Sold Out Hotels at Disney World in Late 2022
Walt Disney World resort availability is extremely limited for this Christmas season through early January 2023, prompting reader questions and concerns. This post addresses what’s going on with the sold out hotels, lack of discounts, and commentary about what you can expect later next year. (Updated October 10, 2022.)
A couple of months ago, we warned that resorts were already selling out for the holiday season in our post, Don’t Wait for Discounts to Book Fall & Christmas 2022 Trips to Walt Disney World. The title pretty much says it all. Despite a temporary reprieve, pent-up demand appears to still be going strong for the most popular time of year to stay at Walt Disney World.
This essentially serves as a “heads up” to those thinking about last minute holiday trips or anyone wondering why many or most hotels are showing up as unavailable when searching for rooms. With some hotels already having limited available through early 2023, we’d strongly recommend booking your resort and other vacation components ASAP. Get something flexible and refundable locked-in now so you aren’t shut out or paying higher prices later. Additionally, we now have explanations as to why this is happening.
This appears to be history repeating itself, with a similar trend to what we saw last year around the start of Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary and Christmas, as well as earlier this year. With October through December being the busiest stretch of the year at Walt Disney World, you might want to book now if you’re already looking ahead to 2023.
One of the biggest changes on the limited hotel availability front since this time last year is that all previously-closed resorts have reopened. Port Orleans Riverside and French Quarter, plus All Star Music and Sports, as well as Animal Kingdom Lodge – Jambo House all reopened since last fall.
That’s over 15% of Walt Disney World’s total room inventory that’s now available for booking but was not earlier in the year–and that’s even before taking into account maximum occupancy thresholds, which have almost certainly increased as compared to last fall due to staffing strides.
Despite this inventory spike, many Walt Disney World hotels are sold out for a range of dates in the next several months. The simplest and most straightforward explanation for sold out resorts at Walt Disney World is demand. We’ve been warning ad nauseam of “Revenge Travel” at Walt Disney World. You’re probably sick of hearing about this, but the travel industry continues to see strong bookings due to consumers shifting their spending from goods to services to make up for lost time.
Last year, the expectation was that the start of the World’s Most Magical Celebration would be incredibly busy. Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary would take years-in-the-making “homecoming” trips last October through December, adding another wrinkle to pent-up demand. The Delta variant had other ideas, and October ended up being one of the slowest months of the year, with crowds not really recovering. The weeks of Thanksgiving and Christmas were still busy, but otherwise, crowds were relatively muted.
However, demand does not account for the “fully booked” hotels at Walt Disney World, at least not entirely. While Walt Disney World is not capping park attendance as before, this is occurring at the resorts.
This is not as a vestige of physical distancing. Instead, it’s due to staffing shortages. These persist in key roles that disproportionately impact the resorts at this point.
As a whole, Walt Disney World has turned a corner on its staffing shortages. The College Program’s accelerated resumption and Walt Disney World’s aggressive hiring blitz are now paying off. Tons of new employees have gone through Traditions training and been assigned to locations around Walt Disney World.
Consequently, Walt Disney World’s theme parks are mostly fine. Attractions, retail, and most other areas are adequately staffed.
However, this is not true across the board. Walt Disney World continues to hold job fairs, and is offering hiring bonuses and higher pay for certain roles. In particular, Walt Disney World has had ongoing and significant shortages for housekeeping, cooks, and bus drivers.
To remedy the bus driver shortage, Walt Disney World has contracted with a third party coach bus company (hence all of the Academy buses around the complex for the last several months). Not having much success, Disney recently increased hiring bonuses–some are now up to $6,000 depending on the position and location of the applicant! The company is also offering referral bonuses to current Cast Members who recruit new hires.
In an attempt to take pressure off the housekeeper shortage, Walt Disney World unofficially “banned” 1-night stays for peak holiday season travel dates. This restriction was never publicly announced, but if you tried to book a single night reservation, no availability would’ve shown via the online booking engine. If you expanded that to 2-nights encompassing the exact same dates, viola, there was availability.
That limitation on 1-night bookings is now gone, but don’t be surprised if Walt Disney World brings it back should demand exceed supply (of housekeepers) again. If this does happen, it’s likely to occur from late November through early 2023. (It’s worth noting that we are still encountering similar 3-night minimum stays for certain Hilton and Marriott hotels in the Flamingo Crossings area.)
During several quarterly earnings calls this year, CEO Bob Chapek addressed how staffing is impacting Walt Disney World operations. He has said that the company has “self-imposed capacity constraints” as a form of “mitigation” due to problems with staffing shortages for several positions that are integral to the guest experience.
Even before Chapek spoke about this issue, we addressed Walt Disney World’s housekeeper shortage. The causes of the current labor shortages are multifaceted, and the analysis in the above post applies to both housekeepers and cooks. By and large, it’s something that won’t be remedied by hiring bonuses–it has gotten better, but will likely continue to be an issue in 2023 and beyond.
These staffing woes directly impact operations, occupancy, and the guest loads that resorts can accommodate. In particular, Disney can’t fill every resort room every night if there aren’t enough housekeepers to turn them all over by check-in time. Insufficient dining capacity at restaurants and food courts likewise means Disney can’t fully book all rooms at a resort without causing issues at peak meal times.
Prior to Chapek confirming this, we had heard rumblings about these issues for months and of room inventory being held back as a result. Rumors of Port Orleans Riverside operating with only a handful of its buildings filled with guests, Contemporary Resort having minimal issues relocating guests when undertaking a last-minute refurbishment of half its rooms, and many more anecdotes. The totality of these stories strongly suggested that the hotels were leaving a large percentage of their rooms unfilled to reduce other pressures around Walt Disney World related to the staffing shortages.
In searching for room options in November and December 2022, we are once again seeing many or most resorts sold out. While it’s normal for some resorts to be sold out, usually most have at least some options. It’s also worth noting that the above date range for Veterans’ Day is particularly bad–worse than Thanksgiving, Christmas, or other busy weeks.
Even in searching other dates during the holiday season with better availability, it’s difficult to find anything for Pop Century, Caribbean Beach, Yacht Club, Beach Club, Wilderness Lodge, and the Polynesian. All are difficult to score for full trips, as are other hotels from time to time.
When trying to assess “real” demand levels, it’s also worth point out that the lack of availability often does not extend to third party resorts to nearly the same degree. Sure, there are the dates when the price of the Swan & Dolphin or Four Seasons randomly skyrockets to absurd territory, but that’s not all that abnormal.
Many other times, there’s no availability at Disney-owned hotels but there’s no shortage of reasonably priced third party alternatives. Suffice to say, if Walt Disney World doesn’t have hotel availability or the rack rates you’re seeing are too pricey or beyond your comfort zone, consider booking a refundable rate at third party properties.
We’re seeing availability at the Swan & Dolphin, Bonnet Creek, Disney Springs, Grand Cypress, Universal, and Flamingo Crossing hotels. If you haven’t had Flamingo Crossings on your radar before, it might be worth considering. Several hotels have opened in the last year, including Target, Walgreens, and multiple other retail, dining, and grocery locations.
Ultimately, that should help explain what’s going on with unavailable rooms at Walt Disney World. Pent-up demand and revenge travel are playing a huge part, and will likely continue to do so due to international visitors even as domestic demand fizzles out. That’s not the full story, though.
There’s also the reality that “fully booked” hotels at Walt Disney World are not even close to 100% occupancy and are not actually sold out of all rooms. They’re capped at lower levels due to staffing shortages, in particular housekeepers, bus drivers, and kitchen staff. As Walt Disney World continues to undertake hiring initiatives and as demand normalizes, this problem should start working itself out.
The availability–or lack thereof–that we’re currently seeing for this holiday season through January 2023 indicates that, once again, pent-up demand is posing a problem for Walt Disney World resort availability. While things had gotten better earlier this year, it’s clear the problem isn’t totally resolved. Here’s hoping Christmas 2023 plays out differently, but you may want to book something sooner rather than later even for next holiday season. We’ll keep you posted as this situation continues to change.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think is driving the availability issue at Walt Disney World? Do you think pent-up demand is the big issue, with people making up for lost time traveling and not caring how much they’re paying? Think the housekeeping, dining, bus driver, or other staffing shortages help explain the problem? How do you expect the hotel inventory problem to play out? Do you agree or disagree with our commentary? Do you agree or disagree with our advice? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
We stayed at the Yacht Club for the last 2 weeks of September. The hotel was listed as sold out for some time prior to then. While at the Yacht Club, essentially every guest that we saw in the elevators either exited or entered on the third floor. I believe it’s a 5 story hotel so I think floors 2, 4 and 5 may have been empty in the wing we stayed in.
Nope, the longer stay theory doesn’t work. I have been trying to book 7 nights at the Pop since July. I want to avoid holidays and have to work around hubby’s schedule and he’s retired. It is impossible. I have never had so much of a problem. Okay we want a preferred room. You might be able to get4 to 5 nights with Southwest deals mid week, but we found out on the last trip with airfare etc. It wasn’t worth it. I reallly don’t get it. Why wouldn’t Disney want people staying in the bubble for more than 5 nights.
Thanks so much for this article. Our family is going to Disney Decmeber 2-6th, thinking we were missing the Thanksgiving crowds and pre Christmas crowds, but the lack of resort availability is giving me pause for how crowded it really will be at that time. I think it is odd though that the availability opens up again after December 12, almost all hotels are wide open. That is about the time that the holiday crowds start to form and when the Disney Holiday Hotel Discount is available. You would think it would be the opposite for when Disney is historically more crowded. Ugh, what a weird year between the 50th Anniversary & Covid revenge travel.
I’m booked for early December 1st through the 5th. I don’t understand how they are so booked up I mean are people pulling their kids out of school to go to Disney World before vacation breaks?
We have found that in many cases if you try to book a one or two night stay there is no availability, but if you book a 3 or more night stay all of a sudden they can accomodate.
re DVC: I think there is more to it than needing to book early. In previous years, I have found last-minute accommodations available in the larger resorts, like Saratoga Springs and AKL.
With the USA announcing it will open borders to UK in November, there are a heap of UK people dying to get back to their second home. The Virgin Atlantic site crashed the day after the opening was announced as people scrambled to purchase flights. Then there were also already a heap of people who had previous holidays to Disney booked who wouldn’t cancel them, hoping the borders would open – the wait paid off.
So very excited for our Christmas/New Year trip.
It will be our 4th trip within a year but this one will be extra special because we finally get to stay at Polynesian again and eat at Ohana’s and also enjoy Christmas along with the 50th all mixed together!!!
So, pre-Covid, even when overall park attendance was considered or predicted to be “average”, and even amid a tight labor market, has there ever been a time when Disney hotel room limitations were this bad? I’ve noticed that there are plenty of nearby off-property hotel rooms that are still plentiful.
Never when park attendance was forecast to be average.
This is like Millennium Celebration level of sold out hotel rooms.
Disney’s vaccine mandates for their employees has not caused a staffing shortage in the restaurants or in the parks, unless people who drive busses and clean hotel rooms are more likely to not trust vaccines for some reason. I think it’s more likely that WDW has been been focusing most (or all?) of their efforts towards hiring people for the parks and restaurants than those for housekeeping or transportation, given how fast they’ve ramped up beyond expectations.
I wonder if Disney’s vaccine mandates for their employees has anything to do with their staffing shortages. Just a thought.
Disney has had difficulties hiring housekeepers and bus drivers for at least the last 3 years. The tighter labor market exacerbated those woes this spring, right as demand picked up. Other local and nationwide employers are having issues hiring for the exact same positions, regardless of any such mandates.
I don’t doubt that Disney has lost some employees because of the mandates, but the persistent nature of this shortage and timeline rebuts the notion that the vaccine mandate is a major factor here.
I would expect that the loosening of international travel restrictions will be causing an incremental glut of hotel reservations (even if it doesn’t have a huge impact on crowd levels itself). Especially with how Disney is now aggressively marketing packages to the UK, and such visitors tend to stay for longer than US visitors, using more inventory per party.
I’m a tiny bit surprised, in fact, not to have seen an article on here about this momentous news; especially since (as I understand) awareness in the US of the travel restrictions is quite limited (I may be wrong there!), and thus there may not be widespread awareness from domestic visitors of some of the implications of the changes in availability and policy in terms of how Disney markets going forward.
My expectation is that international travel starts returning in an impactful way to Walt Disney World in 2022–right around the time domestic demand drops off. My bet is actually that more international visitors cancel “placeholder” reservations than book new ones between now and the end of the year. Could be totally off on that, though.
I wanted to cover the international travel restrictions, but we were at Space 220 when that news broke and that became the priority. When I finally had free time, it felt like “old news.” Perhaps I should still cover it, as there’s relevance to Americans, too…
Reading between the lines based on everyone’s experiences, I feel like staffing shortages is the main factor here. It sounds like they are stretched thin but trying to hide it. Having availability for longer bookings but not shorter ones during the same dates says to me that they don’t have the housekeeping staff to turn over the rooms for a bunch of back to back bookings. But with longer bookings they can space things out, and they view it as more “worth the hassle” because those guests will be spending more money overall.
Helpful tip for anyone trying to book Oct-Nov at a WDW hotel:
My husband and I tried to add 1 night to our current reservation the week of Thanksgiving. We couldn’t find one Disney hotel available for that night. We even called the reservation line and they said there was no availability.
We tried adding 2 nights instead (even though we only need 1) and many hotel options showed up. We called and talked to a cast member and she (off the record) explained that during very busy times at WDW, Disney often won’t allow 1-night reservations. She recommended booking the 2-nights and then calling and cancelling 1 night the next day.
Long story short, play around with your dates and see if you can find at least close to what you need. You can always call and remove nights the next day!
This is excellent insight! I had never heard this, but it makes complete sense. I’ve noticed that fiddling with date ranges yields different results, but I’m surprised Disney’s online system is this sophisticated (I just assumed it was an error).
I’ll be sharing this advice going forward. 🙂
I went down last week for a one-night photography-oriented visit and stayed at the Home2 Suites in Flamingo Crossings. It was VERY affordable and the hotel itself was very nice, while being just a 10 minute drive from MK. I previously never even thought about staying off-site, but this has opened my eyes to such adventures and I would definitely consider that same hotel for future visits! After all, my family and I usually just wind up sleeping at the hotel anyway, maybe we have one pool day. Certainly not always worth Disney’s premium for that, especially if we already have a car.
Great post, Tom (and Sarah)! I love the insight and thought process.
The DVC stuff in January booked up by like April. DVC for most months now always needs to be done at like 10-11 months out or you miss out.
There are food server and custodial shortages all over the country so I would guess it’s housekeeping and custodial shortages. When you check WDW job openings, they’re also looking for chefs and culinary. I grabbed a pirate room at CBR (because that was all that was available) without realizing the beds are full size. I was told that as holiday specials started coming through I could switch to a preferred room but I’m not holding out much hope. Feeling lucky we got anything at all, frankly.
Just returned from a four-day trip with my daughters. We stayed at the Beach Club, where there didn’t seem to be a great deal of guests. Granted, it is still the lull before the storm, but it was surprising. The one issue that stood out was the lack of sufficient housekeeping service. It was every other day; even then, it seemed to only include fresh towels, as needed, and emptying wastebaskets. There was no cleaning of sinks or tubs, and beds were not made. It was extremely disappointing and very short of what you should expect of that resort level.
How can there be cancellations of boo bash tickets? I thought they were non-refundable.
We are 30 days out, and suddenly there are a lot more choices.