We just did that a couple of weeks ago... left our first hotel mega early (though it was just my husband and I) and went to AKL to check in at 7:00 a.m. so that we could be done with checking in prior to meeting another party at MK for opening. It worked out great with one hitch... they actually had a room ready for us. Any other time when we actually WANT a room early it never happens, but of course this time it happened. Anyway, it took longer to check in because the room was ready. So, make sure you build that into your plans - make sure you allow for extra time. We didn't even unload or anything, just kept our bags in the car and zipped out of there once getting our whole check-in packet.
We also done the opposite - which was wait until after a park closes and then check-in... and guess what, you were right. We did get the worst room. That happened to us more than once. Prior to them changing all rooms to non-smoking, we ended up with smoking rooms every time. "Well, we ran out of non-smoking rooms," blah, blah, blah "we can spray so it doesn't smell"... point was I am allergic to cigarette smoke and spraying doesn't make a difference - my throat closes up (nice, huh). Of course they didn't tell us they were smoking rooms when we checked in and got to our rooms, so there were always several phone calls down to the front desk, etc. Sometimes they "magically" found a non-smoking room - one time they didn't and we had to waste time the next day moving rooms. The rooms were always in awful locations and usually had maintenance issues (broken phones, broken closet doors, broken AC - wouldn't turn off)... basically rooms that they hadn't intended on giving out is my guess. It's fun checking in at midnight only to have a maintenance guy knock on your door the next morning at 8 a.m. saying he's there to fix the closet door. We used to live in CA, so we almost always arrived to the resorts around midnight (after waiting for Magical Express to get us to the resort)... and almost always got awful rooms. They say that they assign them early in the day or the night before or whatever, but it never failed that we got the worst rooms in the hotel. I have heard people checking in the late afternoon complain about a location "oh, can't we get closer to the pool" etc. and most often they are switched... so, obviously the person who had the closer room to the pool is now out of luck and are in the boonies where that other person was assigned because they whined about it and were there to check in sooner.
I am wondering, though, if you go through all that in the morning and you check in BUT your room is not yet ready - is it still in "limbo" and someone coming in the afternoon may complain and end up with your room anyway? I mean, as long as you do not yet know your room #, can they switch it?
Some points to ponder!
