Do I have to be at DC for 8 am?

[seashell724]

Do I have to really be there at 8 am to check in? Is it a huge deal if I show up around 9:30 or so? I know I may get a later dolphin swim time but that is okay with me.

 

[WDW Princess]

I personally think you’ll be just fine arriving at 9:30 rather than 8:00. DH and I arrived after 9 and encountered no check-in lines (just few people in front of us), no issues finding spots under umbrellas. Our dolphin swim was around noon, but we wouldn’t have cared if it were a later swim time. Dining area was nice and quiet by then as well. In fact, waking up early to make it to parks commando style is no vacation to us, so we purposefully avoided 8am arrival. To summarize, yes, I believe you’ll be just fine arriving by 9:30 and will still have plenty of time to experience every aspect of the park.

 

[Echie]

I personally think you’ll be just fine arriving at 9:30 rather than 8:00. DH and I arrived after 9 and encountered no check-in lines (just few people in front of us), no issues finding spots under umbrellas. Our dolphin swim was around noon, but we wouldn’t have cared if it were a later swim time. Dining area was nice and quiet by then as well. In fact, waking up early to make it to parks commando style is no vacation to us, so we purposefully avoided 8am arrival. To summarize, yes, I believe you’ll be just fine arriving by 9:30 and will still have plenty of time to experience every aspect of the park.

That's good to know, thanks.

We're only planning to arrive at 10am - it'll be nice to know that we won't be battling the lines. We don't care when our dolphin swim is and are sure that we'll have enough time to do everything that we want at DC.

 

[WDW Princess]

...- it'll be nice to know that we won't be battling the lines

We’ve never gone in the spring/summer, so I cannot comment on crowds during these months, but we went twice in September and twice in October (only once with dolphin swim, which was for the first time in September) and, as I mentioned in my first post, we did not have any issue with crowd levels/lines arriving after 9am. Either way, this will still leave you plenty of time for every attraction at the park.

 

[seashell724]

Well, we ended up going early. I didn't get any replies before I had left. However, we did see some people only showing up around lunch time (1-ish). So, maybe that will help some people who are planning on going in the future.

 

[Echie]

We just got back too and arrived at DC at 10:30am (no lines or anything, entering was a breeze and joy).
Our dolphin swim was at 3:45pm (second to last one of the day), the water was nice and warm by that time