Reservation was changed to wheelchair accessible but I didn't request it

That is quite the reservation! Don't obsess about the room....but research what comes with club level. You were darned lucky to get it. If you had a dining plan...cancel it and enjoy the club stuff!!! Just my humble opinion....don't take my word for it.

I was able to book this one night only 6 months ago! Friends have been telling us about their club level stays so just for the heck of it I checked for any openings in January and this came up. We live less than an hour from WDW, so we were able to take any date that was available. Believe it or not, there were two separate days in January that a club level 1BR was available.
We have no plans other than to hang around the resort and lounge while we're there.
 
Thanks for the pictures. I was doing okay until I read about the higher toilet. I'm only 5'....guess I'll need to bring a step stool. LOL

The big problem I had in a regular Jambo 1 bedroom is the combo shower/Jacuzzi tub. I'm 5'2" and it's awkward to get into. But the handicapped is just a walk-in shower. I don't recall a problem with the toilet. I purchased my townhouse from an elderly woman and the master bathroom has a raised toilet. I actually like it as I get older. The toilet upstairs is regular, my aunt calls it my potty chair!
 
They can give you any room they want within the category you booked and someone has to take the accessible rooms but why do they have to change your requests?
If I request a high floor and they give me the ground floor they do not change my requests ...
 
I always wondered about these accessible rooms. If you select to pick one when searching, does it open up more rooms? I never have as I wouldn't want to take one off a disabled person but I did wonder if able bodied people were selecting them in order to have more chance on difficult to get rooms?
 


I always wondered about these accessible rooms. If you select to pick one when searching, does it open up more rooms? I never have as I wouldn't want to take one off a disabled person but I did wonder if able bodied people were selecting them in order to have more chance on difficult to get rooms?

The accessible rooms would be available either until someone booked them or the very last room was booked. The only way you would take it from someone who need was if you specifically searched for it and booked it when you did not require it.
 
If you happened to be in the one with a roll in shower it will differ in the bathroom - no tub then.
We got the unit you had in your pictures. I don't understand how that can be classified as a wheelchair accessible room with that high sided tub! The grab bars helped for getting in the tub, but there aren't any outside the tub to assist in getting out. I did like that the bed was lower....at only 5' tall, I usually have a hard time getting in some of the beds! :)
 
We were told last year that is was because we reserved a value catagory, said its states in our contract that this can happen in value resorts. Anyone ever see that in their contract?
 


Thanks, Bill. I did find out the change was made by the resort. We've been members for 24 years and have never had anything like this happen.

Wow, 24 years and it never happened?! We've been members for 16 years, and in the first 8 trips as members, we got HA rooms 4 times without asking or wanting. One time we even asked at check-in "Is this room HA?" and were told that it wasn't. When we got there, surprise!
 
We were told last year that is was because we reserved a value catagory, said its states in our contract that this can happen in value resorts. Anyone ever see that in their contract?

Do you mean the value villas category at AKV-Jambo? My understanding was that there were no HA villas in the value category, at least not HA value studios. Does anyone know if there are value 1 BRs or 2 BRs?
 
I had a HA room (studio) at Beach Club villas for a week. it took a while to get used to but we moved the coffee table from the room into the bathroom to make it work, and to get shelf space.

Worked out well since there were three in the studio (in 2012) - and we were close to the elevator - so that the sofa bed did not have to be out back together every morning for space.
 
Wow, 24 years and it never happened?! We've been members for 16 years, and in the first 8 trips as members, we got HA rooms 4 times without asking or wanting. One time we even asked at check-in "Is this room HA?" and were told that it wasn't. When we got there, surprise!
I think the main reason we've never received a HA room is the majority of our stays have been at OKW and we always requested a 2nd floor. Our other stays have been at BWV, boardwalk view. I don't think there are many HA 1BRs in that category.
 
We got the unit you had in your pictures. I don't understand how that can be classified as a wheelchair accessible room with that high sided tub! The grab bars helped for getting in the tub, but there aren't any outside the tub to assist in getting out. I did like that the bed was lower....at only 5' tall, I usually have a hard time getting in some of the beds! :)

Not every person has the same needs for accessibility
I think the main reason we've never received a HA room is the majority of our stays have been at OKW and we always requested a 2nd floor. Our other stays have been at BWV, boardwalk view. I don't think there are many HA 1BRs in that category.

Probably explains it. 1 accessible one bedroom and one accessible studio boardwalk view is all. And they both would be part of a lock off if someone booked it is a two bedroom view.
 
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Do you mean the value villas category at AKV-Jambo? My understanding was that there were no HA villas in the value category, at least not HA value studios. Does anyone know if there are value 1 BRs or 2 BRs?
You are correct that there are no HA studios in the Value booking category but there is one Value 1BR that is HA:

Room 5010, 1BR, Giraffe trail (so it faces the pool area). It does have a tub rather than a roll-in shower. There is no kitchen island.
 
We've received HA rooms about 3 times. This won't be popular here, but I refuse to stay in them at my home resort. This is my vacation. I have a disabled adult daughter and have also taken in my 89 yr old mother years ago. She's not with us anymore, and there is too much going on for my daughter to enjoy Disney with all her TBI issues. It may sound selfish, but Disney is the only place I can get away from all my disability responsibilities for more than a few hours.
 
We've received HA rooms about 3 times. This won't be popular here, but I refuse to stay in them at my home resort. This is my vacation. I have a disabled adult daughter and have also taken in my 89 yr old mother years ago. She's not with us anymore, and there is too much going on for my daughter to enjoy Disney with all her TBI issues. It may sound selfish, but Disney is the only place I can get away from all my disability responsibilities for more than a few hours.
So I have to ask.... how did you AVOID these? Mechanism for refusal would be vastly appreciated....
 
I recently ran into the other side of the issue with trying to change a reservation from a normal room to handicap accessible.

For an upcoming trip, my mother who needs a handicap accessible room expressed an interest in joining at the two month mark, so pretty last minute for DVC. I called to try and get the existing room reservation switched from non-handicap accessible to an accessible room with roll-in shower, thinking there shouldn't be an issue as long as there haven't been other people booking needing HA since rooms are assigned shortly before one's stay at a resort. Apparently, that's not the case.

According to the cast member I spoke with, the system phantom assigns people to HA at time of booking, so if there is no availability for rooms in general on the website they can not switch between HA and non-HA, whether other members requested the room type or not. To illustrate, if you have a 1 bedroom booked and break your ankle 2 months before your trip, you can't have your reservation changed to HA 1 bedroom unless there is availability on the RAT for all your dates at the resort in a standard 1 bedroom.

I was told the best I could do is put in a waitlist for all 5 nights, and if they became available then the system could reassign us. I did the waitlist, but stalked the RAT and when the next room size up became available I borrowed points in order to get a HA guarantee since it is a race weekend and very popular dates for the original room type.

Not sure that what the cast member said was accurate, but since he claimed to be wheelchair bound himself I think he would be motivated to find out accurate info on this issue.

Moral of the story, if there's a 50% chance my mother may decide to join a trip at some point later than booking, I'm booking HA now even though like a previous poster said, I wouldn't mind getting away from the room type when on a trip sans mom. :confused3
 
I recently ran into the other side of the issue with trying to change a reservation from a normal room to handicap accessible.

For an upcoming trip, my mother who needs a handicap accessible room expressed an interest in joining at the two month mark, so pretty last minute for DVC. I called to try and get the existing room reservation switched from non-handicap accessible to an accessible room with roll-in shower, thinking there shouldn't be an issue as long as there haven't been other people booking needing HA since rooms are assigned shortly before one's stay at a resort. Apparently, that's not the case.

According to the cast member I spoke with, the system phantom assigns people to HA at time of booking, so if there is no availability for rooms in general on the website they can not switch between HA and non-HA, whether other members requested the room type or not. To illustrate, if you have a 1 bedroom booked and break your ankle 2 months before your trip, you can't have your reservation changed to HA 1 bedroom unless there is availability on the RAT for all your dates at the resort in a standard 1 bedroom.

I was told the best I could do is put in a waitlist for all 5 nights, and if they became available then the system could reassign us. I did the waitlist, but stalked the RAT and when the next room size up became available I borrowed points in order to get a HA guarantee since it is a race weekend and very popular dates for the original room type.

Not sure that what the cast member said was accurate, but since he claimed to be wheelchair bound himself I think he would be motivated to find out accurate info on this issue.

Moral of the story, if there's a 50% chance my mother may decide to join a trip at some point later than booking, I'm booking HA now even though like a previous poster said, I wouldn't mind getting away from the room type when on a trip sans mom. :confused3

Yes, the system doesn't seem to allow MS to see if the HA rooms were booked as HA and make that switch if they haven't been. The only option was to search for an available HA room but if everything is booked that won't work of course. What we have been able to do when my sister has decided to join us is to put it in as a request but that only works if you are able to do work arounds in a regular room if the HA room isn't available. Last year at VGC we were able to request and get the roll-in shower. This year it was the same thing but that room had been booked thru our first night. Upon further consideration of her needs she just decided to book a hotel room to join us on the trip.
 
I recently ran into the other side of the issue with trying to change a reservation from a normal room to handicap accessible.

For an upcoming trip, my mother who needs a handicap accessible room expressed an interest in joining at the two month mark, so pretty last minute for DVC. I called to try and get the existing room reservation switched from non-handicap accessible to an accessible room with roll-in shower, thinking there shouldn't be an issue as long as there haven't been other people booking needing HA since rooms are assigned shortly before one's stay at a resort. Apparently, that's not the case.

According to the cast member I spoke with, the system phantom assigns people to HA at time of booking, so if there is no availability for rooms in general on the website they can not switch between HA and non-HA, whether other members requested the room type or not. To illustrate, if you have a 1 bedroom booked and break your ankle 2 months before your trip, you can't have your reservation changed to HA 1 bedroom unless there is availability on the RAT for all your dates at the resort in a standard 1 bedroom.

I was told the best I could do is put in a waitlist for all 5 nights, and if they became available then the system could reassign us. I did the waitlist, but stalked the RAT and when the next room size up became available I borrowed points in order to get a HA guarantee since it is a race weekend and very popular dates for the original room type.

Not sure that what the cast member said was accurate, but since he claimed to be wheelchair bound himself I think he would be motivated to find out accurate info on this issue.

Moral of the story, if there's a 50% chance my mother may decide to join a trip at some point later than booking, I'm booking HA now even though like a previous poster said, I wouldn't mind getting away from the room type when on a trip sans mom. :confused3


And this is my nightmare....

WDW assigns me to a "special" room that I don't NEED - but YOU do :(. I HATE this.
Neither of us gets what is really NEEDED. Worse, MY family has somehow impacted YOUR family.... :(.
I get Booking Agents. But putting us in a room YOU NEED is just WRONG.
 

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