So now were going to backtrack just a second.
My sister, Steph, and her BF, Rob, drove down from South Carolina. It was to be a 9 hour drive. They originally told me they were going to leave around 3am and planned to get to OKW around noon.
They left at midnight.
So they got to OKW at 9am. On the dot. Seriously.
I had done online check-in the Friday before we left, and I told Steph that although Online Check-In generally helps your room to be ready earlier than 4pm, there was almost no way it would be ready for 9am. She said they were OK with that, and they asked to be texted when the room was ready...they were going to hang at the pool.
Now here comes the really fun part.
Our DME bus finally arrived at OKW at around 2:30pm.
There 421 people in line to check in. I get called over to a really nice but maybe not the sharpest tool in the shed CM. I dont know why, but Tom follows me. She can obviously only check in one person at a time
but whatever.
In the meantime, my sister and Toni get in line to check to see if their room is ready yet (Steph, Rob, Toni, and Josh were all sharing a room).
My CM asks for my name instead of my reservation number which I thought was odd, but again, whatever. She found my packet with no problem.
Then she gets to Tom and Mikes room. Again, she asks for a last name. She cant find them in the system.
She must have asked 8 times how do you spell the last name again?
By now, Tom is getting angry
were all hot and tired and sweaty and hungry.
Do I need to speak to someone else? He asks rudely, I might add.
Well let me have your reservation number she FINALLY says. What a novel idea!
Basically...Tom is in the system under Tom M. III , and my brother is in the system under Mike T. Jr so when she was just typing in the last name she was pulling up me, my sister, or Toni, but couldnt find Mike or Tom because of the suffix. I WISH I was kidding when I said it took 15 minutes to figure this out.
She then proceeds to tell us that, while my and Lumars room is ready, Mike and Toms is not.
Oh, and theyre in building 12 while the rest of us are in 14.
The other four come over to us and say that, apparently, their room is ready. But my sister and Rob were mad because they never got a text message saying so, and they were super bored at the pool for the last 6 hours.
So we schlep everything upstairs, Lumar and I are on the 2nd floor, Stephs room is on the third.
You see those windows to the left of the tree on the top floor? That was their room.
There are no elevators in building 14.
Some pics of our room, 1422:
I just want to point out that I LOVED our balcony. I would have spent hours out there reading in the peace and quiet if I could have!
The view from said balcony:
Lumar and I invite Mike and Tom to stay with us while we wait on their room.
Steph calls me not 5 minutes later to say that even though the CM at the front desk gave them room keys, their room is NOT ready. So they sent Rob and Josh back to the desk to find out what was going on.
Apparently, the manager of housekeeping came over and cleaned their room himself, apologizing profusely because he had no idea WHY their room wasnt ever cleaned.
At 4pm, I finally convince my brother to take a shower in our room. He never checks a bag so he had all of his clothes and shower stuff with him.
Tom, on the other hand, did not listen to me when I said to pack clothes in his carry on, and I felt awful because at this point I never even thought about him getting his luggage from guest services. So hes fuming now, sitting in our room, giving the CM on the phone a hard time about how its now 4:15 and his room isnt ready yet.
We had dinner reservations at T-Rex for 6pm. I wanted to leave at 5pm to make sure we had some time to get there.
At 4:45, we finally decide to go downstairs to check on their room again, since we have to leave soon anyway.
Me and Lumar as we left the room:
Tom and Mike go into the desk while the rest of us went to check out the DTD Boat situation. The boat was closed due to an impending rain storm.
Although from this pic of the pool (which we never used), you would never know it:
The storm was actually to my back when I took this one.
Mike and Tom are just coming out of the lobby as were heading to the bus stop. Tom goes to bell services to at least get his luggage. The CM says They just brought it to your room.
He tells her that the lobby just told him that his room wasnt ready yet.
At that point, his cell phone beeps and he has a text message saying their room is ready.
The other 6 of us get on a DTD bus, Mike and Tom say theyll meet us there ASAP.
At 5pm, my brother texts me and says they just got to their room and they have no shower curtain.
We get to DTD around 5:10 and decided to get off at the Marketplace and browse through WoD for a while:
Lumar is a hat guy. What can I say?
At 6pm Mike texts me they are finally waiting for a bus. I checked us in at T-Rex, but the girl told us we cant be seated until the whole party is there. But she told us not to worry because we wont lose our table.
At 6:30 he says they have seen 4 MK buses, 3 Epcot buses, and 3 DHS buses, but no DTD buses, and the boat is still not running.
He we are....waiting at T-Rex:
(Toni, Josh, and Lumar)
(Steph, Lumar, and Rob)
(Rob - and some kid who totally photo-bombed AND got caught picking his wedgie)
(Steph and Lumar)
At 6:45, Mike texts and says they are finally on their way.
They finally arrive at just about 7pm and were seated. Tom is so angry, he's red. He doesn't speak until we are all actually sitting at the table.
My brother tells us that they ended up going to lobby again because a bus hasn't shown up and the CM sent out the MANAGER. The manager listens to their whole story about their whole experience so far, puts a $150 credit on their room, and gets someone to DRIVE them to DTD.
Now that all of that hullabaloo is over with, we can all sit down and EAT!
Just sitting in the loading area, you can see how badly this ride shows it's age. The trees that line the mural on the left side are all brown and wilted looking (and I don't even think they're real so for FAKE trees to be dying, there's a definite problem). The poor CM we had as our guide was new...and by new I mean she told us that she's only been working there "a couple of weeks."
)
However, I'm guessing by your title that at least someone did feel the magic!! 
