EARLY arrival question... Help!

[ree123]

The only downside to going to disney this next trip is our incoming flight...We leave at 150 am and land in MCO at 5 am.As of now, I have my SSR res for that same day check in(which is 3 pm). To buy an exrta night in a studio would be 14 pts or 240$ which seems crazy to me. We'd prob get to SSR about 7 am ish. Has anyone had luck checking in that early if there are open studios? I had the MS add that request to our res. I dont know if I should get a" day" room at MCO Hyatt for $100 from like 6-10 am? That seemed high to me.... What do you think , guys? It not a busy week , maybe do I have a chance at early check in? We will prob be exhausted..... Thanks for the advice!

 

[erionm]

There is a difference between checking in and getting your room. You can check-in as soon as the resort system rolls to the next day which is around 6 or 7 in the morning. Room ready is after 4pm. As soon as housekeeping notifies the front desk the room is clean, it can be occupied.

 

[Pakey]

If it's important to have a place to nap that early in the morning, I wouldn't take the chance on being able to actually occupy your villa that early in the morning. In all my DVC stays, we've only once gotten a villa to occupy at around noon (and we always go during slow times). We've also gotten in around 2 a few times, all other stays we haven't gotten occupancy until 4 or after.

You might get lucky; I just wouldn't count on it.

 

[akl-fan]

If you are unable to access your room early, you could always store your luggage with bell services and have a snooze out at the pool. Not ideal but better than loosing the money on a room for a few hours. Just remember to pack a pool bag separate to your luggage. You will have a kttw card as you will be check in.

 

[Rob S.]

I've been lucky enough to get into my room by 9am a few times (BWV & AKV). If you go when it's not busy, I would think you have a good shot at a resort as large as SSR.

 

[alanapapa]

The only downside to going to disney this next trip is our incoming flight...We leave at 150 am and land in MCO at 5 am.As of now, I have my SSR res for that same day check in(which is 3 pm). To buy an exrta night in a studio would be 14 pts or 240$ which seems crazy to me. We'd prob get to SSR about 7 am ish. Has anyone had luck checking in that early if there are open studios? I had the MS add that request to our res. I dont know if I should get a" day" room at MCO Hyatt for $100 from like 6-10 am? That seemed high to me.... What do you think , guys? It not a busy week , maybe do I have a chance at early check in? We will prob be exhausted..... Thanks for the advice!

We were able to get our room at an early morning check in (7:30 or 8:00 AM I think) at Kidani. We were not expecting it, we were planning on doing as a PP said, leave our luggage with Bell Services (well actually DME still had them) and lounge by the pool.

 

[Brian Noble]

If you have younger kids, don't risk it. Get the day room.

If you have older kids or all adults, you could get away with snoozing by the pool if need be.

 

[lions1995]

We were able to get into our room at SSR in early December at check in (around 8:30) and I was surprised. I certainly would not count on it being available.

Maybe you want to check out one of the DT Disney resorts and see what they have. You could check into SSR and then take a quick Taxi ride across the street.

 

[n2mm]

You can certainly check in when you arrive, but as others' have said, the chances your room will be ready are a mystery. I've gotten my room as early as 8:00AM and as late as 5:30PM. But mostly I've gotten my room between noon and 2:00PM. Most folks remember getting in early because it's not the norm. I find the larger the unit the later the time. I'm guessing it's because it takes so much longer to clean a unit with a full kitchen. JMHO. Of course the one time I didn't get my room until 5:30PM was when we were traveling with a 3 month old infant and a 2 1/2 year old in the middle of August (what were we thinking). We were staying at the BCV, so used the solarium and reading room for relaxation, but pretty much lost a whole day. I would make a plan to check your luggage and plan to be without a room for the most part of the day. If you're room is ready earlier, that's great. During our January trip this year, we stayed at OKW and BWV (both studios). Neither of our rooms were ready until after 2:00PM and that was with using online checkin and going during late January (a slower time). I would prepare for the worse and hope for the best. Maybe you'll get some pixie dust.

 

[msp2mco]

I think I would plan to get a day room somewhere else. It wouldn't be worth it to be tired and out of sorts at the beginning of my vacation. Although you could hang out at the pool, it could be cold or raining. Sleeping or lounging in the public areas of the resort wouldn't appeal to me either.

We've only gotten into our DVC resort early once--maybe noon. We usually have a 2 BR, so that may be why it has been later. Sometimes we haven't gotten in until well after 4 PM.

Good luck!

 

[bookwormde]

I have gotten rooms more often than not at OKW at 7am. If it is not a busy week then if you do on line check in with a 6:30am arrival time you should have a good chance, but if having a room is a "must" then you will have to spend the points or $. What you might do is wait until very close to the travel time and look for some cheap points to rent. You can often get small amounts for $5/pt which would cost only $70. I know at OKW the CMs make an extra effort to get guest with tired young children their rooms as quick as possible, I have not stayed at SSR so I do not have 1st hadn experaince with the CMs there.

 

[BirdsOfPreyDave]

There are also potential problems with booking a room for the day before you plan to arrive. If you're considered a no-show, they cancel your entire booking and you lose your points. So you need to call the resort's front desk the night before and inform them that you're coming in very late (as in early the next morning).

If you get there after they've rolled the computers to the next day (which allows them to start checking people in for that day), having the booking for the night before won't necessarily guarantee that they'd have "your" room clean and ready to give to you. The room isn't locked in as yours until you've actually checked in. If someone else got to the desk that morning before you and said, "do you have any studios that are ready?" guess which room they could be given? I'm not necessarily saying it would happen, but it certainly could, and then you'd have spent those points for nothing.

I suggest you leave your reservation as is. If you tell them at check-in that your preference is to get into a room as early as possible, and you don't care which section they put you in, you may have luck getting into the room early. Don't do the online check-in.

In the meantime, there are some very comfortable couches in the lounge area outside the Turf Club. At that time of morning, the room will probably be pretty much deserted. That would possibly be a good place for some down time if you don't want to go the lounge chair at the pool route. Artist's Palette also serves a really good breakfast. I'm sure everyone would welcome an hour to enjoy that after flying all night.

If you're anything like us, though, the excitement of being there makes some energy magically appear for the first day, even though we've usually only had 3-4 hours of somewhat restless sleep the night before. (That commercial about "too excited to sleep" is so true!) There are changing rooms you can use to get into your swim suits and spend the morning enjoying the pool, or you could even take the boat over to Downtown Disney for a nice breakfast. When your room is ready, hopefully late morning or early afternoon at the latest, parade everyone up to the room for a nap.

 

[crisi]

I'd be tempted by the day room at the airport if you have young kids. Getting them straight into a bed and getting them four hours of sleep (and yourselves), will let you get to Disney at lunchtime. Then I wouldn't intend to do much with the day. Maybe a few hours of park time.

If you have older kids and can stay up yourselves, or are ok plane sleepers, get as much sleep on the plane as you can, get to the resort, get checked in, lounge until park opening, and head out. If adrenaline can keep you going, let it.

We spent 19 hours flying to Germany (much of it in airports with delays and plane changes) a few years ago, and barely slept on the plane. But we still managed - us and the kids, to spend an afternoon walking through the town - in that case it was "don't sleep, switch schedules" - but it is doable.

 

[ree123]

You guys are wonderful and have some great insight and ideas... I guess it makes sense to leave res as is.Now, I should not do online check in, correct ? Arrive at resort at 630ish and say I'll take anything ? It's SSR, it's such a large resort I'm praying any studio is ready....

 

[alanapapa]

You guys are wonderful and have some great insight and ideas... I guess it makes sense to leave res as is.Now, I should not do online check in, correct ? Arrive at resort at 630ish and say I'll take anything ? It's SSR, it's such a large resort I'm praying any studio is ready....

That is what the DISfamily is for. And like any other family we have different ideas and points of view.

Have fun.

 

[ree123]

Crap ! Just called mco hyatt and day rooms are for 10-6 only. Reservations couldn't even override system. So, should I do price line / hot-wire and reserve mco area room for night before, call hotel after I find out which bid hotel I got and let them know I'll be arriving at 530 am?

 

[daisyduck123]

You guys are wonderful and have some great insight and ideas... I guess it makes sense to leave res as is.Now, I should not do online check in, correct ? Arrive at resort at 630ish and say I'll take anything ? It's SSR, it's such a large resort I'm praying any studio is ready....

Once when we did a split stay & were moving to SSR, we were told we could not check-in over there until 7am. This was a few years ago.

The earliest we've ever gotten a room at SSR was about 2pm. The latest was 5:30pm.

The only way a room is going to be "ready" at 7am is one that was NOT even occupied the previous night. Mousekeeping isn't even on duty at 6am to begin cleaning rooms. So if there's an empty studio on property the previous night, you could be in luck.

Have a great trip!

 

[Shelly F - Ohio]

I did online check in for our recent stay which was last week. We did a split stay and our room at both AKV and OWK were ready when we arrived which was early morning. We checking into AKV at 11:00 a.m and OWK at 10:00 a.m So yes you can still do online check in a save the hassle of waiting inline.

Also if your room is not ready you can rest by the pool but if you really need a room why not look into booking a Disney value resort.

 

[bumbershoot]

Since the day room at the Hyatt isn't an option, I would consider the 14 points to be well worth it. We spent 28 points on the 9th for a room from 1am to 11am (if we'd known the dryer wasn't going to be functional and we would be in the laundry room anyway we wouldn't have wasted the extra points on the 1 bedroom). 14 points for something you can make use of, if only to sleep for a few hours sounds well worth it to me!


Then again, I'd be hoping my flight changed so I could ask them to change my flight entirely, and just fly out later in the day so I coudl get some sleep that night and not NEED that room.

 

[Anal Annie]

When we went to Disneyland Paris last summer we left the US around 5:00 PM and landed in Paris around 6:30 AM (and did not sleep on the plane). We got to the hotel & checked in by about 8:00 AM and just left our luggage with their equivalent of Bell Services. I had packed just almost everything I figured we'd need for the parks in an outside pocket of one of our checked bags (string backpack etc). It was colder than expected so we did have to open 1 bag for jackets. But we just went to the parks for the day. Jet lag and all. I knew we needed to stay up anyway to get our sleep cycled. We went back to the hotel around 3:30 or so to get our room assignment and retrieve our luggage. Then we took a nap for about 2 hours then got up & went back out for the evening and stayed thru the fireworks. We would've never gotten on the right time zone if we'd tried to go to bed early. So anyway, if it were us we'd just store our luggage and make a day of it & maybe take a nap in the afternoon. (The earliest we ever got our DVC room at WDW was at AKV around 1:00 PM.)