Dad has been planning this trip for 5 years and we were finally able to make the reservations today! My parents are treating the family (3 kids/spouses and 6, soon to be 7, grandchildren) to a weeklong trip to WDW, staying at OKW. They are paying for nearly everything...rooms, tickets, airfare and food.

We are DVC members and dad "rented" points (which were actually transfered into our account) so that we could reserve the 5 weeknights of our trip. For the weekend nights, he's paying cash.

I called Member Services today with Dad standing by. Our phone call took just shy of 2 hours to complete everything. The CM, Calvin, was so patient and helpful. We had a complicated reservation...

...first night on cash, (2) 2BR units, each with 7-8 people on the reservation...
...second night on points, same (2) 2BR's plus the Deluxe Dining Plan...
...third-sixth nights on points, same (2)2BR's...no dining plans...
...seventh night...couldn't book it yet because we are outside of 11 months and we are paying cash for that night.

The poor guy had to create six different reservations (all booked under one confirmation number) and manually input everyone's names and ages. Then, he made the mistake of asking if we have any special celebrations...

...Mom and Dad's 40th Anniversary...
...Nephew's (the ONLY grandson) birthday...
...Niece's birthday...
...My daughter's birthday (same day as my niece's)
...SiL's birthday...
...and 4 children and 1 adult will be making their first visit.

He input ALL of the celebrations on EACH segment of our reservation. Then he put us on hold for about 10 minutes...

When he came back, he profusely apologized...apparently, the system DELETED all of the celebration information on each reservation...but he got it fixed.

Dad was super-excited because he had budgeted about $810 per night for each of the 2BR's that he's reserving on cash. His jaw hit the floor when the CM told us that the rooms were available with the DVC member discount. The total for each room came to "only" $605 per night. Dad was elated because he realized that the $800 he saved would almost completely cover the DxDDP for the one night.

After our reservation was complete, the CM transferred us to the Grand Gatherings advisor and we registered as a Grand Gathering. This took almost 30 minutes because she had to "review" the reservation and create a "database" for us, manually adding everyone's names and ages again.

So, we are now officially booked! The next steps are to add the last night on cash (I'll be calling on Saturday to do that), add the DxDDP to the second night of the trip (for some reason, the computer wouldn't let him do it today) and then book Magical Express. Oh, and then the fun part....DINING ADR's