Disney overbooked?

[JustAmom1990]

Hypothetically if Disney overbooked every hotel in every room category what would happen? I well aware this would probably never happen I’m just genuinely curious as how this would be handled

 

[Lesverts]

The Castle Suite would get used for once.

 

[Karin1984]

Probably how most hotels handle this. Call a hotel (in a similar price category) nearby and ask if they have rooms available. If they have, pay for transportation and compensate for the inconvenience. In Disney's case, probably throw in money to get from the new hotel to the parks.

 

[JustAmom1990]

The Castle Suite would get used for once.

we can hope

 

[gottalovepluto]

They would either refund you and say tough cookies or put you up at a neighboring hotel.

 

[Anthony1971]

I would think somewhere in the fine print of a reservation there is a policy. We are DVC for over 20 years so that long since we paid cash. I do know they have moved DVC guests to different resorts while what OP said they were offered just a room in another hotel others said they were upgraded. I believe from the past with the few small issues we had they will offer something above what you had in the form of a room, club level or a credit. Some are ok some want exactly what they booked so stories vary.

 

[LAS2AMS]

@Karin1984 has it right. When hotels are overbooked, the industry standard is to “walk” customers to a hotel of comparable value. Most will offer some sort of compensation.

In 20+ years of being a road warrior + traveling heavy for leisure, I’ve encountered this situation twice. Once was in 2005 - the Hyatt Regency Waikiki was overbooked and booked us at the neighboring Marriott Waikiki. Similar hotel, same room type (ocean view). For our troubles, we were to be given a complimentary daily breakfast buffet (at the Hyatt, not Marriott) and seven certificates (length of our stay) for a free night at any Hyatt property worldwide. Sounded like a sweet deal to me, but my then-gf had her heart set on the Hyatt and cried until they gave us a room and walked someone else. Needless to say, I wasn’t happy but I went along with it.

More recently, in 2017, we prepaid a stay at the Doubletree Biloxi. We contacted the hotel multiple times to keep them updated on our delayed flight / need for late checkin. When we arrived at the hotel after 3am, we discovered they had given our room away. They made some calls and ultimately walked us to the nearby Beau Rivage (Bellagio clone) but offered us no additional compensation + made us return to the Doubeltree the next day. We didn’t get to sleep until after 5AM and had to leave by 11AM so we went happy. We contacted Hilton and received some bonus rewards points, which they probably toss at anyone who complains about anything.

Sorta related, we had a reservation for three nights at the Disney Institute for three nights during spring 2002. The hotel was mouthballed after 9/11 and Disney offered to reaccomodate us anywhere for the same rate. Unsurprisingly my mom picked the Grand Floridian. We checked in late and were assigned a room overlooking the pool — but the view was almost entirely blocked by a support beam. My mom was very angry about this, as the hotel had light occupancy (I was just happy to be at the GF). She complained and the next day we were upgraded to a huge panoramic suite with incredible views. Shame it was for only two nights!!

 

[sponica]

When hotels are overbooked, the industry standard is to “walk” customers to a hotel of comparable value. Most will offer some sort of compensation.

Unless you book at a certain Hilton homewood suites that "loses" your confirmed reservation due to a software upgrade and basically tells you that you have to pay the difference in price at the closest hotel....but really I'm not bitter

Corporate gave me 25k hilton points for my problems.

But OP: I wouldn't worry about every room in every resort being booked. I think they generally try to anticipate problems ahead of time, and I don't think all of the resorts have been booking at full capacity.

 

[redrosesix]

Hypothetically if Disney overbooked every hotel in every room category what would happen? I well aware this would probably never happen I’m just genuinely curious as how this would be handled

I don't think every room would be overbooked. I know that for my daughter's last trip they got bumped up to preferred because there were no standards available. I think they would keep bumping people up along the line...but there are 31 resorts

Some people along the line would take cash and/or free stays to go to a non-Disney resort...depending on the circumstances I might be one of them.

 

[Robber Baron]

@Karin1984

Once was in 2005 - the Hyatt Regency Waikiki was overbooked and booked us at the neighboring Marriott Waikiki.

Good stories on being walked.

How did you like the Hyatt Regency Waikiki? We're staying there in October.

 

[Genie+]

Hypothetically if Disney overbooked every hotel in every room category what would happen? I well aware this would probably never happen I’m just genuinely curious as how this would be handled

WDW gets close sometimes, but at minimum there’s usually the option for a different resort or room type. It’s rare they’ll need to move you to a different resort than booked. Usually that’s weather/hurricane or refurb related, or maintenance issue like burst pipe on second floor, etc.

When issues like that coincide with extremely high occupancy periods, they may offer you less than desirable options. I’ve heard of people getting moved from 1BR BW over to a regular Yacht Club room, or from Caribbean Beach to Coronado or POR, etc. with no additional offer of compensation.

Usually they’ve enough wiggle room to either offer a better view or room in the same resort or a similar room in parallel/better resort.
There’s been a few occasions where I’ve heard people being given less desirable options and no further compensation. It’s rare but in that case I’d push back.

If you’re too exhausted from traveling to sit and bicker over it, then take it and make sure to reach out to management no more than ~12 hours later. Regroup. Think about what is particularly unreasonable about their offer, why it isn’t a comparable value to you and go back and make your case. Like if you booked CBR even though you could’ve gotten a much better discount on POR, well then rack rates are not the full picture for your case. If you booked a 1BR DVC that took twice as many points as a studio, a studio is not comparable just because they point to some irreverent chart for out of DVC network bookings. Be sympathetic to their dilemma but don’t let them dump their misfortune on you either. You booked and signed a contract that they will enforce on their end, and it’s fine to enforce on your end as well.

 

[bookbabe626]

I got bumped recently, here’s the saga.
https://www.disboards.com/threads/what-would-you-have-done.3950569/

 

[Disneytam]

A few years back, in March I believe we were at Disney staying CL at the BWI. We were planning on flying home on a Sunday night but the day before we were hearing about bad weather coming into the North East. We fly Southwest and they are notorious for canceling flights for snow. So I changed our return flight to Monday and tried to get another night at the BWI. They were completely full but the CL cast member did find us a room at the YC (rack rate). By Sunday morning the bad weather had arrived and the CL CM told me that all of Disney was totally booked and they were having to find rooms at random other hotels (non Disney) for stranded guests. The problem is that Disney has no idea if the guests coming in on Sunday were actually arriving or not, so they couldn't give out those rooms even though they would probably be empty rooms.

 

[gottalovepluto]

I got bumped recently, here’s the saga.
https://www.disboards.com/threads/what-would-you-have-done.3950569/

And this is where DVC walk vs cash walk comes into play. DVC folks can get screwed by Disney, just ask all those BWV 1 bedroom folks forced into YC standard rooms for the same amount of points. Cash bookers can say screw you to Disney and take themselves elsewhere so Disney is rather more motivated to treat them a bit better.

 

[gottalovepluto]

A few years back, in March I believe we were at Disney staying CL at the BWI. We were planning on flying home on a Sunday night but the day before we were hearing about bad weather coming into the North East. We fly Southwest and they are notorious for canceling flights for snow. So I changed our return flight to Monday and tried to get another night at the BWI. They were completely full but the CL cast member did find us a room at the YC (rack rate). By Sunday morning the bad weather had arrived and the CL CM told me that all of Disney was totally booked and they were having to find rooms at random other hotels (non Disney) for stranded guests. The problem is that Disney has no idea if the guests coming in on Sunday were actually arriving or not, so they couldn't give out those rooms even though they would probably be empty rooms.

None of that is walking. Walking is when you arrive for your already booked room to be told no room for you.