Walking question

[TinkB278]

I was hoping for some help with walking. I scored an AKV value room during the great availability fiasco last week but ended up getting blocked as my reservation was only a few days long and some of the days ahead of me ended up getting grayed out. Is there a certain number of days you must book a walking reservation for to be totally safe from this? I see for club rooms they are grayed out about five days in the future so I’m not sure if it depends on room type?

 

[CarolynFH]

If you’re walking at exactly 11 months, a 7-night reservation gives you the best protection against someone jumping ahead of you.

If you’re walking at 7 months, you’re never really safe because an owner can jump ahead of you at any time.

 

[TinkB278]

If you’re walking at exactly 11 months, a 7-night reservation gives you the best protection against someone jumping ahead of you.

If you’re walking at 7 months, you’re never really safe because an owner can jump ahead of you at any time.

So basically a week is required to be “safe” from being blocked out? I’m wondering specifically in regards to the 11 month window.

 

[CarolynFH]

So basically a week is required to be “safe” from being blocked out? I’m wondering specifically in regards to the 11 month window.

I can't say that it's required, because I've only walked once and booked a full 7 nights that time until I had walked to the 5 nights I actually needed. But the fewer nights you book to start, the more frequently you need to modify your walk, or else you can lose that room you booked.

 

[DaveNan]

Technically, you should be safe at 11 months if you just walked the reservation the day before the last night of your current reservation. Noone should be able to start a reservation (walk) unless a room is available at 8am. If you always already have a room booked for the current day as it comes available, you are set. (If you have a n night reservation, you need to walk it every n-1 days.) The problem with the booking fiasco in late April, was all the sudden more people had walks going, than there were rooms available. So, for the value rooms, once they fixed the glitch and no longer allowed over booking, only 18 value studios/2BR could be booked. Even though they likely had 36 reservations in the system, at the point they fixed it, only 18 members could have April 1/2 booked. So, the longest walks survived. There is never a guaranteed "safe" number for when glitches happen, but "the longer the better". Having 7 nights and walking at 8AM sharp every day is the safest, but should not be needed unless there is an IT error.

 

[TinkB278]

Technically, you should be safe at 11 months if you just walked the reservation the day before the last night of your current reservation. Noone should be able to start a reservation (walk) unless a room is available at 8am. If you always already have a room booked for the current day as it comes available, you are set. (If you have a n night reservation, you need to walk it every n-1 days.) The problem with the booking fiasco in late April, was all the sudden more people had walks going, than there were rooms available. So, for the value rooms, once they fixed the glitch and no longer allowed over booking, only 18 value studios/2BR could be booked. Even though they likely had 36 reservations in the system, at the point they fixed it, only 18 members could have April 1/2 booked. So, the longest walks survived. There is never a guaranteed "safe" number for when glitches happen, but "the longer the better". Having 7 nights and walking at 8AM sharp every day is the safest, but should not be needed unless there is an IT error.

Awesome. This is exactly what I was wondering. Thank you!

 

[CarolMN]

Having 7 nights and walking at 8AM sharp every day is the safest, but should not be needed unless there is an IT error.

@TinkB278 , Agree with this but would add that a walk can also be interrupted if rooms are removed for maintenance/refurbishment reasons or if you run into reduced inventory due to fixed week ownership. Neither of those reasons applied for your recent trouble walking an AKV value villa, though.

 

[DaveNan]

@TinkB278 , Agree with this but would add that a walk can also be interrupted if rooms are removed for maintenance /refurbishment reasons or if you run into reduced inventory due to fixed week ownership. Neither of those reasons applied for your recent trouble walking an AKV value villa, though.

Agreed. It appears the recent glitch has modified the walking behavior of the 5 people walking the club level studios. There has not been a time the last week where the first 5 nights are not totally booked. If one member was not walking (or stopping their walk) you would see availability getting close and even see a day being bookable at 8 am. And before this glitch you might see a day approaching when you can book, and the disappearing a day before booking. Now all five rooms are being walked every day or two, and all walks with a 6 or 7 day reservation. So there is never availability until day 11 months + 5 or 6 days.

 

[supersnoop]

So basically a week is required to be “safe” from being blocked out? I’m wondering specifically in regards to the 11 month window.

No, but booking a week takes some pressure off. You only have to have two days to be effective, but then you have to log in and walk every single day. Booking a week means you only need to remember to log in and adjust every six days.

 

[drusba]

An 11-month walk actually requires no more than having enogh points to reserve two consecutive nights continuously, including through higher point weekend nights during the walk. Example:

Today is May 12, 2023, and assume you want to reserve time beginning April 12, 2024. At 8 a.m. today you go online and successfully book April 12 and 13, 2024 with an April 14 departure date. Result: no one else can book the room you have for the nights of April April 12 and 13, 2024, and, until May 14, 2023, they cannot possibly reserve any date for the room you have beyond April 13. The reason: anyone attempting to book the room category you have at exactly 11-months out must be able to reserve the start date that is exactly 11-months out to reserve any dates in the room beyond 11-months out. Thus, anyone going online on May 12 after you have already reserved to reserve a start date of April 12 cannot get any date in the room you already have because April 12 is already gone; likewise, anyone going on line on May 13, to reserve an April 13 start date in the category of room you have cannot possibly book April 13 as a start date for the room you already have and thus also cannot book any dates after April 13, 2024 for the room you already have.

Thus, you could begin a walk reserving a room exactly 11-months out today for two nights, April 12 and 13, 2024, with an April 14 departure date and walk to whatever dates you want by continuously modifying the reservation daily by dropping the start date and adding one more date.

Walking a reservation at 11-months out always has a risk that the walk may not be completed because of: (a) there is a planned period during your walk when some rooms are scheduled to be taken out of service and thus that could reduce the rooms available for those dates and your room could be included in those being taken out-of-service; (b) you may be attempting to reserve at a resort that has guaranteed purchase weeks and thus fewer rooms could be available to reserve for time during those weeks that have been purchased for guaranteed weeks; (c) the reservation system has one of its all-too-frequent glitches affecting ability to reserve rooms at 11-months out during the walk; (d) the reservation system could be taken out of service for a day or more for an update and thus you may not be able to lock-in dates during the walk that are needed to continue a walk.

Being able to reserve 7-nights continuously during a walk allows you to spread out your walk times, e.g., reserve April 12-19, 2023 today and you do not need to modify the reservation daily but can instead wait up to six days to do a modification, e.g., you could do the first modification as late as May 18. However, the four risks noted above for the destruction of a walk exist regardless of how many total nights you have reserved as part of the walk.

 

[Ruttangel]

Agreed. It appears the recent glitch has modified the walking behavior of the 5 people walking the club level studios. Now all five rooms are being walked every day or two, and all walks with a 6 or 7 day reservation.

I’m walking one, I only have 160pt contract so max I can do is 6 nights as I don’t want to borrow.
I’ve got 4 more months to walk, it’s a bit depressing seeing how far away you have to do this for but worth it in the end.
Once I get to August I can increase to 7 nights as slightly cheaper point season

 

[mz-s]

I’m walking one, I only have 160pt contract so max I can do is 6 nights as I don’t want to borrow.
I’ve got 4 more months to walk, it’s a bit depressing seeing how far away you have to do this for but worth it in the end.
Once I get to August I can increase to 7 nights as slightly cheaper point season

Wow, I hope your efforts are successful! I'll be behind you trying to pick up the dates left behind at some point perhaps.

 

[Bearval]

Awesome. This is exactly what I was wondering. Thank you!

My recommendation is to book your walk using seven (7) nights and modify your walk every four (4) or five (5) days. This will have your covered if the website is down and you cannot log on on the night before your walk ends.

 

[Ruttangel]

Wow, I hope your efforts are successful! I'll be behind you trying to pick up the dates left behind at some point perhaps.

Give me 2 mins haha

 

[thanxfornoticin]

I’m walking one, I only have 160pt contract so max I can do is 6 nights as I don’t want to borrow.
I’ve got 4 more months to walk, it’s a bit depressing seeing how far away you have to do this for but worth it in the end.
Once I get to August I can increase to 7 nights as slightly cheaper point season

Wow - not sure that approach would ever be for us, but good luck to you!

It can be a little confusing and frustrating, can't it? People looking to walk reservations to get a particular room type, but unable to - because of all the others walking??!

 

[Ruttangel]

Wow - not sure that approach would ever be for us, but good luck to you!

It can be a little confusing and frustrating, can't it? People looking to walk reservations to get a particular room type, but unable to - because of all the others walking??!

Yeah, my other option would be to wait til August to pick up dates as other walkers drop a day but that can be risky to get a full week in a row.
Maybe PVB2 will have club level and all will be good with the world! Those point charts would be insane though.

 

[DonMacGregor]

Walking a reservation at 11-months out always has a risk that the walk may not be completed because of: (a) there is a planned period during your walk when some rooms are scheduled to be taken out of service and thus that could reduce the rooms available for those dates and your room could be included in those being taken out-of-service; (b) you may be attempting to reserve at a resort that has guaranteed purchase weeks and thus fewer rooms could be available to reserve for time during those weeks that have been purchased for guaranteed weeks; (c) the reservation system has one of its all-too-frequent glitches affecting ability to reserve rooms at 11-months out during the walk; (d) the reservation system could be taken out of service for a day or more for an update and thus you may not be able to lock-in dates during the walk that are needed to continue a walk.

(e) Keep in mind that on an extended walk (walkabout?), you could cross into a higher points season, especially if your end goal is a holiday, and if you don't have enough points available, you can't move forward. Also, keep in mind that weekends are higher, points-wise, so starting your walk on the weekend helps to insure that you have enough points free as the number increases and decreases. I walked a holiday reservation last year that saw the points needed for the days I was walking fluctuate by almost 30 points.

 

[TinkB278]

Agreed. It appears the recent glitch has modified the walking behavior of the 5 people walking the club level studios. There has not been a time the last week where the first 5 nights are not totally booked. If one member was not walking (or stopping their walk) you would see availability getting close and even see a day being bookable at 8 am. And before this glitch you might see a day approaching when you can book, and the disappearing a day before booking. Now all five rooms are being walked every day or two, and all walks with a 6 or 7 day reservation. So there is never availability until day 11 months + 5 or 6 days.

So the club rooms are showing as unavailable at 11 months plus 5ish days in the future because of the IT glitch?

 

[DaveNan]

So the club rooms are showing as unavailable at 11 months plus 5ish days in the future because of the IT glitch?

Not directly..... But the IT glitch could have modified the walker's behavior. Theoretically, at 11 months aside from special circumstances as indicated above, there is no need to have a long walk (6-7 days) and advance it everyday. But the IT glitch gave the current walkers a stark reminder of one of those "exceptional circumstances". So now, the walkers have their reservations as long as their points will allow, and they are advancing the reservations daily. This leads to the situation where the 11 months + 5 days are always booked. In the past, there still may not have been any chances to get a room at 11 months, but 11 months + 2 to 3 days may have been available, but days would always disappear before you got to the 11 month booking day.

 

[JWhiz]

Anyone willing to share the tips regarding the "right at 8:00a" secret to booking? I've tried to start a walk three times in the past week, only to lose out. Twice I saw the room when I was booking and apparently someone clicked just slightly ahead of me. Once I guess I hit the book button just a fraction of a second too early and when it refreshed it was gone.

My previous technique was to hit the search exactly when the clock hit 8:00a. That way seemed to work alright, though not always. I learned that you can actually complete your search before 8:00a, have your search result all ready showing it's available, then hit "Continue" button to book. Twice I've done this in the past week, the clock hit 8:00a according to time.gov to the second, and the system has still told me I was early. Is Disney or at least the DVC site a second behind? Does anyone else notice that? My phone and computer are usually less than tenths of a second ahead of time.gov (which is what I understood Disney's systems are set to), but I get that message that I am too soon occasionally. Also get it from time to time on Genie+, even though the time has arrived.

Other than hesitating a split second, any suggestions? I definitely am not clicking it early as I visually wait for the time change, I do not anticipate it. Still the DVC system seems to think I'm early. I'm tempted to go back to the search at 8:00a instead of continue/book at 8:00a, but I suspect that puts me at a time disadvantage.