CHANGES Made to Hotel Booking Process at Disney World

Sure, the Disney World theme parks are fun…but the HOTELS are where it’s at!

Polynesian Village Resort

Staying at a Disney World hotel allows you to get into the parks early and stay late (and these perks have been extended through 2024!) and they provide free transportation to the parks. Not only that, but many have restaurants that are destinations on their own, and new upgrades are being added constantly. Now, it looks like the booking process for Disney World hotels will be getting a major overhaul!

Thanks to a DFB reader, we got a look at a new email sent by Disney regarding hotel rooms. The email says, “We wanted to let you know that we are making some changes to our resort room type names in order to make it simpler for you to choose the room you want in the future.”

Not every Disney hotel is for everybody — that’s why it’s important to make a list of your needs, wants, and priorities! To help, you can get our list of the BEST Disney World hotels and where to avoid below.

Disney also released a statement to travel agents about the upcoming changes. “Effective later this month, and including all 2024 reservations, the names of some room categories at Deluxe Resorts will be simplified,” Disney said. There will be three new categories — resort view, water view, and theme park view.

Grand Floridian

Disney continued by saying that this change will “focus on the guest experience at check-in as we assign rooms and prioritize specific requests.”

Disney’s Wilderness Lodge

Currently, there are many different categories of room types. We took a look at the Wilderness Lodge room types as an example and saw many different names including standard view, nature view, courtyard view, and nature fireworks view.

A look at the current room types at Wilderness Lodge

We did notice that the change already hit the website — here’s Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort as an example.

The new room type names

However, based on some of our experiences, this change could make picking rooms more complicated. For example, one time we booked a “water view” room thinking that we would be overlooking a lagoon. When we got to our room, though, we noticed the view was of a random fountain instead…so if that starts happening again, Disney could have difficulty with complaints.