Pixie dust room upgrade (question for those that have received it)

aprhj

Second to the right and straight on til morning
Joined
Jan 8, 2008
We have been lucky and were pixie dusted for a room upgrade at AoA in 2016 from a Little Mermaid room to a Cars Suite, which was wonderful and lead to us booking a suite at AoA for our following trip. We now have a reservation at Pop Century for March and I started wondering about upgrades, please don’t interpret this as I am expecting or keeping my fingers crossed for an upgrade, I am happy with the room and rate I have at Pop.

For those of you have have been pixie dusted and received an upgrade:
*Were there circumstances that were in your control, ie did you check-in ahead of time and if so was your check in time in the morning, mid-day or evening?
*Were you aware of any circumstances that were out of your control- resort full, under renovation, etc?
*What upgrade did you receive?

Thanks in advance!!
 
I’ve recidved upgrades checking in morning, early evening, doesn’t seem to be a rhyme or reason why. I e recieved upgrade from standard or woods view to courtyard view several times at WL, upgrade to Riverview at POR, the reason there was my assigned room was dirty.
Standard to savanna view at AKL.
I never ask why I’m being upgraded!
 
We got an upgrade once. From standard view to theme park view at the contemporary. However there were a large number of factors. We checked in our room wasn’t ready at 3pm and were told it may not be ready till 7/8/9. They were deep cleaning 10 rooms a day and ours were in the ten. Also my inlaws did online check in and said 7pm instead of 3(no idea why). But we got upgraded (along with my inlaws). I personally think what happened was someone else checked in with theme park view didn’t want to wait and took the down grade, so thinking. We weren’t getting there till 7, even thought I said 3 on my online check in they gave us the rooms. We ended up getting a room around 6, my inlaws at 830!

I would have forgone the upgrade to have my room at check in time. We did get other compensation which was nice but not worth the hassle or upgrades. It was as nice view but not worth it for me. Upgrades to me aren’t always a good thing.
 
We were upgraded this past December at YC from garden view to standard CL. We checked in online, and never visited the front desk. We weren't given a reason for the upgrade, and we weren't asking questions. I think it may have something to do with Disney overbooking certain room categories, and managing requests for those rooms. Also, it just makes good business sense. If a more expensive room is going to be vacant for a night anyway, why not increase guests' resort experience by upgrading them?
 


We were upgraded from a standard POR to preferred POR room--first floor, corner, by the 3 stairs that lead to the walkways (it felt like we had our own private front porch.) I know not huge, but we really appreciated the location with our 2 kids and stroller. I had checked in online and also send a room request fax. We arrived around 2pm and the CM checking us in quoted our fax verbatim. It was our kids first trip and our first time staying at a Disney resort...they may have been hoping for repeat customers.
 
I received an upgrade in January 2014 from standard view at the Boardwalk to a club level cottage suite. That’s a pretty big upgrade. We didn’t have any room requests or check in ahead of time (was that even a thing then? I can’t remember!). We arrived mid-afternoon, I believe somewhere between 3-4, but they had clearly already assigned us to that room. There was a cast member with an iPad waiting for us when we pulled up. I was initially very confused as I didn’t know we’d been upgraded! The trip was in mid-January, starting on the Sunday of MLK weekend, so not a terribly crowded time (the days following the holiday were the slowest I’ve experienced). There was no renovation going on to my knowledge. It was just our lucky day I guess! We loved the suite!
 
Generally, the upgrades are made in advance of your stay, and they're usually done for the resort's operational needs. The CMs sometimes describe it in a way that makes it sound like they just decided to give you an upgrade because you're wonderful, but it really boils down to the fact that you happened to book a certain room type for a certain range of dates, and they needed to free up that room for that particular time frame. In other words, you were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

There's really no way to game the system to make an upgrade more likely. And, at Pop, there's really not much of anything to upgrade you *to*. All they could do would be to put you in a preferred room.
 


We were upgraded on our trip last May from standard view to water view. We arrived at the YC around 6 that morning, and were having a great conversation with the woman checking us in and mentioned our goal for that trip was to try as many new things as possible, and her response was "well have you ever been upgraded before?" which we told her we hadn't, so she told us we could add that to our list of new things since she upgraded us! We thanked her a ton, and she mentioned she just loved how happy we were at that time in the morning that she just had to give us some pixie dust!
 
We have been lucky and were pixie dusted for a room upgrade at AoA in 2016 from a Little Mermaid room to a Cars Suite, which was wonderful and lead to us booking a suite at AoA for our following trip. We now have a reservation at Pop Century for March and I started wondering about upgrades, please don’t interpret this as I am expecting or keeping my fingers crossed for an upgrade, I am happy with the room and rate I have at Pop.

For those of you have have been pixie dusted and received an upgrade:
*Were there circumstances that were in your control, ie did you check-in ahead of time and if so was your check in time in the morning, mid-day or evening?
*Were you aware of any circumstances that were out of your control- resort full, under renovation, etc?
*What upgrade did you receive?

Thanks in advance!!
In January 2016 I received the very same "upgrade" as you. I did not do online check in. I arrived via the Magical express at about 8:30 pm. I was solo, because at the last minute, I had to arrive a day early to fly out ahead of a blizzard in Maine. This one night at AoA was a last minute add on and I was looking forward to my cute Little Mermaid room. At check in, when the CM cheerfully told me I had been upgraded to a suite, I was tired and caught off guard. I really wanted to say No! I never saw an uglier room in any hotel than that Cars suite. Since I was alone, I did not need the extra bathroom or the kitchen table bed. I sure didn't feel pixie dusted. Luckily, I was in the room for only 11 hours before I headed to Animal Kingdom Lodge.
 
I always book a standard room every time I go, I've stayed in all three categories and never make any room requests other than early arrival. Just about every time I've stayed at YC I've been upgraded to a water view or a garden view, twice I've been upgraded to looking over BW. I was upgraded to a garden view at BW, no rhyme or reason. We were upgraded from a standard room to a concierge room at CR once, they were doing renovations at the time.
 
The only upgrade I have received was due to the HA room I booked not being available. We went from a standard to a Savannah Club Level. If I received any other upgrades, it might have been a standard to a preferred at a value, but it was not noticeable.
 
I got upgraded from standard room to river view but it was because I received a room ready text and when I went to the room there was someone in it cleaning the carpet.
 
Generally, the upgrades are made in advance of your stay, and they're usually done for the resort's operational needs. The CMs sometimes describe it in a way that makes it sound like they just decided to give you an upgrade because you're wonderful, but it really boils down to the fact that you happened to book a certain room type for a certain range of dates, and they needed to free up that room for that particular time frame. In other words, you were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

There's really no way to game the system to make an upgrade more likely. And, at Pop, there's really not much of anything to upgrade you *to*. All they could do would be to put you in a preferred room.

I am sure that’s why we got an upgrade from a standard wing room at CR to a suite once. Our check out date was September 30th, and whatever anniversary it happened to be on October 1st, I know there were a lot of press and celebrities coming in for it. We got to enjoy that suite for ten days! It was great, and totally unexpected.
 
We had one ( well not really TO us ) we stayed At AKL CL for a week one year and had some friends going for 3 days and we asked if they could put them near us ( obviously not same floor but close enough ) and they put them in the connecting room to us and gave them CL also .. it was a nice surprise for them for sure !
 
I agree that upgrades aren't always a good thing. Years ago, on one of our first trips as a family we were "upgraded" from Pop Century to a "preferred" room at All Stars Movies. It was after midnight when we arrived, and we were told that POP was overbooked, and at the time, we didn't know to ask for a better resort. But those "preferred" rooms at All Stars were FILLED with screaming, chanting, cheering teenagers. HUNDREDS of them. And because we were right on the walkway to the food court, we heard them chanting every time we were in our room. My husband had to go to a local Walmart to buy the loudest fan that he could find to drown them out. That was a crappy "upgrade"
 
Last May, I had a 7 day standard room stay booked at BWI. I did a split stay and started with 2 amazing nights at POFQ and then 1 disappointing night at CSR (the theme didn’t appeal to me, the Resort was too big, and worst of all, my room was not ready until almost 7pm). I was super excited to stay at the Boardwalk (my first ever Deluxe) and was just hoping to have a room with a decent view. I never in a million years thought that I would get an upgrade for a 7 day stay, so I was shocked when I received my room ready text and saw that I’d been given a deluxe Club Level room. My room was right over the Boardwalk Bakery and it would have cost more than twice what I paid if I had booked it directly. I did the math and it was seriously like a $3000 upgrade. I’m assuming that I just got super lucky and they overbooked Standard, but it was the best and most unexpected surprise I’ve ever received.
 
Generally, the upgrades are made in advance of your stay, and they're usually done for the resort's operational needs. The CMs sometimes describe it in a way that makes it sound like they just decided to give you an upgrade because you're wonderful, but it really boils down to the fact that you happened to book a certain room type for a certain range of dates, and they needed to free up that room for that particular time frame. In other words, you were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time.

There's really no way to game the system to make an upgrade more likely. And, at Pop, there's really not much of anything to upgrade you *to*. All they could do would be to put you in a preferred room.
Very good description. As a hotelier I can concur that upgrades occur only for the hotel’s business reasons and they aren’t as many as comments on boards like this make it seem.

Even if Disney only gave 1% per room night they’d give about 98000 per room night. Sounds like a lot but still only 1% meaning you’d have a 98% chance of not getting one. Their percentage may be higher but the point remains your chances aren’t that good unless so don’t go expecting one.
 
We have been lucky and were pixie dusted for a room upgrade at AoA in 2016 from a Little Mermaid room to a Cars Suite, which was wonderful and lead to us booking a suite at AoA for our following trip. We now have a reservation at Pop Century for March and I started wondering about upgrades, please don’t interpret this as I am expecting or keeping my fingers crossed for an upgrade, I am happy with the room and rate I have at Pop.

For those of you have have been pixie dusted and received an upgrade:
*Were there circumstances that were in your control, ie did you check-in ahead of time and if so was your check in time in the morning, mid-day or evening?
*Were you aware of any circumstances that were out of your control- resort full, under renovation, etc?
*What upgrade did you receive?

Thanks in advance!!
We once got upgraded from standard view or garden view (can't remember which), to lagoon view at Yacht Club. It was great. We watched fireworks from our window, could see the marina & Stormalong Bay. Perfect, gorgeous view.

I have no idea why we were upgraded. I remember that we had been really nice about a minor issue that we'd had to report to management the day before at Grand Floridian, but I don't know if that played any role. No one ever said why.
 
we were upgraded a looooooooong time ago on our honeymoon. We booked a standard room at Beach Club and when we checked in the CM handed us our room key and told us our room was number 5XXX. I gave her a quizzical look and said "5? That's on the 5th floor??" She smiled and said to have a magical stay. I knew 5th floor was Concierge! It was a room overlooking Crescent Lake and the Boardwalk and it was lovely!
 

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