Disney to cancel FPs if room is cancelled

[guerns17]

Does anyone feel like the changes were made primarily to keep non resort guests from making fastpasses before 30 days and that they don’t really care about the early bookings? Just wondering if they just wanted to fry the bigger fish?

 

[Gentry2004]

Does anyone feel like the changes were made primarily to keep non resort guests from making fastpasses before 30 days and that they don’t really care about the early bookings? Just wondering if they just wanted to fry the bigger fish?

To my knowledge, they have not actually stopped non resort guests from doing this. That was my point.

 

[JenniferYoung44]

Basically all Disney accomplished was giving another group of guests a motivation to make dummy bookings.

Yes! This exactly. Instead of getting rid of leading reservations it just forced legitimate splits stays to make a dummy reservation to open the whole window cause MORE ultimately canceled rooms, not less. Really, does nobody at Disney think these things through??

 

[anomamatt]

Have we actually had confirmation of this? People lost FP’s when they didn’t have a resort reservation covering their days? What if they wait until inside 30 to cancel? I thought none of that was solved yet.

Just from my experience (I have now created >20 reservations, moved them, cancelled them, etc -- trying to cover as many permutations as I can):

- You get warning emails if you cancel >30 days out and have FP.
- If you cancel inside 30 days, no warnings are emailed.

Others here have reported that the warnings did lead to canceled FPs. It has not happened to me, but there might be situations that do lead to cancelled FPs.

 

[anomamatt]

And it's an easy fix to stop the dummy bookings.

Yes, it would be trivial for them to stop EOWO use. Which makes me think they don't actually care about it.

 

[PerfessorZ]

Considering how often things go wrong with MDE, perhaps Disney IT is doing extensive testing to make sure this works right before officially implementing. Can you imagine the pandemonium that would happen if, through a small programming bug, that instead of canceling FPs for cancelled reservations, they cancelled all FPs?

Just because it isn’t fixed now doesn’t mean it won’t get fixed somewhere down the line.

 

[Gentry2004]

Just from my experience (I have now created >20 reservations, moved them, cancelled them, etc -- trying to cover as many permutations as I can):

- You get warning emails if you cancel >30 days out and have FP.
- If you cancel inside 30 days, no warnings are emailed.

Others here have reported that the warnings did lead to canceled FPs. It has not happened to me, but there might be situations that do lead to cancelled FPs.

Oh really? I hadn’t read any reports of cancelled FP’s but I don’t check in every day. Thanks for doing all that testing!

 

[PrincessV]

Oh really? I hadn’t read any reports of cancelled FP’s but I don’t check in every day. !

I haven't seen any reports of folks having FPs canceled after canceling their resort reservations either - here or elsewhere. What are we missing?? I'd love to do some testing myself, but I have an upcoming trip I don't want to mess with, and then my AP is locked out for the summer!

 

[DISNEY FIX]

Just from my experience (I have now created >20 reservations, moved them, cancelled them, etc -- trying to cover as many permutations as I can):

- You get warning emails if you cancel >30 days out and have FP.
- If you cancel inside 30 days, no warnings are emailed.

Others here have reported that the warnings did lead to canceled FPs. It has not happened to me, but there might be situations that do lead to cancelled FPs.

In your permutations were you prohibited from altering any of the fastpasses?

 

[anomamatt]

In your permutations were you prohibited from altering any of the fastpasses?

Yes. If >30 days out and no reservation covers the date, FPs cannot be modified. [Can be modified within 30 days.]

 

[DISNEY FIX]

Yes. If >30 days out and no reservation covers the date, FPs cannot be modified. [Can be modified within 30 days.]

Does anyone feel like the changes were made primarily to keep non resort guests from making fastpasses before 30 days and that they don’t really care about the early bookings? Just wondering if they just wanted to fry the bigger fish?

So your guys take is it doesnt matter when the split stay covering reservation is cancelled?

 

[guerns17]

So your guys take is it doesnt matter when the split stay covering reservation is cancelled?

If I were to do it myself right now I would personally wait until 30 days just to be safe since the system is so wonky right now. Plus if I wanted to modify any fastpasses I’d still be able to.

 

[anomamatt]

If I were to do it myself right now I would personally wait until 30 days just to be safe since the system is so wonky right now. Plus if I wanted to modify any fastpasses I’d still be able to.

Yeah, no reason not to wait until inside 30 days...

 

[DISNEY FIX]

Thanks.

 

[PrincessArlena'sDad]

If I were to do it myself right now I would personally wait until 30 days just to be safe since the system is so wonky right now. Plus if I wanted to modify any fastpasses I’d still be able to.

Yeah, no reason not to wait until inside 30 days...

So, Disney's system is designed to encourage people to hold onto the dummy reservations even longer, thus decreasing the likelihood of the rooms being filled.

Well done Disney IT!

 

[CogsworthTN]

I have a split stay coming up in two months. I’m debating whether to make another reservation that will include all my days, so that I can get decent fast passes. It makes me mad that I actually have a legitimate split stay that is paid off and I won’t be able to get the good rides. I’m just afraid something will go wrong and I will lose my fast passes anyway after I cancel the fake reservation.

 

[mamaofsix]

People who book throwaway rooms still get an advantage for the 2 days they get the reservation for. I can see a lot of people still doing that in the throwaway room thread and even booking every-other day throwaways for the FP+ advantage. (For the record, I am not against a throwaway room.)

And pointing out the campsite availability was for the throwaway room argument that "people are abusing the system" which is why the policy changed, and also the idea that resorts are packed right now for May, and the idea that the loophole close was the reason for lots of FP+ availability in May. May is slower, which is why we usually go every May.

When I checked a month ago there was the same availability in May for the campsites. I posted about it on this thread on February 3, way before people booking a reservation for FP+ with the intent to dump it got any sort of notice and before the general public who might have been doing it heard about the upcoming change. I posted last month that there are 200 basic campsites and if the throwaway room/campsite (even those who booked with the intent to dump the reservation) was so widely practiced, why was there so much availability three months prior to a May trip, when most people have their plans set? Now there's the same availability and it's after the policy change.

I don't think the change was only to crack down on throwaways and "fast pass and dash" practices, but for the Disney Dollar, new hotels with benefits and upcoming SWGE. If there's more FP+ availability it doesn't seem to be from campsite throwaways, but from the resort split stays that people are having trouble with.

This is really interesting. I would have to agree. The only data points we currently have are that those with split stays now have separate booking windows, and that the rolling 60 window is no longer available with 1 night stays. It would seem that the sudden availability of hard to get fp's at 60 days is more due to the fact that thousands of guests with split stays can no longer book 10 and 14 days ahead, not due to a few dozen campsites being booked to gain a rolling 60 fp window.

I think it's very upsetting for those with split stays to have this happen - but do agree that perhaps this was Disney's plan all along. It wasn't the rolling 60 day window that was making fp's hard to get, it was those with 10 and 14 day booking windows. We may not see this last for long, though, as I'm sure most people will just choose to stay at one resort in order to keep their longer window in the future.

 

[Turksmom]

This is really interesting. I would have to agree. The only data points we currently have are that those with split stays now have separate booking windows, and that the rolling 60 window is no longer available with 1 night stays. It would seem that the sudden availability of hard to get fp's at 60 days is more due to the fact that the thousands of guests with split stays can no longer book 10 and 14 days ahead, not due to a few dozen campsites being booked to gain a rolling 60 fp window.

I think it's very upsetting for those with split stays to have this happen - but do agree that perhaps this was Disney's plan all along. It wasn't the rolling 60 day window that was making fp's hard to get, it was those with 10 and 14 day booking windows. We may not see this last for long, though, as I'm sure most people will just choose to stay at one resort in order to keep their longer window in the future.

I'm not sure about that. I'm at 49 days out and just booked FP this morning. I didn't check AK, but Slinky was the only ride that was unavailable at HS. Everything in every other park is wide open. Even with 2 opening windows, wouldn't most guests have already scheduled FP?

 

[mamaofsix]

I'm not sure about that. I'm at 49 days out and just booked FP this morning. I didn't check AK, but Slinky was the only ride that was unavailable at HS. Everything in every other park is wide open. Even with 2 opening windows, wouldn't most guests have already scheduled FP?

I think it's pretty typical that everything except SDD and FOP are available at less than 60 days. Those are the 2 biggies that were previously hard to get at 60+4, but are now available at 60 or 60+1.

But low crowds in May is definitely also a factor!

 

[mckennarose]

.....
We may not see this last for long, though, as I'm sure most people will just choose to stay at one resort in order to keep their longer window in the future.

Something else that is interesting is that in a lot of cases people can't get a resort for a full week due to no availability. Our DVC family that is going in May was not able to get AKL for the full week, so they had to split their stay. I can understand why the practice of "walking" DVC reservations loophole is a popular idea. If I paid a lot of $$$ for my timeshare, I would expect I should be able to use it appropriately with no hassle, however I wonder if and how the practice of "walking" affects availability for others while the "walkers" are actively juggling their reservations. ??? I admit I don't fully understand that loophole, but I wonder if it's a chicken/egg thing.... which came first? Limited availability necessitates practicing loopholes and creates the issue of how it affects other people's resort stays which causes the split stay issue that people are having trouble with now?

Just thinking aloud here...I still think the bottom line is Disney trying to get more money from people. It's just interesting so see how the Disney monster affects everyone and the hoops we have to jump through to have even a "normal" vacation. I would expect a normal vacation to be able to stay in one resort for one week, not have to run around property. I feel bad for people who are not in-the-know and go to Disney blind and have a terrible experience.