Online check in

[lomillerin]

What are the pros and cons,?
How soon can you check in?
How does this affect room requests?

 

[mrs_incredible]

Online check worked out so well for us! We were able to get our room requests and Disney even texted us our room number before our scheduled arrival time. I didn't see the lobby at all this trip. Loved it!

 

[disney world dreamer]

pros:
-get your room number before arriving at the resort (in most cases anyways)
-bypass the lobby altogether.

cons:
-none that i found.

60 days out.

well you can make room requests at time of booking and then you can also make some requests during online check in. for example at POP you can select one of the decades, whether you want lake view, which floor you'd prefer to be on...
you can also request that your room be ready as early in the day as possible if you are arriving early in the day.
just note that if you check that box it does make it your most important request so they may not give you your other requests but they will certainly try.

in april i was able to get my room number texted/emailed to me while on DME and i arrive at POP at about 9:30am and went directly to my room and saw that i got everything i requested including the early arrival, 50's section, and lake view.

 

[ILV]

Can you still cancel a room-only reservation after you have done online check-in if you're within the normal cancelation policy window?

 

[disney world dreamer]

Can you still cancel a room-only reservation after you have done online check-in if you're within the normal cancelation policy window?

yes of course.

 

[Lucius Best]

What are the pros and cons,?
How soon can you check in?
How does this affect room requests?

We've done online check-in a few times, but we stopped doing it if we had any specific room requests, because we rarely got what we wanted. One big con is if they don't accommodate your room request, you need to go wait in line at the front desk anyway to get what you want. On last trip other family members requested connecting rooms months in advance, did online check-in, got the text message, and rooms weren't connecting. Necessitating a visit to the front desk to move to connecting rooms.