Bell Services at OKW

[jollymon2]

Hey all,

A quick question. I'm headed down to OKW for ten days in a few weeks and at peoples recomendations here, we requested to be in the Southpoint area near the quiet pool. That will work great for us, but I just had a thought today. We won't have a car and are using Magical Express, so getting there won't be an issue, but on the return trip home we need to get our luggage to the HH. Does OKW have bell service, and if so how timely are they? I think our flight out is at 1:30pm, so we'll probably be picked up around 10:30. How much advance notice should I give them to give us enough time? Thanks for all of your advice.

 

[La2kw]

Bell Service will come in a van to pick you up. Sometimes they use a pergo. They are pretty timely, usually about 10-20 minutes, possibly longer during peak times.

 

[RobDoc]

We always call them as soon as we're ready to go and they will come quickly. They are pretty well staffed in the late mornings and should have no problem with getting you if you call at 10:00am - plenty of time for the 10:25 DME bus for OKW.

Enjoy your trip!

 

[disneykidatheart]

We always call them as soon as we're ready to go and they will come quickly. They are pretty well staffed in the late mornings and should have no problem with getting you if you call at 10:00am - plenty of time for the 10:25 DME bus for OKW.

Enjoy your trip!

It doesn't always work that smoothly. Last year we had to be at the HH to catch the ME at 8:30 a.m. We realized the evening before that we would like to use bell services and called them. We were told the books had been taken to the check in desk and to call them. We called the check in desk and were told we would have to call bell services in the morning. I asked when bell services would be open and called repeatedly from that time until about 5 minutes before we actually went out the door. No one answered the phone until that last time. We were told it would take 40 minutes to pick us up. I told them not to bother, we hauled our bags down to the bus stop (luckily we were within spitting distance of it--unluckily we heard every bus for five days). We were on the bus in a minute or two and at the HH in plenty of time to check in with our airline. We were in Southpoint at OKW. This was in early February 2006.

 

[pistonfan32]

We were just at OKW and faced the same issue. Go to the Bell desk early in your trip and reserve a time for them to come pick up your luggage. Depending on your airline, you may be able to check in your luggage at OKW for your return flight home. That was very convenient for us. You have to do this at least three hours before your flight. Our flight was at 11:15am. I went with the bellman in the van with all of our luggage and checked it in at HH at 7am--I wanted to let everyone else sleep in longer. He then took me back to our room. We got on a bus a little while later back to HH to catch the ME bus. It worked out great. Just hope that your airline particpates.

 

[jollymon2]

Pistonfan...our airline does participate and that is just what I'd like to do. I'll take all the luggage over early, get boarding passes and then I'll head back to the room with everyone else. Glad to know this worked for you. I'll be sure to check with them sometime during my stay. Thanks for everyone's advice, I really do appreciate it.

 

[La2kw]

We were just at OKW and faced the same issue. Go to the Bell desk early in your trip and reserve a time for them to come pick up your luggage. Depending on your airline, you may be able to check in your luggage at OKW for your return flight home. That was very convenient for us. You have to do this at least three hours before your flight. Our flight was at 11:15am. I went with the bellman in the van with all of our luggage and checked it in at HH at 7am--I wanted to let everyone else sleep in longer. He then took me back to our room. We got on a bus a little while later back to HH to catch the ME bus. It worked out great. Just hope that your airline particpates.

Did you get your boarding passes also? I believe everyone in the party needs to be there with ID's to get boarding passes, don't they? That's what we were told last summer when we did that.

 

[MiaSRN62]

We've never had any problem with OKW Bell Service. Always found them to be about 15 -20 min from our call. We've had maybe 10 stays at OKW since '95, but only used Bell Service 3 or 4 of those trips.
I've only had a problem once with any Bell Service in any WDW/DVC resort and that was at the BWV---took them almost 90 min from the time we called (called 2x)! They did apologize and say they were very sorry and that they were extremely busy and backed up (this was a Sat morning checking out). We were just glad we didn't have an early flight or we would have had to drag our luggage down ourselves. We ended up staying in our room past the 11 am (I believe until noon) checkout because of the Bell Hop delay at BWV. But never had this problem at OKW.

 

[pistonfan32]

I was able to get boarding passes for everyone in my party. I had my wife's driver's license and everyone else was under 18.