Bypassing front desk??

[toni nicole]

i received an email saying I could skip check in and they would text me when my room was ready, but will they text me as soon as an available room is available or will I be waiting around until 3 pm. We are doing a split stay so being able to go to the park and wait for a text would be much easier then driving all the way to our second hotel at 6 am and then hitting the park, but we are planning a break for 1 o clock and if our chances of getting a room that early are less by not going to front desk I would rather check in as normal, anyone experienced bypassing my check in yet? I put my approximate arrival time is 6 am do they usually look at that?

 

[DisneyJediMaster]

They will text you when your room is ready, and it may be ready early.

You can still go to the front desk and check in normally, I certainly would. We LIKE the in person check in.

 

[LindsayL]

I don't believe checking-in in person gives you an advantage to getting a room first. In the resort forum people were saying they were texted a room number before getting to the airport - and they were coming from the West coast!

 

[toni nicole]

Wow thank you!!

 

[Moon Dreamer]

When we checked in online we had put our estimated arrival time at 1:30 pm. A text came through around 1pm on our arrival day that our room was ready. We did still go to the front desk to get a map of the resort.

 

[toni nicole]

We will be checking in person our first day there since we are not going to a park, but not having to wake up early and stop by our next resort before AK will be great!! Haven't reviewed an email about the second resort yet though..

 

[DisneyFirstTimer10]

if we associate a new charge card with our bands dont we have to stop at the front desk to set up a new passcode?

 

[rwdavis2]

I can't wait to bypass the front desk. Our last check in was at All Sta Movies and it took 45 minutes. Low staffing and some woman who thought the CMs were her long lost friends and took forever.

 

[DaisyLou2]

I noted our arrival time as 11am. I figured maybe our room would be available around 1pm or 2pm at the latest. We didn't get a notification until almost 4pm. By this time we were practically passed out on the couch in the lobby just waiting to go up and shower after a rainy park day.

 

[lhall7]

If you don't like where your room is or have another issue, can you go to the front desk and ask for change in location if you use this system?

 

[mickeyluv'r]

Some trips our rom was ready early, but many times we've not gotten our room until 4pm (or even slightly later.)

One thing that sometimes happens...I think the housekeepers need to notify the hotel when they are done cleaning a room. I think maybe they don't always do that right away. I also think they tend to clean rooms in clusters- so they may start by clearing sheets from multiple rooms, but not finish all the touches until quite a bit later.

another way to think about it is that you are most likely to get a room early if your room was not occupied the previous night. If you arrive the week after a popular week vs. arriving mid week on a slow week. it's easy to check online to see if a room in your category is available the day before you arrive. Truly though, most guests arrive Friday/Saturday. If you arrive one of those days, your odds are lower. I imagine your odds go up if: you arrive very early (vs. 10am-2pm), you are at one of the bigger hotels (vs. POFQ), and you are in one of the more general room categories (vs. a specific room view/category at the deluxes, or lots of specific room requests).

Also, the person ahead of you might also have requested (paid for) late check out, or left the room very messy/damaged.

 

[Hummingbird]

We've done the bypass check-in 3 times in the past 3 months. Twice I got the text that our room was ready at 10am (I noted 11am for arrival time when I did online check in) and the 3rd time I got the text at 11:30 (I had noted a 12pm arrival time on online check in).

 

[mickeyluv'r]

I can't wait to bypass the front desk. Our last check in was at All Sta Movies and it took 45 minutes. Low staffing and some woman who thought the CMs were her long lost friends and took forever.

Something similar happened the last time we stayed at AoA. Just a few folks took over 35minutes.

To make matters worse, I like children, but the child in front of us was an absolute horror where her guardians did nothing about it. [A very nice CM gave everyone flowers. She shredded it in seconds! and dropped the mangled petals! Her companions did nothing; just left the mess, and made no effort to talk to the child about it.]

Otherwise we liked the hotel! generally, I also don't mind doing check-in.

Still, if have a car, and don't need to drop off our stuff- I'd happily go the parks.

Trouble is, I'm often reluctant to leave our stuff in a hot car all day, especially if we have food.

 

[Simba's Mom]

If you bypass the front desk how will you get the schedule of resort activities? Is there one left in the room? Or is it best to stop at the front desk to pick one up?

 

[hiroMYhero]

If you bypass the front desk how will you get the schedule of resort activities? Is there one left in the room? Or is it best to stop at the front desk to pick one up?

You can easily pick up a schedule from the Concierge rather than wait in the check-in line.

We did online check-in for our recent trip. As we exited our car, a YC CM with an iPad greeted us by name and surprised us with an upgrade to Club Level. We felt that completing online check-in and choosing a morning arrival helped in receiving the great pixie dust!

 

[jmkjr72]

Ok with our bypass the front desk
we gave our flight info and what time we were landing
after we got on me right around what should have been our estimated arrival at resort we got a message sorry your room isn't ready yet but we will let you know when it is that was right around 1 pm

Being we were on me when we got to the resort they met us at the bus made sure we got the message asked us a few questions gave us a couple of packets being we had never done the dinning plan the gave us a sheet on that and the transportation schedule and told us that the whole packet would be in our room when we getbthere

 

[Good Morning Dewdrop]

what about the parking pass - do you still get one when staying onsite or do they just scan your MB at the toll booth? I like the parking pass just show it and go - scanning a MB would be IMO more time consuming

 

[MisterPat]

Our last stay was Spring Break this year and we did the bypass. We noted an arrival time of 2:00 pm and received our text around 9:00 a.m.... while we were still in Georgia driving down. Nothing like being told you CAN use your room when you are still 5 hours away. Maybe they tracked our Magic Bands and figured they had 5 more hours to clean the room.

 

[rmbean]

If you don't like where your room is or have another issue, can you go to the front desk and ask for change in location if you use this system?

Also have the same question. Additionally, how does this work with 2 linked reservations and a request for connecting rooms? Would this work, or should I just plan to do front desk check in? I love the idea of bypassing the queue, but I want to do what I can to make sure we get our room preference.

 

[hiroMYhero]

what about the parking pass - do you still get one when staying onsite or do they just scan your MB at the toll booth? I like the parking pass just show it and go - scanning a MB would be IMO more time consuming

YC did not give out parking passes. The readers seem to scan very quickly. For the parks, CM friend just had to hold up her ID and we didn't have to stop at the parking toll booths.