WOW...I needed to catch up.
I know your disapointment with RnR at MGM....we're planning a trip to WDW before the cruise and had planned on going to MGM...mainly for RnR and Tot. I JUST found out last weekend about RnR being down. The WDW site said it's until the 30th.

Hopefully for you that'll work in your favor. We still plan on doing MGM before the cruise...so maybe I can check into it while I'm there and let you know what (if anything) I find out. I've NEVER ever been to MGM so....I can't say for sure I'll find anything out. But I'll try.
Pillowcases... We've done this on both of our cruises so far. Both times we made up an image then ironed it onto the pillowcase....Once on the ship we put them in a ziplock with the pens (lots of colored sharpies) along with our names and room number. Last time we also left a photo mat. Now...the first time we did it...like I mentioned we included a brand new package of lots of colored sharpies...BUT NON of them were used. The pillowcases came back with all black...and my package of pens wasn't even opened.

The following year we didn't even include sharpies...not even a black on. And both the pillow cases and photo mat came back with colorful sigs. One thing that I was disapointed with was.....the lack of variety or amount of signatures. On the pillow case we had an image (it was a photo that we scanned and printed on the iron on transfers) of the most common disney characters (Mickey, Pluto, Minnie....and so on)...and they were the ONLY ones that signed it. I was wanting ALL the characters...but only got what was on the image. Same goes for the photo mat. Although I didn't have a pic included with it...they only had 7 characters sign it (Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Chip & Dale, Donald, Daisy and Pluto)...I guess that's 8 if you count Chip & Dale as two..they signed as one...so I just counted it as on. Anyways...IF i was to do either again.....I'd make sure to leave a note that said exactly what I wanted....Like "Please have ALL of the disney characters sign this item in various colors...the more the better, Thanks". I've also heard of some cool items being dropped off for signing....things like hats/caps aprons, scrapbook pages....all sort of things. The first year we also had some tee-shirts with an iron on transfer that we dropped off.
I want to say we've always dropped ours off the first night...and they say they'll be delivered to the stateroom by the end of the week.
OH....one word of advice. If you do do something like the mat board (photo mat) 1.) Pick an easy size to travle with...I went with a HUGE 22x24 one...and it wasn't the easist thing to pack....yes it was flat and did lay in the bottom of the suit case easly...but a smaller one would have been even easer. 2.)...take some of the blue painters tape or a pencil and mark off the edges where the photo frame with be so they don't sign there.....3.) put on the sides or back which way is the top....do you want the frame to be vertical or horzional??...and it keeps all the characters signing in the same direction.