We will be making our second ever trip at the end of July, and I am SOOOO excited!! We stayed at POR 4 years ago and absolutely fell in love with it. I do have a couple of questions regarding online check in, room requests etc.
My son has autism and can't handle a long time at the parks, so we are planning on generally just hanging out at the resort and pool by around 1-2 each day. We will eat dinner each day at the food court. When I made the reservation, the very nice lady I spoke with asked about room preferences. I told her I definitely wanted to stay in AB, because it seems more "spread out" than the mansions and we really just prefer them. Also requested first floor, as my son can jump around and be quite loud with his heavy walking. She asked if I had a building preference, and I told her I thought we stayed in maybe 17 or 18 last time and it was perfect. (We had a standard view room but didn't care about facing the parking lot....then again, it was the end of September and not terribly busy). This time, we got a garden view, because that was the lowest priced one that was available with the room only discount when we booked.
So, should I still fax a request if I can reiterating that we want AB and first floor, and asking to be closer to the food court? We don't mind walking some, but don't really want to the stuck at the back end of the resort when we will be probably going to the food court often.
Also, if you do the online check in ahead of time, does that have anything to do with your requests? Can you request those things when you do the online check in? Can you still fax requests even if you did the online check in?
One more thing......sorry!!......I'm usually a fan of online EVERYTHING, as I have social anxiety, but when we visited the last time, the CM when we checked in asked if we were celebrating anything. It was both DH and DS's birthdays during that trip, and they got birthday buttons to wear. This time, it will be MY birthday

. If I don't do online check in, and we just go to the desk, will they give me a birthday button? Or don't they do that anymore? It's a silly thing, but my "boys" rarely do anything for me for my birthday, and I just thought it would be fun to have SOMEONE make a big deal out of it