We had 2 experiences when we traveled with family groups with multiple rooms when our assigned room was changed between when the first room checked in early in the day and when we checked in later in the day. When the first room checked in they inquired about the other rooms in our group, and while they (of course) could not be told the exact room numbers were told the buildings (this was POR). Then, we checked in probably8 hrs later and were put in a different building which was also alligator bayou instead of one of the mansion buildings where the other 3 rooms in our group were. My assumption is that people checking in before us were unhappy with their rooms, so since we had not checked in yet they gave them our preassigned room (despite being linked to 3 other rooms). They were able to get us a room in the same building as our family, so we probably bumped someone else! This same scenario happened on 2 different trips. I have no experience with working at a front desk of a hotel, but I do always wonder why people are so adamant that their blocked out room will definitely be there when they check in super late. I feel rather confident that unless you have some special situation, if there is an irate or even irritated guest standing at the front desk wanting a different room, and the room you are "assigned" to is still empty, they will give that current guest the room and move your assigned one. It just makes sense. I would expect it, and honestly if I were checking in early and had requests I would be pretty ticked off to find out that there were tons of rooms that met my requests empty that would work, but they were being held for someone coming in after me. As long as they are the same room category, I would expect to be able to get the room. FIrst come first serve. This is why we always stayed offsite the first night and checked in very early in the AM when I was young and we drove (well, plus my parents were cheap!). We made it clear we didn't want a room that was necessarily ready early, we wanted a room that met our requests. Most of the time we were successful with most of the requests, and we did have quite a few (most often at POR, back before online check in, tons of bookable views, preferred rooms, etc). I also have had many experiences when I checked into a Disney hotel and did not have my requests met with the initial room assignment, but after a varied amount of back and forth was able to get a room that met my requests. Sometimes it simply took me asking, other times they had to check with the room assigner or supervisor and it was quite an ordeal, and once we did move in the morning from what we found out was classified as an obstructed view. Only one time out of 40 trips were we just flat our not able to have any of our requests met. I would like to say we decided we liked the location we got better, and always requested it in the future, but that was definitely not the case. However, it was still a great trip. I guess that was a long winded way for me to say that, while it is not from a bad personal experience, I do think you have a good chance of getting less that desirable room when you check in super late! Also, sorry about the run on paragraph. For some reason the computer will not let me start a new paragraph, and I do not want to start this over again!
