I'm looking for a little general advice(or maybe a pep talk).
Backstory: My partner's annual conference is being held in WDW this year. I have not been since I was a little girl, 20 years ago. He will be in sessions all day but I figured I'd tag along for the free room and get a discounted ticket and spend a few days in Disney. I've been on these boards for awhile, trying to figure out strategy.
His conference is at the Swan and Dolphin but they made rooms available for the same price at the Yacht Club. I told him to try to get a room there as I knew it was better(thank you disboards). The planning committee said that everyone in his track has to sat at the Dolphin because too many people wanted the Yacht club. Ok, so already no MDE or magic band, but fine.
No one can book rooms themselves, they have to put a request in on the Swan's website, but the catch is you can't actually put anything in your request except that you want a room, Swan or Dolphin and your cc#, not dates or anything and they will get back to you in 72 hours. He puts the request in and 6 days later gets an e-mail that says there are no rooms available. He starts scrambling, then gets an e-mail that says he has been booked for the entirety of the room rate block, which includes pre and post conference events(that he will not be attending) as well as shoulder days for people who want to stay extra. He does not want this. Oh, they put him at the Swan when he requested Dolphin.
It also hasn't allowed for him to state that another person will be coming.
At the same time a colleague of his gets a one day charge for a room, a day later she gets charged for half her stay and they day after that gets charged for her full stay. These are not pre-paid rooms and have a free 24 hour cancellation fee and, by the way, a bunch of people coming work for state governments that have rules that say you can only put a one day pre-charge on state cards, and, oh, BTW, the Swan never said they were charging people. My partner's cc thinks there is fraud going on because of a similar set of circumstances.
The Swan/Dolphin is unreachable.
I start talking about the great customer service that Disney is renowned for. Skepticism reigns.
My partner cannot find a way to add me to the reservation and all the links he has been sent about buying Disney tickets are broken.
Oh, and each additional person in the room is $25/night for the entirety of the conference attendees stay, not the additional adult stay nights(so if my partner stays 6 days, but I stay 4 we would still owe an additional $150, not $100). This pretty much negates any discount on tickets I would get.
His conference is scrambling to fix things but no one seems to know what to do and the Swan/Dolphin is not helping. I'm not close enough to anyone to point out the severe issues with the system that have developed.
Furthermore, we're quickly closing in on the 60 days out mark so we would need to figure out a way to add me to the reservation, buy my ticket and link things up so I would be able to make FP reservations. I'm not sure this is even feasible in this time frame and given the poor service and slow response.
I had also mentioned to my partner and his colleagues about dinning reservations being made at 180 days and FP reservations at 60 days as many are bringing families. Now, I have managed to start a panic as no one had done a ton of research and assumed that, because this was Disney, it wouldn't be that difficult.
Now, the conference attendees have no idea where they are going to eat breakfast on their allotted per diem(90% of attendees work for the state) and breakfast is triple what they are allowed or if they will be able to get dinner anywhere because of lack of ADRs.
I know this is really long, but I guess my question is, when do I throw in the towel and say I'm not going?
FPs for FOP, SDD and 7DMT are important as I am an adult by myself who hates lines so that 60 days out booking was something I knew I was going to need to do. There is also a DAH event one of the nights in MK that looks really cool.
I have gotten really excited about this, even though I am an adult who will be solo, but the issues with service, the fact I may not make the booking window and the added cost of transport, magic band and $25/night is making me rethink this whole thing, but I will not have another shot at WDW for a few years at the very least.
I am just looking for some advice and I apologize if this is in the wrong thread.
Backstory: My partner's annual conference is being held in WDW this year. I have not been since I was a little girl, 20 years ago. He will be in sessions all day but I figured I'd tag along for the free room and get a discounted ticket and spend a few days in Disney. I've been on these boards for awhile, trying to figure out strategy.
His conference is at the Swan and Dolphin but they made rooms available for the same price at the Yacht Club. I told him to try to get a room there as I knew it was better(thank you disboards). The planning committee said that everyone in his track has to sat at the Dolphin because too many people wanted the Yacht club. Ok, so already no MDE or magic band, but fine.
No one can book rooms themselves, they have to put a request in on the Swan's website, but the catch is you can't actually put anything in your request except that you want a room, Swan or Dolphin and your cc#, not dates or anything and they will get back to you in 72 hours. He puts the request in and 6 days later gets an e-mail that says there are no rooms available. He starts scrambling, then gets an e-mail that says he has been booked for the entirety of the room rate block, which includes pre and post conference events(that he will not be attending) as well as shoulder days for people who want to stay extra. He does not want this. Oh, they put him at the Swan when he requested Dolphin.
It also hasn't allowed for him to state that another person will be coming.
At the same time a colleague of his gets a one day charge for a room, a day later she gets charged for half her stay and they day after that gets charged for her full stay. These are not pre-paid rooms and have a free 24 hour cancellation fee and, by the way, a bunch of people coming work for state governments that have rules that say you can only put a one day pre-charge on state cards, and, oh, BTW, the Swan never said they were charging people. My partner's cc thinks there is fraud going on because of a similar set of circumstances.
The Swan/Dolphin is unreachable.
I start talking about the great customer service that Disney is renowned for. Skepticism reigns.
My partner cannot find a way to add me to the reservation and all the links he has been sent about buying Disney tickets are broken.
Oh, and each additional person in the room is $25/night for the entirety of the conference attendees stay, not the additional adult stay nights(so if my partner stays 6 days, but I stay 4 we would still owe an additional $150, not $100). This pretty much negates any discount on tickets I would get.
His conference is scrambling to fix things but no one seems to know what to do and the Swan/Dolphin is not helping. I'm not close enough to anyone to point out the severe issues with the system that have developed.
Furthermore, we're quickly closing in on the 60 days out mark so we would need to figure out a way to add me to the reservation, buy my ticket and link things up so I would be able to make FP reservations. I'm not sure this is even feasible in this time frame and given the poor service and slow response.
I had also mentioned to my partner and his colleagues about dinning reservations being made at 180 days and FP reservations at 60 days as many are bringing families. Now, I have managed to start a panic as no one had done a ton of research and assumed that, because this was Disney, it wouldn't be that difficult.
Now, the conference attendees have no idea where they are going to eat breakfast on their allotted per diem(90% of attendees work for the state) and breakfast is triple what they are allowed or if they will be able to get dinner anywhere because of lack of ADRs.
I know this is really long, but I guess my question is, when do I throw in the towel and say I'm not going?
FPs for FOP, SDD and 7DMT are important as I am an adult by myself who hates lines so that 60 days out booking was something I knew I was going to need to do. There is also a DAH event one of the nights in MK that looks really cool.
I have gotten really excited about this, even though I am an adult who will be solo, but the issues with service, the fact I may not make the booking window and the added cost of transport, magic band and $25/night is making me rethink this whole thing, but I will not have another shot at WDW for a few years at the very least.
I am just looking for some advice and I apologize if this is in the wrong thread.