Harborside: Building and room assignment debacle

[trook]

TUG community: question regarding Harborside building and room assignments based on check in day, time stamp, room availability.

Thanks to TUG we have well educated ourselves to how our home resort Harborside operates with building assignments based on check in day, supposed time stamps being important with closer to exactly at midnight 1 year out for “floor and view preferences”, have maps of all the room locations (thank you for that!).

We did all of those things and booked our Phase II, Saturday, 2 bedroom (part of our 3 bedroom lockoff) exactly one year out at midnight on the dot. Yet when we showed up we were told there was no availability in building 5 and we would be in building 4, ground floor, facing another building. I know people don’t come to Harborside for the views, but unfortunately with 4 small children who nap for 3 hours in the middle of the day… having a decent chance at a view matters to us. With 5 of the 6 floors of 3 bedroom lockoff units in building 5 having decent views, we were a little upset. When politely trying to discuss, “Manager said there is nothing we can do”.

Have others run in to this before? How could our time stamp get trumped by that many people since there are no fixed weeks in phase 2? Or did we just get unlucky somehow and got screwed by them giving away our room to someone else? And how have others dealt with this/ suggestions of how to deal with in the future?

Harborside maintenance fees are getting crazy, the rooms are declining in the last several years even in terms of upkeep, and management treating owners like this has me questioning their attempts at guest service. Thanks for your input.

 

[EnglishmanAbroad]

We have almost always booked our resorts exactly at midnight, 12 months in advance and even doing so have had widely differing results with respect to the rooms we ended up in. Many on here report exactly the same experiences so I always put it down to luck of the draw. I was never very good in those old arcade/cowboy shoot out games so my 'draw' is obviously too slow

 

[DanCali]

We had something similar happen in the past. Seems like hit or miss and it does annoy me a lot too if it's on a home resort reservation booked at 12 months out.

I don't know that "timestamp" was ever "a thing" at Harborside like it's advertised to be at WKORV for example. And I think the advertised checkin days for each building have been more like a guideline for a while (building 4 is technically assigned Sunday).

They maybe sometimes go over preferences and assign the rooms. Maybe they miss some things (after all, why expect a lot for $4500+ in MFs for a 2R lockoff...)? Arrival time may also play a role - if you arrived late it's possible everyone else was already checked in and someone bargained their way into your assigned room?

 

[emeryjre]

You unit is competing with people who booked 3 bedroom units
The room assignment could have been determined by the number of 2 bedroom units left after filling 3 bedroom reservations first
Just a suggestion as to the possibilities of why you ended up with the unit you were assigned