I heard someone mention on-line about "walking" a reservation. Can you explain?
"Walking" a reservation is a technique that some members use to get a difficult-to-get reservation that involves booking a room earlier than your planned travel date and then slowly moving the reservation back until it covers the members travel dates. Here at DVCHelp we strive to be the most comprehensive site for DVC information. But, we believe that the process of "walking' a reservation damages the availability of rooms for members, and as such we will not share specific instructions on what it is or how to do it. There are plenty of other sites that have this information to share, but we will not encourage the practice.
In addition, "walking" reservations would not even be necessary in almost any case within the system if it wasn't for the fact a member may need to do it in order to get the room they want at the time they want. Even today, it really only causes problems with certain room categories. Note that walking is a 11-month reservation window phenomenon. Particular room types that see the worst effects are:
- Animal Kingdom Value and Concierge Rooms (All types but espcially studios/2-beds)
- Boardwalk Standard View rooms in Food and Wine Season (Oct-Nov)
- BLT rooms for holidays
- Copper Creek Studios and Grand Floridian Studios on some dates October through December
- Studios for the first two weeks of December at many popular resorts (BWV, BCV, BLT, etc.)
IF you won't tell me how to walk, how am I supposed to get the room I want?
While we won't provide you the details, it is available elsewhere. And it should be clearly stated that not only is it not against DVC rules, Disney in the last few years has made it EASIER to walk a reservation online without having to call - making the problem worse.
Our first advice is to avoid walking by making sure you have enough points that you are not restricted to one of these lower-cost rooms at the resort you want. You may buy a contract at the Boardwalk in hopes of staying in a standard room for food and wine or a value room at Animal Kingdom, but make sure you have enough points that it won't "ruin your vacation" if you don't get that standard room.
Second chances - A lot of times, walkers will "pass over" a reservation date, and while you will not see your dates available right at the 11-month mark, the rooms will pop open over the next few days. We recommend using short (1-2 day) waitlists for your dates or if you don't have the available waitlists you can try and monitor the Resort Availability Tool (RAT) frequently. This is of course not as handy as just going on and booking, but it is still easier than dealing with "walking".
