2019 Room and Package Rack Rates released

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The Sassagoula Sentinel
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2019 Room and Package Rack Rates released

Unread post by The Sassagoula Sentinel »

The 2019 Room and Package Rack Rates have been released for bookings made with Walt Disney World. The prices were showing on the online calendars from 6am Eastern 19 June 2018. More details will follow, but you should probably expect the website and app to be somewhat flaky today. [Note: Post updated with pricing information and graphs on 27 June]

There are two new room categories for Port Orleans Riverside bookings for stays commencing from 1st January 2019 onward. Because the resort had been getting more and more pre-arrival requests from guests wanting to ensure they get an extra fold-down bed — just as in the past building 14 was a highly-requested option which led to the creation of the Preferred Location category — Disney has decided that there is enough demand to make it a premium offering, so people can pay extra to guarantee getting an Alligator Bayou room with that extra fold-down bed. Previously, it had only been possible to guarantee an Alligator Bayou room by booking Preferred Location, or by having a party of more than four people aged 3+.

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“Standard View – 5th Sleeper” and “Garden View – 5th Sleeper” are pretty self-explanatory in that they assure you of getting a Standard or Garden room in the Alligator Bayou section, giving you the fold-down bed no matter how many people are in the room. The pricing premium varies a bit throughout the year, but on average the new categories are about $13.50 (just under 5%) more expensive than their regular Standard/Garden counterparts.

I initially assumed that the old Standard View and Garden View options would not be displayed for parties exceeding four guests (aged 3+), thus forcing you to select the two new categories for any parties of five, but oddly that does not seem to be the case as yet. It’s possible the new options are still propagating their way through the system though.

These new options should make it easier for the room allocation team when assigning parties of five to Alligator Bayou — except for Pool View and River View bookings, for which guests will still need to submit pre-arrival requests which will be managed on a booking-by-booking basis.

The one downside is that people who don’t book these categories might conversely assume that they are 100% guaranteeing themselves a mansion building room, however since the original categories will now be less expensive these may well get overbooked and the team might need to juggle some groups into the more expensive 5th sleeper category rooms anyway — meaning Alligator Bayou, which in some cases may not be regarded by the guests as an upgrade.

Other than those two new Riverside categories, the pricing structure has risen somewhat less markedly than it has in previous years, averaging just under 3% higher than 2018. For the past few years, average increases have been between 5% and 7% annually, so this is a welcome change. The lowest nightly price (Standard View for weekdays in January) is $232, and the highest (Christmas week in a Royal River View room) is $422.

As with last year, Disney have split the rates for most seasons into three nightly pricing bands — the cheapest being Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, then Thursday/Sunday, and finally the most expensive nights are Fridays & Saturdays. This makes the old tidy tabular layouts more confusing than ever, although the folks over at MouseSavers.com have made valiant efforts with their Riverside and French Quarter pages.

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If you want to see the complete list of daily prices for all 17 Port Orleans room categories for 2019, please download our 2019 Rack Rate Spreadsheet. This was accurate as of 25 June 2018, but it›s not unheard of for Disney to make minor adjustments after the annual prices have been set.
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Re: 2019 Room and Package Rack Rates released

Unread post by Admin »

Updated above post with pricing information and graphs on 27 June.

Andre
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