Early Arrival at OKW

[walter]

Is there any advantage to arriving early to get your perferred area of the resort?

 

[dianeschlicht]

I doubt it. If you arrive early, there will be fewer rooms that have been prepared after those leaving have checked out. Since check out time is 11 and check in time is 4, there will be the fewest rooms available early unless the resort is not at capacity. Are you going soon?

 

[Chuck S]

It probably depends on the resort and how busy they are at the time, and how specific your requests are. On our trip last month to OKW, we arrived and checked in about 8:30am. We had been assigned to a building on Miller's Road. I had not made a specific requests with MS NOT to be there, but I asked the CM if there was a possibility of being anywhere else in the resort. He asked what areas we preferred and I said, optimally, Peninsular Road, Turtle Pond or South Point - any would be fine.

He offered us the "New" Bldgs on the edge of Miller's Rd. or Turtle Pond....of course, even if we'd stayed with the original assignment, the room would not have been ready until 4pm.

Anyway, we chose Turtle Pond and were perfectly happy there.

If your requests are general, and if the resort has a little leeway to move you around, you can sometimes get lucky at check-in. Just be sure to ask prior to your room cards being issued, and if you don't get exactly what you want realize there is probably a legitimate reason you could not be moved. The logistics of granting requests has got to be one big headache.

 

[walter]

We have been members since 1997, but will staying offsight on Jan. 24 and arriving at OKW on the 25th. We have never been able to arrive this early in the day.

 

[dvc guy]

We checked in 12/28 at about noon. While it appeared that the room had not been pre assigned., the CM was able to fill my 2 requests, no smoke and top floor, and also to put me near my BIL, with his 2 requests no smoke, bottom floor and put us in the same building. To make this better both rooms were ready. The Christmas week and two rooms ready early.

 

[colleen costello]

We typically arrive at WDW in the evening and stay somewhere outide of DVC on cash. I usually wake up early the next morning and hightail it over to Hospitality House to check in. I figure if they assign me to an area I think I'll hate, I can start begging. So far all our rooms have been great, but I feel comfortable making general requests -- "Southpoint," or "Can you put me near water?" -- although who knows if it does any good? The last two visits we have also been able to get into the room at 9am, go figure. I do believe that if you check in late and are assigned to a room you don't want -- HC or smoking, for example -- there are less rooms left and few places to move. Early check-in seems to leave some "wiggle room."

 

[kda]

I'm not sure there's any consistent system that's used at check in (or we just haven't figured it out). I purposely got up early and went to OKW around 8:15 in early November to "snag a good room". I'd called over to the front desk and ask what system they were using. I was told that a room had been pre-assigned, but if someone else came before I checked in and that location met their needs, that person could choose the room that was currently assigned to us. So, I raced over.

No rooms were ready -- and I didn't care, since we had late check out at the Dolphin. I wasn't sure we'd like the building we'd been assigned. It met all our requests, but I thought it might be too close to the bus stop. A very patient CM tried to find me a room in a different building that met my other requests. She went in back to see if she could "unblock" a room that was exactly what I wanted, but said she couldn't. I wasted a lot of her time before I finally chose a location and later wished I'd just kept the original room.

Point of the story? It appears we were 'assigned' a room, but it wasn't written in stone. If someone else came along who had similar requests, they could have gotten this room. However, some rooms were "blocked off", which WAS written in stone. I couldn't grab that room, even though I was there at 8 AM. At least, that's what seemed to be happening on Nov. 1.

 

[tjkraz]

We spent a week at OKW last year--checking in on a Sunday the last week of January. We arrived at the resort sometime around 9am.

The CM noted that there were several rooms available. The only thing we asked was no 3rd floor.

She found an empty room that met our needs and we were able to drop off our bags before we headed to the parks.

Same thing happened during a September '02 stay, although we didn't arrive until about noon that day.

 

[colleen costello]

Why are some rooms "blocked off?" I assume Jimmy Carter's was, but for the rest of us who are not VIP's, what makes a room be "blocked off?" Is it medical reasons? How many of those are there? Maybe a lot since OKW has no elevators... Anyone have any other ideas?

 

[klcason]

When we went in Sept. 03 we arrived on Fri. nite. We were not expecting to arrive until Sat. afternoon. We stayed Fri nite in the Embassy Suite just outside of the Hotel Plaza. We checked in at 8am Sat morning, the room we were assigned was not ready but we were offered a great room that met all of our needs that was ready. We were in our room by 9:00. It was amazing.

My parents checked in the next morning to their studio at 7:15 before heading to the MK, their room was ready also. They were assigned to the building next to us.

We had requested a non-smoking room and they were smoking. The CM on our Sat. check-in told us where they were assigned so we would be sure to be as close as possible.

I was so excited, it really started out our vacation in a great way!!

Kayla

 

[jodifla]

In less busy times of the year, like January and September, the resort is less full and they just have a lot more leeway in the flexibility they can offer.

Even when we went in May, we were able to switch our room to a more desirable pool-view room (we had a 10 & 12 year old children with us, so the pool proximity was key), but we had to wait. Our preassigned room would have been ready. We didn't get into the other room until much closer to 4.