How Early Do You Like to Arrive at Your Hotel?

[bruceluigi]

It depends. But I'm early bird. So i think for 8 a.m.

 

[Shellyred8]

This is always an interesting one for me- I've found that on the flight-related sections of this board, people always recommend cheaper flights that take you in at the evening. But to me, that kind of blows an entire expensive hotel night on doing nothing but arriving and going to bed. For me, the typical vacation starts with arriving in the afternoon and then spending hours at Disney Springs to take in all that and "get started"- otherwise I'd be doing the Springs the next day and it again might feel like a waste of a vacation day just wandering around shops, haha.

So what does everyone else do? Being from Western Canada, it takes me a LOT longer to get there than it would most Americans, so keep that in mind. Typically it's a 3+ hour flight to Toronto, and only then can we fly down, and you need a long layover if you're flying out of Toronto.

Our flight usually takes around 3 hours, so we try to get a morning flight so we can get to the resort and start enjoying our vacation. We are DVC, so we are usually at one of those resorts. We like to grab a bite to eat when we get there and then just walk around the resort for awhile. After the 3 hour flight, it feels good to be moving around a bit. We will sometimes go to DS on that first day too. If we happen to have an annual pass during the trip, we will usually pop into one of the parks on that first day too. Sometimes we will go resort-hopping on that first day. If we are staying at in the Boardwalk area, we will hop on the skyliner and do a skyliner tour and go explore the skyliner resorts.

 

[SoloStitchGirl]

Our flight usually takes around 3 hours, so we try to get a morning flight so we can get to the resort and start enjoying our vacation. We are DVC, so we are usually at one of those resorts. We like to grab a bite to eat when we get there and then just walk around the resort for awhile. After the 3 hour flight, it feels good to be moving around a bit. We will sometimes go to DS on that first day too. If we happen to have an annual pass during the trip, we will usually pop into one of the parks on that first day too. Sometimes we will go resort-hopping on that first day. If we are staying at in the Boardwalk area, we will hop on the skyliner and do a skyliner tour and go explore the skyliner resorts.

This is what I'm planning on doing for my trip in 2026-- my flight time will be about 2.5 hours, so I'm looking for early flights in and late flights out. Ideally I'd get to MCO by 8ish or so in the morning, and be at my resort by 9 or 10. Depending on whether or not the room is ready, give my stuff to Bell Services and either explore the resort, hang out at the pool, or head to DS. On Departure Day , I'd check out, give my stuff to Bell Services to hang on to, and hang out at DS until it's time to go back to the resort to catch the shuttle to MCO. Ideally the flight would be 5pm or later, to maximize the remaining time.

 

[foxybynature]

We try to get the earliest flight possible because we want to maximize our time on vacation, but also to account for any flight delays. We usually arrive mid-late morning and Uber to the resort, check our bags with Bell Services, and then head to Disney Springs, grab lunch, and/or hang by the pool until our room is ready. We never do parks on the first day.

 

[Uncle Coaster]

I prefer to fly in later in the evening if possible. This is usually after work on the day before the vacation actually begins and that way I maximize my vacation time by already being at my destination the morning of day one.

 

[Jennkneefir]

I don't have children, which i feel influences this decision, but i typically fly red-eye flights where i land between 8 and 10 am. I take the first day to get groceries, check in, hangout at the pool, and have a nice dinner someplace. I then go to bed early and i'm fresh and ready to go the next day!
I have done this with family (including children) with mixed success. I am on the west coast, and most of the rest of the family (including my nieces) are on the east coast, so i have a significantly longer flight. This works well for our little group!

 

[ahhhshmatthew]

Living in Vegas, when we travel to Orlando, our flight options are very limited. Southwest is the only viable (non redeye) option that is direct, so we typically fly out in the morning (8:30-ish) and it puts us in around 3:00-3:30 (about a 4 hour-ish flight). I agree with your sentiment: for us, I have no interest in taking a redeye that flies me overnight and gets me in when my room is still a whole day away from being ready (or paying for a night I don't sleep there), nor do I want to fly later and get in at 10:00 or 11:00 and go to bed.

We typically land, get to the hotel (which to date has never not been ready using that flight), drop our bags, and head to Springs for dinner and shopping.

 

[Figment Mom]

We take a crazy early flight and are on property around 9 am. We've been lucky and our room has always been ready. If not, we'd leave bags with bell services. We're at MK by 10. Yes, we're tired, but it's a fill Disney day.

On the way home we take the latest flight out. We also do MK on the last day. Check our bags with bell services, rope drop MK, stay until mid-afternoon, then spend time at our resort pool until it's time to take our evening shuttle to MCO.

 

[Nick6300]

We're crazy and fly in the night before without getting a hotel. For the upcoming, we fly in at 12:30am. Likely take a nap at MCO and then get to our hotel between 5-6am to check in and nap in our room if available, drop off bags if not. Usually get our room early for a quick nap. So we're on the bus 630-7am ish for AK without sleep, nap at Nemo. AK closes at 6 currently, so a better chance for more sleep that first night.

We don't buy the additional value hotel night to save $, but also because we usually don't sleep well from excitement that first night, and still try to get up super early for RD. We don't fly in on Sat am, because our local options burn much of that first day since we'd get there in the afternoon, and we'd still have to leave around midnight to get to airport with adequate time.

 

[crazymomof4]

We take first non-stop flight out in the morning. Usually arrive at resort by 11am-ish. Room not ready so we check luggage with Bell Services and go get lunch. Either go to DS or at our resort (or one of the other resorts nearby). Then spend some time exploring our resort (especially if its new to us) then to our resort pool. We put bathing suits, etc. in our backpack we carry on to plane, so no rooting through luggage before handing over the Bell Services. Our room is usually ready just about when we're ready to leave the pool (3-4pm)
I feel this is a nice "introduction" to the vibe of our resort. The rest of our trips are usually filled with parks, rope drop to close. So, if we didn't do this on our first day, we wouldn't really get much out of our resort itself besides the room itself.

 

[DizneyFamof4]

We are a 7 hour drive away (but we also lose an hour going from Central to Eastern time zone) and DH always works the Friday we leave, so we do not get in until Midnight or later. We much rather spend the extra $$ so that we are all checked in and unpacked and when we wake up at the Disney resort we can start our day.

 

[Robber Baron]

Checked into AKL Kidani on Saturday June 22.

Received a text at 12:08 pm that our room was ready.

 

[sponica]

Back when Southwest had oodles of flights from MHT, I liked the first flight of the day, I was usually at the hotel by 10 AM?

Now they only have one, maybe 2 non stops a day, so I'm at the whim of the schedule.

MHT is 15 minutes from my house and flying out of Logan doesn't save enough money to justify the aggravation

 

[mi*vida*loca]

We’ve done it a few different ways in the last twenty or so years. We really don’t care if our room is ready when we arrive.

When the kids were younger and I was with my XH we would drive down or fly in 1-2 days before our trip (either arriving early or late) and stay with his Uncle in Orlando, who was also DD’s godfather. The day we checked into Disney we would arrive around 9 am, check in and hit MK.

After my divorce I would just do 6 am flights, arrive around 8-9 am and be in the MK by 11 am. This worked great until it didn’t work great. Our trip in 2018 we did this and closed down MK. The next morning DD insisted we could RD AK. Well that went to crap. We tried, we failed, we went back to the resort before 9 am and napped. And we were kinda tired the next 2 days.

Lesson learned so the next trip we flew in after DD got out of school and arrived at 9 pm. That wasn’t bad and we liked being refreshed for RD but we felt that 9 pm was a bit too late. We agreed we would always stay on Disney on arrival day especially since we aren’t fans of split stays. I thought about doing a value on arrival day but we stuck with CSR and it was so convenient to be unpacked and ready to go the next morning without having to move or repack. It was worth the extra cost for us.

We’ve talked about our next trip in May 2025 and we think we are going to do an earlier flight, maybe 8 am or so and land by 11 am and do Disney Springs, shop, explore the resort and maybe swim. I threw out the idea of maybe hitting up MK for at least only fireworks but DD said she’d rather not. She really liked not going to a park on arrival day and hitting MK at RD the next morning. This is a big shift for us considering last trip was the first time we hit DS in over 15 years since I’m not a fan of shopping and DD would rather be in the parks. Well we went one morning last trip and thought this wouldn’t be a bad idea on arrival day.

DD has a trip this month with friends and they are flying in early, landing around 11 am but have decided to do the pool and Disney Springs for dinner. I will see how that goes for her and how she feels and then we can plan what to do for our May trip.

 

[matt and beth]

Or maybe… we jump on the flight at the end of the day after work to get to Disney that night so we can have a FULL day. How about that. Not wasting anything… looking to Maximize our vacation time

 

[jazzsmith]

I prefer arriving at my hotel in the early afternoon. This way, I have plenty of time to settle in and then head out to explore places. Spending the evening there helps me feel like the vacation has really started. For flights, I've used buymytrip a few times and found some good deals that fit my schedule. Arriving late at night feels like a waste of that first night, so I always aim to make the most of my first day.

 

[TEK224]

Most of my past trips I've taken an early flight and arrived at MCO by 9:30am. Would usually go to Disney Springs for lunch, get groceries at Publix and then check in and get situated.
We're going this fall and I booked a room at SSR for Sunday to Saturday. But to get the best airfare, we'd have to take the 7AM Sunday flight, which means getting to the airport around 5AM. I'm getting too old for that
So I added Saturday to my reservation and we're flying down in the afternoon, arriving around 4:30PM. We can still go to Publix, get dinner and get situated. Then when we wake up on Sunday, we can start our day however we want.

 

[tinkerjo]

So I already answered in this thread how we like to arrive early. Our next trip in September, it was WAY cheaper to fly in the night before. So much so we took the late flight and made a 1 night reservation at Caribbean Beach. Changed our plans a little, (sleep in, enjoy the pool and head to HS for a few hours. This is mostly a trip for 2 year old so not much to do at that park) and we are at SSR for 5 nights after so my first experience with a split stay. We will see how this goes.

 

[etzmn123]

There are currently 5 direct flights from our home airport to MCO but I have zero interest in being at the airport at 4am with a toddler to make the first one of the day, so my current preference is for the 9:45am flight. We land around 1pm, have a car pick us up and stop at Publix on the way to our resort for a curbside order (if we don’t rent a car). By the time we get there, our room is most likely ready or we explore the hotel while we wait a bit. Settle into our room, try to force a short nap for our daughter if she didn’t get one on the flight, and then head out to an early character meal for dinner to start the trip.

 

[crazymomof4]

There are currently 5 direct flights from our home airport to MCO but I have zero interest in being at the airport at 4am with a toddler to make the first one of the day, so my current preference is for the 9:45am flight. We land around 1pm, have a car pick us up and stop at Publix on the way to our resort for a curbside order (if we don’t rent a car). By the time we get there, our room is most likely ready or we explore the hotel while we wait a bit. Settle into our room, try to force a short nap for our daughter if she didn’t get one on the flight, and then head out to an early character meal for dinner to start the trip.

When our kids were little it was tradition to do Chef Mickey's on our arrival day. Fun memories!