And your time of arrival has no bearing on getting your room request either.
Best way to get your request to keep them at a bare minimum and as general as possible, to give them a wide pool of rooms to choose from, or as wide as possible.
Like last week at FQ, I requested, via fax from TP, Building 4, 1st floor if possible. That's it. We got Building 4, 1st floor. Room wasn't ready when we arrived (we were moving from another resort) but the CM at check in made a point to tell me we got our request, so I know they read it