Advice on adding 1 night onto reservation, it’s been impossible!

jolynne28

Mouseketeer
Joined
Dec 13, 2017
When is the best time to do this? I’ve been trying for over 6 months to add a Friday night onto the front end of a reservation for my parents so their reservation matches ours and we can check in together and hopefully get adjacent sites. I check the website multiple times a day. It’s been extremely frustrating.
We are going the week before Thanksgiving. Should I just hope that once we are about 30 days out and payment is due that people will end up cancelling? Or is it just impossible to get a weekend night in the fall due to locals’ bookings?
 
Your chances will improve as the date gets closer. This is because folks cancel before the penalty window is reached. I've pulled this off several times, you just have to be diligent. Frustrating I know, but it will very likely happen.

That's a good week to go. I've been during that week. When we arrived the fall decorations were up and literally overnight the Christmas decorations were swapped.
 
Your chances will improve as the date gets closer. This is because folks cancel before the penalty window is reached. I've pulled this off several times, you just have to be diligent. Frustrating I know, but it will very likely happen.

That's a good week to go. I've been during that week. When we arrived the fall decorations were up and literally overnight the Christmas decorations were swapped.

Thanks, this makes me feel better. I would say the most frustrating part is that it affected our FP's for the trip since their window opened up the day after ours. I was able to add them to some, but I couldn't get a few at all for them and had to modify times for some to later in the day than I would have liked just to make it work.

This trip will kick off our first AP, but based on how frustrating it is just to plan a trip now with the 6 mo ADRs and 2 mo FPs, I'm not sure we will make it another year after that. I sort of miss the days when none of that existed. We actually took my mom last September, and she had not been in 30 years. Back then we had APs, lived about an hour away. Anyway, September she was blown away with the crowds. And my husband and I were blown away that she thought it was crowded! I told her it was literally the slowest time of the year, and we had been the previous December and it didn't even compare.

Back on topic, I am very excited to go this particular week. I've heard it's fairly slow, and like you said, you get the added bonus of seeing the Christmas decor too. I would absolutely love to be there for the changeover though and get to see both. We arrive on the 15th so hopefully they won't have gone full Christmas by then.
 
jolynne28,

How EXACTLY are you trying to add that night? In other words (making up an example), are you trying to modify your existing reservation (existing is Saturday-Saturday 7 days and you're trying for Friday-Saturday 8 days)? Or are you looking for a one day new reservation to add on (that first Friday)?

It makes a difference behind the scenes with Disney's computer system.

If attempting to modify or edit an existing reservation, Disney is looking for a vacancy for the ENTIRE length of the new request (Friday-Saturday 8 days). It's not looking for just the first Friday you really want. It's also looking for new availability for the other 7 days. It doesn't "hold onto the current reservation" and only look for the difference. A "modify" is actually a search for the new entire length of stay (while holding your current reservation) and then if it finds one, cancelling the entire old reservation (all behind the scenes).

To use the terminology in my company: you're asking for a "Change" order. But what Disney does is look for a "New" order followed by a "Cancel" order.

I have had success in the past searching for and booking a one-night reservation and then having the two reservations merged. The benefit of the merge is for ADR and FP windows but since you are inside that window, that won't benefit you. And not two sets of MB. If you keep two separate reservations, you would have to check in again or tell them in the lobby when you check in the first time that you have a second reservation and you want to stay in the same campsite and not be assigned a different site.

Blah blah blah. I could go on.

You might already be trying for a second single night reservation. But if you aren't, this is a strategy to keep what you have and add to it. Good luck.

Bama Ed
 
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Keep trying, keep trying, keep trying.......................................................... If I need extra days I try early in the morning and late at night every day. You have to also try different ways to add the extra night even if it means booking dates within the dates you have booked already. I will say that Friday night is much easier to get than Saturday night most of the time so don't be discouraged and just keep trying:-):-) Ed has also given you great advice and I will add my Good Luck to you as well.
 
jolynne28,

How EXACTLY are you trying to add that night? In other words (making up an example), are you trying to modify your existing reservation (existing is Saturday-Saturday 7 days and you're trying for Friday-Saturday 8 days)? Or are you looking for a one day new reservation to add on (that first Friday)?

It makes a difference behind the scenes with Disney's computer system.

If attempting to modify or edit an existing reservation, Disney is looking for a vacancy for the ENTIRE length of the new request (Friday-Saturday 8 days). It's not looking for just the first Friday you really want. It's also looking for new availability for the other 7 days. It doesn't "hold onto the current reservation" and only look for the difference. A "modify" is actually a search for the new entire length of stay (while holding your current reservation) and then if it finds one, cancelling the entire old reservation (all behind the scenes).

To use the terminology in my company: you're asking for a "Change" order. But what Disney does is look for a "New" order followed by a "Cancel" order.

I have had success in the past searching for and booking a one-night reservation and then having the two reservations merged. The benefit of the merge is for ADR and FP windows but since you are inside that window, that won't benefit you. And not two sets of MB. If you keep two separate reservations, you would have to check in again or tell them in the lobby when you check in the first time that you have a second reservation and you want to stay in the same campsite and not be assigned a different site.

Blah blah blah. I could go on.

You might already be trying for a second single night reservation. But if you aren't, this is a strategy to keep what you have and add to it. Good luck.

Bama Ed
I’m searching single night. If I get it I will call and have them merge their two reservations into one.
I was able to add a night on the back end of the trip a long time ago and merge those, but I must have just gotten lucky and caught it right when someone cancelled.
 
Keep trying, keep trying, keep trying.......................................................... If I need extra days I try early in the morning and late at night every day. You have to also try different ways to add the extra night even if it means booking dates within the dates you have booked already. I will say that Friday night is much easier to get than Saturday night most of the time so don't be discouraged and just keep trying:-):-) Ed has also given you great advice and I will add my Good Luck to you as well.

Ok a question about this: are you saying that, say a Thurs-Sat spot might open up, but they wouldn’t allow me to book for just the Friday? I’ve played with it a little, but have almost exclusively been searching the one night. I assumed that if only Friday wasn’t available, that nothing including Friday would be either. Is that not correct?
 


Another good thing about booking multiple dates then merging them is you get magic bands for both! You can get multiple colors and swap if you want.
 
Yes jolynne28, I know it sounds strange but you may not be able to get the one night but can back up a few days and even ahead a few and possible get it. So if I already had for instance Sunday to Thursday and wanted to add Friday night I would try multiple configurations of Monday to Friday, Tuesday to Friday and so on to pick up the Friday night. After securing the nights with Friday included I would then call the reservation line and merge the two reservations together for all the nights I needed. Like I said keep trying for the one night alone and this way at least twice a day, it gets old after a while to keep trying but persistence sometimes pays off. Good Luck.......
 
Join the website stalking crew, lol. I have been stalking the website trying to add another night to our Halloween trip. Just like you, I just keep checking multiple times a day. A tent site has popped up a few times, but I need a full hookup. Good luck.
 
Sunday mornings is when I have the best luck at modifying my reservations. Yesterday I was able to add 2 more days on to my Thanksgiving 2020 reservation. I originally could only book a Premium Meadows site, we prefer a different loop in regular Premium so I'm building the new week and then will drop the other later.

You have to try lots of different ways.
  • Try modifying the current reservation. Play with the dates, too. Extend it out much earlier--sometimes that works.
  • Call in and have the CM see if they can add a day.
  • Make an entirely new reservation--either for one day or many, as long as the day you want is in there
Oh, and be sure to clear your temp internet files & cache regularly, sometimes that helps. A CM told me that it works best using Chrome in InCognito mode--when I called to discuss the upgraded MagicBand issues. Same website, so that might help you as well.

Then, once you have the days you need, call and have them stitch it together into one single reservation.

You may not be able to add the day until the cancellation cutoff of 5 days prior.

Good luck, you still have time!
 
OK, tonight I was FINALLY able to get the night we want, but I had to include the night before, which we don't need. So I made a separate reservation, then called to merge the two and drop the night we don't need. They said they couldn't do it! The girl had me on hold for so long that i knew something wasn't right. Basically she tried to tell me that the two reservations were coded differently, even though I booked the same category, Premium, and that they couldn't do it. So I told her that I had previously booked a separate reservation for the single night on the end of the trip and had merged those two with no problem. She put me on hold again for a long time and then told me that I needed to wait until the end of the week, probably Friday, to call back and 'try' to merge the reservations and drop the night we don't need.
I am soooooooo frustrated with this whole process. I want to be done. I just need the one night added so I can stop checking availability and not think about it for the next 17 days. Yep, I've been trying to get this 1 night for the last 10 months, so I just need 17 days of peace and not going on the Dis multiple times a day to check. Is that too much to ask???
Rant over
 
OK, tonight I was FINALLY able to get the night we want, but I had to include the night before, which we don't need. So I made a separate reservation, then called to merge the two and drop the night we don't need. They said they couldn't do it! The girl had me on hold for so long that i knew something wasn't right. Basically she tried to tell me that the two reservations were coded differently, even though I booked the same category, Premium, and that they couldn't do it. So I told her that I had previously booked a separate reservation for the single night on the end of the trip and had merged those two with no problem. She put me on hold again for a long time and then told me that I needed to wait until the end of the week, probably Friday, to call back and 'try' to merge the reservations and drop the night we don't need.
I am soooooooo frustrated with this whole process. I want to be done. I just need the one night added so I can stop checking availability and not think about it for the next 17 days. Yep, I've been trying to get this 1 night for the last 10 months, so I just need 17 days of peace and not going on the Dis multiple times a day to check. Is that too much to ask???
Rant over
They’ve been a little more difficult with dropping days lately. If they tell you they can’t do it again ask to speak with guest services. Their phone lines are so frustrating, I fee your pain! Also, FYI for next time if your parents are part of your friends and family, you can make fast passes for them on the same day you made yours as long as someone from your reservation is part of the fast pass group.
 
They’ve been a little more difficult with dropping days lately. If they tell you they can’t do it again ask to speak with guest services. Their phone lines are so frustrating, I fee your pain! Also, FYI for next time if your parents are part of your friends and family, you can make fast passes for them on the same day you made yours as long as someone from your reservation is part of the fast pass group.
They are on my friends and family b/c I have made all the reservations for this trip, but i wasn't able to add them to the FP's when I made them, so it definitely screwed up a few days and caused us to push back times since they were listed as arriving the day after us! That was also very frustrating!
I am so excited that we are able to take our family to Disney and my kids get to experience it with their grandparents. I know we are fortunate and these are first world problems. But honestly I am beyond frustrated and annoyed with this entire process and expect so much more for the amount of money we have to spend for this experience.
 
They are on my friends and family b/c I have made all the reservations for this trip, but i wasn't able to add them to the FP's when I made them, so it definitely screwed up a few days and caused us to push back times since they were listed as arriving the day after us! That was also very frustrating!
I am so excited that we are able to take our family to Disney and my kids get to experience it with their grandparents. I know we are fortunate and these are first world problems. But honestly I am beyond frustrated and annoyed with this entire process and expect so much more for the amount of money we have to spend for this experience.
That’s unusual but not surprising since the system is always so glitchy. I was able to add friends to mine no problem after I added them to my friends and family which took some extra effort. Hopefully you can get the reservation squared away soon so it’s one less thing to worry about. I hope you guys have a great trip, I love going that time of year!
 

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