Is booking the Grand Villa at the Disneyland Hotel even possible?

[James Bucanek]

Has anyone managed to book the 3-bedroom Grand Villa at the Disneyland Hotel, and how did you do it?

I'm planning a big family vacation next year and wanted to get one of the (only two!) Grand Villas for four nights.

I've been getting up at 5 AM in the morning (8AM Eastern) for the past few weeks hoping to grab a reservation, with zero success.

My frustration is that there are simply no available dates for the 3 bedroom villas. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. Not a single available day in the entire 11 month calendar. If I look at any other resort, I'll find at least a few days here and there that are still available, no matter what the resort or the size of the villa. But not the Grand Villa at the Disneyland Hotel. The entire calendar is solid grey.

The really frustrating part is I'm now thinking that they are simply not available for booking online. I discovered recently that when booking on the website you can select the date of your stay after midnight (11 months out), but if you try to book it you'll get a pop-up message that says you have to wait until 8AM ET. Select the farthest date for any other villa at any other resort and it will show available between midnight and 8AM. But selecting that day for the Grand Villa at the Disneyland Hotel and it always says "waitlist only"—that's hours before the time anyone could have, theoretically, booked the room.

I've called DVC member services and they "assure me" that the 3-bedroom villas are available for booking online—but I'm not convinced.

I'm now sitting on the waitlist for two of the weeks, as that's the best I can do at this point.

 

[ehh]

Has anyone managed to book the 3-bedroom Grand Villa at the Disneyland Hotel, and how did you do it?

I'm planning a big family vacation next year and wanted to get one of the (only two!) Grand Villas for four nights.

I've been getting up at 5 AM in the morning (8AM Eastern) for the past few weeks hoping to grab a reservation, with zero success.

My frustration is that there are simply no available dates for the 3 bedroom villas. None. Zip. Zero. Nada. Not a single available day in the entire 11 month calendar. If I look at any other resort, I'll find at least a few days here and there that are still available, no matter what the resort or the size of the villa. But not the Grand Villa at the Disneyland Hotel. The entire calendar is solid grey.

The really frustrating part is I'm now thinking that they are simply not available for booking online. I discovered recently that when booking on the website you can select the date of your stay after midnight (11 months out), but if you try to book it you'll get a pop-up message that says you have to wait until 8AM ET. Select the farthest date for any other villa at any other resort and it will show available between midnight and 8AM. But selecting that day for the Grand Villa at the Disneyland Hotel and it always says "waitlist only"—that's hours before the time anyone could have, theoretically, booked the room.

I've called DVC member services and they "assure me" that the 3-bedroom villas are available for booking online—but I'm not convinced.

I'm now sitting on the waitlist for two of the weeks, as that's the best I can do at this point.

Only 1 of the 2 Grand Villas at VDH has been declared into inventory.

The one that has been declared is an accessible room and can only be found in search by searching for accessible rooms.

 

[UrsulaWantsYourSoul]

What ehh said. The only 1 available for booking is the accessible one (floors 9-10) so you’ll have some wheelchair bars and such. But yes when you are searching go into the room types and click the accessible box. This is also handy for when 1-2 bedrooms disappear as there are a few accessible of those two. Courtesy is to give people who need those rooms a head start… except for the grand Villa since there’s only 1 currently.
Hope you get what you want and also… 4 nights in a Grand Villa? YAAAAAASSS!
So excited for you!

 

[James Bucanek]

OMG! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I honestly had no idea that not checking the "accessible" search option would exclude such rooms, or that there was only one Villa to book.

So I clicked "show accessible" option and, voilà, the entire month was available! I could pick any dates I wanted. I should be upset, except that I'm so excited to have finally booked it!

I can only hope this helps someone else.

Thanks again for such a great resource.

 

[ehh]

OMG! Thank you, thank you, thank you!!!

I honestly had no idea that not checking the "accessible" would exclude such rooms, or that there was only one Villa to book.

So I clicked "show accessible" option and, voilà, the entire month was available! I could pick any dates I wanted. I should be upset, except that I'm so excited to have finally booked it!

I can only hope this helps someone else.

Thanks again for such a great resource.

Fun fact: the searchability of the accessibility rooms varies by resort! (or more accurately, by state)

For WDW resorts and Vero*, the accessibility rooms are part of a unified inventory, like how (some) Studios and 2BRLOs are part of a unified inventory.

Said another way, if you book an accessible room at a WDW resort, it reduces 1 room from both the accessible inventory and the general search inventory. And if you book a non-accessible room, you have a chance of being assigned an accessible room for this same reason, because not all the accessible rooms have been booked as an accessible room. It also means that when the general room category is booked up, all accessibility rooms are also booked up.

In California there is regulation that says accessible rooms must be a completely separate inventory, so this unified behavior doesn't exist at VDH or VGC. This means that you might have have luck searching the accessible version of the category after the corresponding general category is booked up.

* I believe, but am not 100% certain, that Aulani and Hilton Head also are configured like WDW/Vero.

 

[James Bucanek]

Thank you for that clarification.

I didn't even think about it because, in the past, I swear that I'd occasionally gotten an accessible 1 or 2 bedroom villa (VGC) without ever requesting that specifically. So I simply assumed that accessible rooms were included automatically in the search, possibly once there were no more regular rooms available.

The California law might also explain why no one in Guest Services mentioned this when I called them.

 

[skier_pete]

We had 6 nights in a studio we booked at 11 months with our VDH points. I wanted to book 3 more days at 7-months and there was nothing available, but we were able to see the accessible studio and got a hearing accessible studio. I'm sure those will disappear faster as people get used to it, but the only difference we could find with the studio was that it had lights on the fire alarms. They would not let us stay in a single room for the whole length of stay though, since they are difference categories. Was a pain but better than changing hotels.

 

[ehh]

Thank you for that clarification.

I didn't even think about it because, in the past, I swear that I'd occasionally gotten an accessible 1 or 2 bedroom villa (VGC) without ever requesting that specifically. So I simply assumed that accessible rooms were included automatically in the search, possibly once there were no more regular rooms available.

The California law might also explain why no one in Guest Services mentioned this when I called them.

Ah, they were a combined inventory at VGC until a few years ago! I also got assigned accessible VGC rooms a couple times when I booked the last room available within 7m.

And yes, it's very likely that the Guest Services CM didn't mention how to book the room because of the CA regulation.