5 in a one bedroom

Dont know where this thread should be....

Having 5 in our family, and (almost) every one bedroom lists 4 occupants.

The question I have is how strick does different TSs enforce this? It is by company, location, etc?

For example, we want to trade into DVC and Marriott Hawaii, but it seems mostly one bedroom units come open. Do they care, or do people have to sneak their 5th guest (child) in? (or it is a fire code issue or something TSs want)

Not All Families Of 5 Are Created Equal.

JimIg23 said:

Having 5 in our family, and (almost) every one bedroom lists 4 occupants.

The question I have is how strick does different TSs enforce this? It is by company, location, etc?

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I don't know the rights & wrongs involved, or even the rules, but 1 time we rented out our cozy lock-off timeshare 1BR "B" unit to a family comprising mom & dad & junior 3 years old & junior's twin sisters less than 1 year old. The bunch of them had to be plenty cozy in there. After everybody got home, they sent us a nice note thanking us for the (bargain) rental & mentioning that everybody had a nice time. However that may be, I'm sure the only reason it worked out OK for everybody is that all 3 kids were tiny tots. With bigger kids, no way.

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

I know DVC allows 5 in the unit if one is a child under 3yr. Believe me, it would be very cozy. And Disney is pretty strict about the policy. Marriotts's rooms are much larger. I doubt there would be a problem accomodating a family of 5 with young children in most Marriotts. As long as you aren't trying to cram 5 adult sized people in there, you probably won't have any problem. We have never been asked how many in our group when checking into a Marriott.

The policy tends to be resort specific. I know several places that will provide a rollaway for a fifth person in a 1 bedrooms/sleep 4. It generally depends on the size of the unit. Also, places in "Spring Break" type destinations might tend to be stricter.

Resort specific. Call before you book to make sure. If you don't and the resort is strict, you can be evicted. That's worst case, but certainly a very bad situation.

The best policy is to call the resort and ask before confirming an exchange if you expect to have more people than the listed maximum. You would not be happy if you showed up and were not allowed to use your exchange.

What the others say.

Obviously it would be foolish to say it does not happen. We have a blow-up bed that travels with us a lot, even on the plane in our luggage.

Not a statement of any resort's policy, or encouragement to violate any rules, but if the five of you are never in the same place at the same time . . .

We have done the number of exchanges shown below over the number of years shown below, and have not run into occupancy cops yet. No one has ever come around at 10:00 PM to count heads or any other body parts.

At most resorts once you check in you will never have contact with anyone at the resort again, well, except for the sales people at some resorts, since they insist on you sharing your vacation with them , or at planned activities you choose to attend.

All that said, a virtual timeshare buddy offered Ram's Horn Village at Estes Park to US recently. Any way I counted those we would want to take with us, it came out over the occupancy limits. So I called the resort. We could upgrade from a Sleep 6 to a Sleep 8 for an arm or a leg, our choice.

So we did not take it.

I've heard that Disney will allow 5 in one bedrooms for DVC members making reservations with points, but they won't provide the extra bedding. (I don't know about exchanges, though - that's something different.) I personally wouldn't want to sleep 5 in a one bedroom, though - unless it was OKW. The DVC one bedrooms (except for OKW) are pretty small, only about 700 to 750 square feet. That's pretty tight for 5 in my opinion. Old Key West 1 bedrooms are a little over 1,000 square feet and much roomier than the other DVC's 1 bedrooms.

When DVC's new Animal Kingdom Lodge villas open, it will have 1 bedrooms that will sleep 5. There's a chair in the living room that converts into a bed for the 5th person. And of course, the living room sofa pulls out into a bed also.

Be careful

Many cities (zoning) and some states have laws (ie. CA, AZ, FL) limiting the numbers of occupants per bedroom. The rationale is based on health, safety and fire requirements. If discovered, the resort can require the owner to evict. Many CC&Rs (rules and regulations governing the resort set up by developers) allow the management to throw out any occupants not complying to these standards, getting around tedious evicition requirements.

The following is published in every issue of the newsletter at a couple of the resorts where I own a unit.

We continue to have homeowners and exchangers show up for their week with more members in their party than the maximum occupancy of their unit. To save embarrassment and check-in problems, please understand that management is required to enforce the occupancy limits and we cannot allow anyone to check in with extra people.

Each unit's occupancy is as follows:
One bedroom: 4 individuals regardless of age
Two bedroom: 6 individuals regardless of age

Please understand that these occupancy restrictions have always been required at this resort and were in place when the units were sold.

Anyone found with additional people in their party will be fined $75 per each additional person per day and will also have to immediately make arrangements for them to stay elsewhere.

One of these resorts also printed the following in one of the newsletters, soon after the $75 fee was instituted. Until then, they had just demanded that the group leave.

The violation of occupancy limits is not a tongue-in-cheek, wink-and-a-nod, we'll do it anyway kind of violation of resort policy. This practice places a terrible burden on the unit in regard to wear and damage. This is damaging, costly excess that directly impacts every owner at the resort. We will do our very best to detect it when it takes place and charge accordingly. Owners in violation will have the $75 charge tacked onto their maintenance fee, while renters and exchangers will have it taken from their security deposit.

No sense of humor there, huh?!

All In Fun. Right?

JLB said:

No sense of humor there, huh?

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Shucks, there are even a few isolated corners of TUG -- not many, fortunately only a few -- where there is no sense of humor. Who'd a-thunk?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

We rented a one bedroom at Disney Boardwalk Villas for a family of 5. The resort was aware of the number of occupants. We got 5 room keys.
There was no issue with there being 5 of us. We had 2 adults and 3 children ages 8, 12, and 17.

brego said:

We rented a one bedroom at Disney Boardwalk Villas for a family of 5. The resort was aware of the number of occupants. We got 5 room keys.
There was no issue with there being 5 of us. We had 2 adults and 3 children ages 8, 12, and 17.

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I have read on various forums that Disney allows 5 in a 1 bedroom. They will not provide rollaways or any additional linens. Most often people report being told the 5th person must be a young child.

JimIg23,

You should probably do some research into the areas you plan to visit. Find all the resorts with 1 bedroom units that will allow 5 occupants. One of my resorts is set up for 6 in the one bedroom side of the lock-off. The studio side sleeps 4 for a total of 10 people. That is the number the resort will allow for the whole unit. When I split & deposit, however, it only shows 4 and 2 because of the privacy issue. Call their 800 numbers and ask if you don't have a clear indication. Then when you request exchanges you can list only those resorts that you know will work for your family. The only other solution is to only buy a 2 bedroom if you are ever going to use it for exchange. That way you will be able to request units that hold 5 people.

It pays to check with the resort

RCI says that our one bedroom at the Windrifter is a 2/4, yet the unit has both a pull out sofa double bed and a pull out chair single bed in the living room. The Windrifter calls it a 2/5.

It can't hurt to call, and it CAN hurt to show up with too many people.

It's not uncommon for size and occupancy to vary between the exchange companies and reality. Let's fact it, the exchange companies have limited sizes and the real world is limitless. Someone at the exchange companies just picks a category for each unit.

As an example, Topeka Tom and Barb had a family reunion at Pointe Royale last November. The exchange was for a 3 bedroom with 10 or 12 as capacity.

In reality it was half a duplex townhouse, two floors, two kitchens, four or five bedrooms and every sofa a sleep sofa. A small army, like Samoa's for instance, could have stayed there.

SBK said:

RCI says that our one bedroom at the Windrifter is a 2/4, yet the unit has both a pull out sofa double bed and a pull out chair single bed in the living room. The Windrifter calls it a 2/5.

It can't hurt to call, and it CAN hurt to show up with too many people.

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We almost got stranded last year because of this. We had information that we could have a fifth person sleep on the floor, so we had our blow-up mattress along, but it was mis-information. After speaking to the manager explaining what we had been told and it was our first time at that resort, they offered a two bedroom (about $560 extra for the week , but we were on Kauai, what could we do?) and had a marvelous time. I feel we were fortunate in that because it was in June.

Marty