their eventual dates. They can still make longer reservations after the relevant booking window progresses, but they’ll need to play by Disney’s new modification rules.
For members who disliked reservation walking, the update could make the process feel fairer. For those who spent years using it to secure difficult reservations, it’s a significant loss of flexibility.
Either way, Disney has changed the game.
The hardest DVC rooms may remain incredibly difficult to secure. Now, however, one of the longtime tricks for getting ahead of everyone else has effectively disappeared.
