KTTW cards & checking in after land portion of trip

[cepmom]

I know that if you are doing the land/sea trip you only need to check in once during the entire trip, but does anyone know if that holds true if you are booking the land and sea parts separately? I have already booked our cruise and I plan on booking the land part separately to save money and to have the ability to customize our needs. Will I need to also check in at the port? How does that work?

 

[two-foxes]

As far as I know, if you do not book the actual package, you WILL need to check in at port for the cruise portion of your trip. The "one easy checkin" is a perk of booking the package, unless things have drastically changed!

 

[kellib36]

I'll tell you how it worked for us last Sept.....

My mil and I scheduled a 7 day Magic cruise, and spent the night before at the Poly. We didn't get in until late evening and the DCL desk was already closed, so we couldn't "check in " with them. They called us approx 730am, and welcomed us, and told us to have our bags in the hallway with the DCL tags on them by 8am. They were picked up by 810. They knocked on the door while I was out getting coffee, and chatted with my mil for a minute. The guy noticed we had a Poly wheelchair in the room, and the DCL desk called about 830 and asked if we needed a W/A bus, or if the person could get into a regular DCL bus. I was VERY impressed with that. They were checking on us ahead of time so there weren't any delays and also thought of the dignity of the person.

If you or your TA get everything lined up, they WILL take care of you. They knew we were coming! I was really glad, because it was just me and an 82yo....and I had explicit instructions not to lose her!!! ;-) It saved me a LOT of stress!!!

We didn't have to lug our bags around the rest of the day, just our day bag. The luggage showed up at our stateroom on the ship early evening.

Kellib36

 

[Luv2Dream]

This is how it worked for us. We booked separate land and sea vacations as well. We did it on our own, not thru DCL. When you receive your cruise documents, they will include luggage tags in the documents. Unless you purchased transfers from your hotel to DCL, you'll be getting yourself to the port. Put your cruise tags on when you leave your land portion of the trip. Once you get to the cruise terminal, they will take all tagged bags from you. You have to carry any untagged bags with you so I'd suggest just one small bag. Then you go into the terminal and check-in. It's VERY simple and very efficient if you've filled out all your documents before hand. That's the key. Once you are onboard, you should receive your luggage sometime between 3 and dinner. They put them outside your stateroom door. We got one bag about 3:30 and then the rest showed up after fire drill but before dinner. We were totally unpacked before our first dinner that night.