We have had problems before coming in too early or too late you get nothing that you ask for in your requests...I want to maximize our chances
My experience is different with the "early" element of the above.
Think of it this way - on any given day, "X" number of villas at a given resort are opening up. A handful are great, many are O.K., some are so-so and a few are lemons. The earlier you "get in line," re-stating your preferences, the more likely you are not only to not get a lemon but have a real chance at winning a cherry.
So, how does one make that happen?
Like others here have mentioned, we always fly in the day before checking in and spend the night at an airport hotel (for years the MCO Hyatt back when it was available for a steal on Hotwire, but now the Marriott. The latter isn't in the terminal but is only five minutes away, has a 24/7 shuttle and is much nicer, almost a resort in itself. I also can book it for nothing since I'm drowning in Marriott points).
We go to bed early so we can get up early on check in day. We then get to the DME welcome center around 6:45. At that hour, it's very quiet and the staff literally put us on a bus immediately and send it out with just us (or at best 2-3 other people) on it.
That means we get an express ride to our
DVC resort, arriving by about 7:15-7:20 at the latest.
The key benefit here is "getting into the room assignment queue at sunrise." Ergo, we are the or one of the first parties arriving that day at the resort, and my schpeil with the check-in CM always politely emphasizes:
- We aren't looking to get into a villa immediately, since we are going off to a park for opening and will be there for the better part of the day.
- That stated, while we are aware that our villa may already been assigned, we're hoping that since we don't need a villa right away but have already arrived that we can kept in mind for whichever villa is opening up today that meets or comes as close as possible to meeting our requests. Or stated differently, please don't just shove us into the first available thing - instead, keep us in mind for the cherry picks that may open up later - which (hee hee) given the early hour includes includes pretty much all the inventory that will be opening up that day.
Bottom line: this has
always resulted in us getting exactly what we wanted.
My interprepation is "early bird
does gets the worm," ergo, the "better" villas opening up on any given day will often be "held" for those in the queue earliest. No, DVC won't admit that (the "room ready" line being the stated policy), but I've seen too much evidence to the contrary to buy that.
