Suggestions on what to do until check in time

[cindrew]

So our flight lands at 9 am but check in time at our timeshare isn't until 4 pm. I realize the timeshare will hold our luggage and we can use the facilities on property until our unit is ready. I was thinking of getting a cheap room just to have a place to hang and use the pool but I've called a few resorts in Downtown Disney and they can't guarantee early check in. When we have stayed at Disney resorts, a few times we have gotten into our rooms before 11 am but not always. We will have our two chicklets and luggage with us, we will be tired (getting up at 3 am that morning) and it will be in August, hot, hot, hot. Besides going out for a nice breakfast or shopping at Downtown Disney, and ideas? Anyone know if there is a resort that will allow early check in? Thanks for your help!

 

[Rosebud123]

Well, if you get to the timeshare at 10:30ish that only leaves 5.5 hours to fill. We could easily swim for a few hours and then go to lunch, but if that's too much pool time for your family you could either go to DisneyQuest or go see a movie in DTD. I think the new bowling alley in DTD will be open by then, too.

 

[A Mickeyfan]

I live approx 3 hours from the parks. I normally get up about 4:30 and drive up on my check in day. I go to the timeshare, do my paperwork then head over to a theme park till check in time, even during the hot summer. I have an annual pass so I am not "using a day" up if that makes a difference in your plans.

 

[tednvon]

Hi, I am assuming you have a rental car. If you want to get into Disney mood, be in A/C a lot and have options for food or snacks, we often do the "monorail and Hotel tour."

We park at Poly, Hop the monorail and get off at the Grand Floridian, wander around, check out the Gardens, OOOH and AAAH at how the other half lives, and maybe grab a snack at the self service restaurant. We hop off at the Ticket center, grab the mononrail for EPCOT and just do a round trip over and back. We stop at the Contemporary and get our annual picture of us sitting in the Mickey Ears in the big shiney Mickey statue out back. We do a tour of the Poly, again wandering around the gardens and checking out briefly what is new in the Wyland Art gallery.
If we still have time to kill, will park at Akingdom Lodge, wander around, see what animals are out and have a wonderful conversation with the Cast Members out back from Africa. Also can drive over to Wilderness Lodge and check admire the lobby and wander around out back. Any and all of these hotels will, of course, have plenty of snacks, ice cream, or even a nice lunch available.

If you are really familiar with Disney, this might not be the ticket for you. I can tell you newbies or occassional Disney folks love it because they may never have been to the high end hotels and do not realize they have access to all these neat hotels without paying a nickle.

Enjoy!!
Ted

 

[Detailor]

So our flight lands at 9 am but check in time at our timeshare isn't until 4 pm. I realize the timeshare will hold our luggage and we can use the facilities on property until our unit is ready. I was thinking of getting a cheap room just to have a place to hang and use the pool but I've called a few resorts in Downtown Disney and they can't guarantee early check in. When we have stayed at Disney resorts, a few times we have gotten into our rooms before 11 am but not always. We will have our two chicklets and luggage with us, we will be tired (getting up at 3 am that morning) and it will be in August, hot, hot, hot. Besides going out for a nice breakfast or shopping at Downtown Disney, and ideas? Anyone know if there is a resort that will allow early check in? Thanks for your help!

We also like to fly in during the early/mid-morning to begin our Orlando vacations. By the time that you've landed, gotten your luggage and then your rental car you may be surprised how much time you'll chew up before you even leave the airport. So you may be at mid-morning when you're on the road toward your resort. We go to the timeshare resort and do a pre-check in (they take the credit card, we discuss any request that I've made, I give them my cell phone number so they can contact me directly when our villa is ready). With a 9am arrival, it could easily be 11am or so by the time you've completed the pre-check in.

We'll usually head off to some place like BoardWalk for a few hours. Generally, we'll do some walking around/sightseeing, a little shopping and have lunch at one of the restaurants, maybe take the slow boat ride loop - BoardWalk/Beach Club/Epcot/Hollywood Studios. If we haven't heard from the resort we might make our way over to Downtown Disney or go to a Publix to get some non-perishable foods for our stay. And that usually is enough to get us to check-in time.

Dick Taylor

 

[bankr63]

I would check with your resort as to what those facilities are. I can only speak for our home resort (Vistana), but there you have access to several pools, and the larger ones have very nice posh change areas. You can relax in one of the restaurants and have a meal, or find a patch of shade near the pool and nap.

Most trips our flights usually arrive around 11:00 am. by the time we reach the resort we are often able to get right into our villa, but if not, we park our bags in the lockup at the Bell station. Depending on how big our party is, some may hit the pools with at least one adult to supervise while the rest of the adults head out for provisions for our week. We have a very solid routine of what stores to hit and what to buy so we can all usually be "in" our rooms, stocked up for the week and lounging by the pools around 4:30. But as you said, with the early start in the morning everyone is pretty tired so it's early to bed that first night and up early for first rope drop the next morning!

 

[Keancanuk]

We just got back from Orlando yesterday.

Our flight landed the prior week at 9am as well. By the time we got our luggage, rental car (that alone was almost an hour wait!) and out of the airport it was about 11:30. We stopped for a quick bite to eat and then headed over to the resort.

We were able to check in at 12:30pm and we went to our room, didn't like it, asked for a different one and we were accommodated right away. I liked going early, for that fact, that we were able to change rooms. Even our TA told us to check in early, cause if you don't like your room, and you check in later in the day, you may not be able to switch !

Have fun!

 

[canopynut66]

So our flight lands at 9 am but check in time at our timeshare isn't until 4 pm. I realize the timeshare will hold our luggage and we can use the facilities on property until our unit is ready. I was thinking of getting a cheap room just to have a place to hang and use the pool but I've called a few resorts in Downtown Disney and they can't guarantee early check in. When we have stayed at Disney resorts, a few times we have gotten into our rooms before 11 am but not always. We will have our two chicklets and luggage with us, we will be tired (getting up at 3 am that morning) and it will be in August, hot, hot, hot. Besides going out for a nice breakfast or shopping at Downtown Disney, and ideas? Anyone know if there is a resort that will allow early check in? Thanks for your help!

Not sure any resort has early check in but we also up by 3 AM if we even get to bed the night before. We also get to resort by 10 AM or so and if were lucky room is ready and if not we just relax and sit by the pool or could swim there. Get some lunch somewhere. usually room ready by then and we get settled and head to DTD check out what is new then head to dinner at Rain Forest and then back to room for early bed so we can hit it at MK early first full day. Bell services will hold luggage once we there. Would seem you could swim at your time share until room ready. hope you can

 

[cindrew]

Thanks everybody! Usually we take an 11 am nonstop flight but Southwest did away with it so it was either early morning or after 6 pm for flying out. We haven't flown out this early since before the kids arrived! We are staying at Vistana, we love it there! We are going to do the precheck in (which I wasn't aware of, I always waited until 4 to check in) and have bell services hold our luggage, probably lunch at one of the Disney resorts, then head back to Vistana and swim until our unit is ready, and hopefully it's early so we can just relax! Thanks again for all your suggestions and tips, much appreciated!!

 

[TamaraQT]

I am also a timeshare owner. We prefer arrival flights to MCO before 10am if possible. We go straight to our resort and do an early check-in. Usually we have requests for certain buildings and by getting there early you are more likely to be accomodated. All of my requests are always honored and I think it is only because of an early arrival. Arriving later in the day, requests are harder to honor. Arriving LATE only leaves the leftover units. The leftover units are the ones everyone else has turned down earlier in the day. Last year we arrived at 930am. They honored my building/room request and they were cleaning our unit. It was nice to be able to know what unit you were being placed in that early. They gave us our keycards and told us they would call us as soon as housekeeping finished. Just as we started to go to lunch, one of the activities people reminded us there was a pool party going on with free lunch for owners. Well needless to say, we stayed. Since our luggage was in our car, we changed into our swimsuits. We had lunch, did line dancing, played water volleyball and had a ball. Our room was ready before 1. So my point is, look at your early arrival as an advantage. Sometimes, you will be checked in long before the 4pm mark. I would suggest taking advantage of amentities at your timeshare resort. That way, as soon as your room is available, you will be there and ready to get settled in. If you are doing a lot of Disney, you may not get a chance to visit your timeshare resort much. So maybe use your day of checkin to enjoy it. Have a WONDERFUL time!!!!