Are you a Good Neighbor? The Good Neighbor Hotel Rule No One Warns You About
Are you a Good Neighbor? The Good Neighbor Hotel Rule No One Warns You About
Have you heard of Good Neighbor hotels?
If you've tried planning for a trip to Disney World, you may have heard the term used before on travel blogs or by youtubers to describe hotel properties that are close to Disney World but not owned by Disney. These hotels can be wonderful (and affordable) alternatives to Disney properties and many come with amazing amenities and benefits. Some even come with WDW benefits such as early theme park entry, extended evening hours and transportation to the park.
Many are also a few minutes walk away from Disney owned properties and transportation. So if you can get all of these benefits at a fraction of the cost, then it seems like a no-brainer to aim for a room at a GNH. Still there are a few cons to consider.
As an example, properties such as the Swan and Dolphin hotels tend to host a number of conferences making finding a room to book difficult as these conferences can happen at any point in the year. Combine that with other park goers trying to book a room close to a holiday or WDW festival and availability shrinks even more. But that is a challenge for any hotel near or on WDW property. The issue we ran into that we've never heard anyone discuss before is about changes to a GNH reservation.
About a year ago, we planned a trip to WDW and were able to get a reservation at a GNH for 3 out of the 5 days we planned on staying. Our hope was that after our reservation was up we'd be able to either extend our stay or combine rooms (we reserved 2 rooms) for the remainder of our time. There was a conference that was starting during our stay which made extended both rooms impossible, so our choices came down to staying in one room at the GNH or moving to a Disney property for the remaining nights. To save money, we decided to stay where we were.
On the hotel's end, this was fine and the process went as smooth as can be. The problem came on Disney's end. While our hotel provided benefits such as early entry and extended evening hours (a perk you only receive if you stay in a deluxe WDW resort) Disney's system was unable to recognize that we had extended our stay in our hotel past the initial 3 days. So while these benefits were available to us for the first 3 days, we would not be able to enjoy them for the final 2.
So, why?
Turns out there is a breakdown in communication between GNH's and Disney's reservation system. Since these are different systems, it typically takes 3-5 days for a change on the GNH's side to be communicated to Disney. For us, this meant extending our stay for an additional 2 nights, wouldn't be recognized by the Disney World system until after we returned home.
While we were frustrated, there wasn't much that we could do. Had we known about this rule we would have either made different plans (shorter stay), picked different dates or switched to the Disney owned property which would have recognized our reservations immediately.
So if you find yourself in this situation with a Good Neighbor Hotel, just know that it may be better to split with another property than extending it if you are trying to get the most out of their park benefits.
