Room request granted with evening arrival?

[czmom]

Our flight does not land at MCO until 5:50 PM. We will be taking ME to ASMu, so I guess we won't be at the resort until after 7:00 that night. Will we still have a chance our room request is granted that late? It will be a Monday if that makes a difference.

Thanks

 

[chris44]

Our flight does not land at MCO until 5:50 PM. We will be taking ME to ASMu, so I guess we won't be at the resort until after 7:00 that night. Will we still have a chance our room request is granted that late? It will be a Monday if that makes a difference.

Thanks

One time, our flight was delayed for 8 hours, and we arrived about 10:30 or 11:00 pm. Initially, the guy at reception told us we were in exactly the section we did not want. I nicely asked if he could please check to see if there was anything at all in the section we wanted (and at this point I wasn't trying to be too picky about which floor or view, etc. because they seemed to be very full). It took him a while, but he finally found a room in that section.

So that was our experience, and I hope yours will turn out well, too!

 

[mmmears]

We always arrive really late. The earliest was probably 8pm and the latest was 2:30am (plane was delayed). I do send in my requests early, and it really hasn't been a problem. The rooms are pre-assigned, and I hope that with our requests already made the won't give "our" room to whomever walks in before us...

 

[czmom]

Thank you both! That is encouraging to know. Not too much of a big deal, but would be nice to be in the Jazz Inn...and top floor at that. But I will just be happy to be there.

 

[CleveRocks]

Anything is possible. Your mileage may vary. But if you want to go by statistics, the later you arrive the less chance you have of getting your requests granted.

Yes, rooms are pre-assigned, but ALL rooms that haven't been checked-into yet are free game for cast members to give out. I've had it both ways ... I've arrived early and claimed someone else's room, and I've arrived late and received a hugely surprising free upgrade.

Polynesian, around 9:30 a.m.: I paid for a theme park view. I put in a request for 3rd floor Tahiti (bigger rooms than the other two theme park view room buildings, not all rooms in the other two buildings have a balcony, and one of those other buildings has [in my opinion] pretty stinky views). Well, it turns out I was pre-assigned my very least desirable room (stinky view, no balcony). I asked nicely if I could have my original request granted; the CM got on the phone with Mousekeeping and eventually told me I could get what I want but the room wouldn't be ready until around 3 p.m. (it turned out to be around 5:30 p.m. or so). The resort was sold out. The only way I was able to get what I want is they took that already pre-assigned room from someone else, someone who hadn't checked-in yet, and they gave it to me. Had I arrived 12 hours later, chances are those "good" rooms would've been gone already, whether by people who had them pre-assigned and/or by people like me who requested a change.

Contemporary, around 10 p.m.: We paid a ridiculously low conference rate (about one-third of the normal rate), and as part of the conference rate we weren't able to book any specific room category, we would just get what they call "run of the house," meaning we just get whatever is around. I put in a request for tower - theme park view because I figured why not, what could it hurt to ask for the best. But I was totally expecting a garden wing standard view, not only because of the low rate but because of my late arrival. Well, imagine my happy shock just after 10 p.m. when the CM told me we had been upgraded to a tower - Bay Lake view. WOW!

So I've had it both ways ... I arrived early and snagged a good room only because I arrived early, and I arrived late and got a dream upgrade.

 

[mickeynut1]

As the pp said, anything is possible. You can check in first thing in the morning and not get your request(s) or check in very late at night and get just the room you want and vice versa. With that said, on our Poly stay, we had a late arrival of 11:30 p.m. and didn't check into the Poly until 12:30-1:00 a.m. and the first 2 of our 3 requests were granted, with the 3rd being granted the next morning if we wanted to change rooms. So in our experience, checking in late at night didn't matter as far as getting our requests.

 

[danceintherain]

We usually fly out of Kansas City, which means we pretty much always have a layover getting to Orlando. The times we've stayed on property, we arrived at the resort after 6pm and both times we got what we requested.
AKL - King Bed
CBR - Ground Floor & Pack&Play (we made no specific building requests here because we don't mind walking and the ground floor was more important to me, since CBR doesn't have elevators and we had a stroller with us)

Anyways, it's all chance. If someone who gets there before you requests the exact things you want, then they can "steal" your room.

Something you should consider is that everyone does a different level of research for their Disney vacations. Many people know basic requests, especially if they travel for work (my Dad has standing request with Hilton of high floor near the elevator) but they're not going to necessarily know that they can request a specific building or even that there are different buildings.

You can always put in a request to change later in your trip if you're very unhappy with what you get.

 

[Sue M]

I had the same fears in Jan, our flight was delayed and we arrived at 7pm WL. We were upgraded to Courtyard view from Woods view
But Jan. is low occupancy. I have no exp. with going during high seasons. We always go during Value season.

 

[EeyoreJen]

Does the new online check-in system help with this?

 

[nkereina]

Does the new online check-in system help with this?

No. In fact, online check-in makes it less likely to receive your request because online check-in CM's priority is to assign people to rooms that will be ready when you arrive - not granting your request.

Rule of thumb is the later you arrive, the less likely it is to grant your request. 7pm isn't that late - there will be others after you. What time of year are you going? If it's a slow time and you don't have a fairly broad request, you might be ok. No way to know, since it is based solely on occupancy rates and what those who check-in before you request.

 

[rentayenta]

I am a view junkie and this makes me sad. Our flight may land at 9 pm putting us there about 10:30 or so. I hate a crappy view.

 

[mitchwebb]

We have request and stayed twice at Poly. Both time during busy periods. The first time we got the building we asked for Tonga but not floor. The second time we asked for Samoas but could not get the building at all. We arrived late from the west coast and busy time of year. They did look but were firm that the building was not available

 

[aubriee]

We always arrive really late. The earliest was probably 8pm and the latest was 2:30am (plane was delayed). I do send in my requests early, and it really hasn't been a problem. The rooms are pre-assigned, and I hope that with our requests already made the won't give "our" room to whomever walks in before us...

Preassigned doesn't mean a whole lot. I usually get to WDW around 10:30am (flight lands around 9:30am). Frequently my room request is not met and I very nicely ask if anything else is available closer to my request. I'd say that 98% of the time, the CM moves someone who hasn't arrived yet around, to accomodate my request. I would never ask that someone else be moved of course, but am not going to argue with the CM if they do. Usually they just move me and don't say whether it's to an unassigned room or not, but a couple of times I have heard them muttering to themselves about moving someone to a different room and then moving me to their room.

I know the last time we were at PORS (before the rehab and before they made some of the Bayous a preferred category), I had put in a request for first floor AB 14, 18, or 27. When we checked in, we had been placed on the top floor of Acadia House (no where near close to our request). I very politely asked if anything was available in any of the Bayous on the first floor (since my mom had an ECV and the Bayous don't have elevators). The very nice CM said 'let me see what I can do'. She got on the phone and in just a minute offered us our choice of a first floor room in AB 18 or 27. We chose 18 and she said, "not a problem, let me just move these people over to your Acadia House room', then she frowned and said, 'no that won't work because they are a family of five. Oh well, I'll move them into the AB 17 room and move those people over to Acadia House. That'll work." I've also heard another CM muttering to herself about moving people to another room, so she could give me their preassigned room at CSR.

On the other hand, I was just at WDW May 5th-12th and due to the airline switching my flight around, arrived at CSR about 7:30pm instead of the usual 10:30am I'm used to arriving. I had requested a 'first floor room anywhere in the Cabanas with a preference for Cabanas 8A'. When I arrived we had been placed on the second floor of Ranchos 6A (no where close to my request) and were told that nothing was available anywhere in the Cabanas until the next morning. This was my tenth stay at CSR and up until this trip I have always been able to avoid the hated Ranchos. I think it was due to my later arrival. The CM was very nice, but just said all the rooms in the Cabanas had been assigned to earlier arrivals. She did move us to a very nice Cabana room the next morning though.

 

[maxiesmom]

Rule of thumb is the later you arrive, the less likely it is to grant your request. 7pm isn't that late - there will be others after you. What time of year are you going? If it's a slow time and you don't have a fairly broad request, you might be ok. No way to know, since it is based solely on occupancy rates and what those who check-in before you request.

According to at least one CM checking in after 7pm is checking in late. At least, that was what he told me as he was explaining why my paid for in full preferred room was gone. Doing on-line check in right at 10 days out apparently didn't do anything to guarantee I would get the room type I had paid for, let alone get any requests met.

 

[nkereina]

According to at least one CM checking in after 7pm is checking in late. At least, that was what he told me as he was explaining why my paid for in full preferred room was gone. Doing on-line check in right at 10 days out apparently didn't do anything to guarantee I would get the room type I had paid for, let alone get any requests met.

I guess depending on what time of year you are going, 7pm can be late or maybe not. I would think not as bad as midnight but of course not as good as 11am. I don't have a problem with them not meeting requests for online check-in, but I do have a problem when they can't even be bothered to assign you the room you paid for. That's really crappy.

 

[wdwnut61]

Our flight does not land at MCO until 5:50 PM. We will be taking ME to ASMu, so I guess we won't be at the resort until after 7:00 that night. Will we still have a chance our room request is granted that late? It will be a Monday if that makes a difference.

Thanks

I can only share our experience normally we always take an early flight out but this past November on the Firday before Thanksgiving I had to work and we had a late flight. We didn't arrive at POFQ until 8:00 PM and even though we had done online check in I was not expecting our requests to met.

Much to my surprise all three of our requests were met
The point is I went in expecting that they wouldn't be because I didn't want to start our vacation being disappointed.