When do you arrive at EPCOT?

[Rob1872]

Taking Disney transportation after our November Fantasy cruise to have a day at EPCOT, staying at the Yacht Club. We will be making our Fast Pass reservations next week, and are trying to determine if we can reserve anything before lunch or if everything should be put in the afternoon (also want to fit in a "Behind the Seeds" tour at The Land, so it would be nice to get at least one of the Fast Pass rides or the tour in before lunch). Also, does our luggage get stored at the Yacht Club and then delivered to our room, or do we have to pick it up at the Yacht Club and store it with the porters, etc.?

 

[PrincessShmoo]

Taking Disney transportation after our November Fantasy cruise to have a day at EPCOT, staying at the Yacht Club. We will be making our Fast Pass reservations next week, and are trying to determine if we can reserve anything before lunch or if everything should be put in the afternoon (also want to fit in a "Behind the Seeds" tour at The Land, so it would be nice to get at least one of the Fast Pass rides or the tour in before lunch). Also, does our luggage get stored at the Yacht Club and then delivered to our room, or do we have to pick it up at the Yacht Club and store it with the porters, etc.?

Don't know if it works the same for Yacht Club, but when we arrived at All Star Music from the port (earlier than the room was ready) we just left our bags with the porter and they delivered it to our room when it was ready. We were supposed to get a text/email telling us our room was ready, but it never happened.

The absolute earliest you could be at the Yacht Club would be 10:00, but I wouldn't count on it. The buses don't start for their specific resorts until 9:00 and each bus could stop at up to 3 resorts (or just one). That being said, our stop on our bus was resort #4 and there were still people on the bus when we got off.

 

[Disney_Princess83]

To be on the safe side, I would make FP's for after midday. We docked late on our last cruise and we didn't disembark until after 9am but we made it to Magic Kingdom by midday and that included a quick trip to Downtown Disney (we were staying at Saratoga)

 

[anricat]

When we disembarked the Dream a few years back, we ended up sitting on the bus for awhile waiting for it to fill up (probably 20-30 minutes). Then we stopped at every other resort first. We made it to our resort around 11:00 (POR) gave our bags to bell services and headed back out, had to wait FOREVER for a bus to Epcot and ended up arriving at Epcot around 11:30-11:45. To be safe, I wouldn't book anything before noon. We ate lunch first thing when we got there.

 

[jrabbit]

Generally speaking

The Porters are at the cruise terminal - the Bell Hop / Captain are at hotels.

 

[Ralph&Pam]

When we went to the Boardwalk Villas from the Fantasy in March, we arrived about 10:15 am. The bus made one stop before the BW and there were still passengers on the bus heading to Yacht Club and Beach Club.

Going port to resort using DCL transportation, you will retrieve your luggage at the port, clear customs, and hand it off to the bus driver for the trip to the resort. Upon arrival, you will retrieve your bags once again and check them with bell services for delivery to your room once it is ready and you're in the room. We always check-in online, and have mostly been notified via text that our room is ready with the room number closer to 3 pm. Since you want to get in some Epcot time, it may not make any difference, since the best plan might be to check your bags and head right to the park.

The Fastpass window is 60 minutes for most attractions (shows and such are different), so you should be able to do an 11:30 FP without much difficulty. You would have until 12:30 to actually arrive at the attraction. Even 11 am might be okay depending on how far you'll have to walk through Epcot to get there.

Enjoy your cruise and day at Epcot.

 

[Chrissie & Kids]

I would also recommend booking one of your Tier 2 fastpasses first, so if you end up being delayed in route to the resort you can likely change the time without losing the fastpass.
If your morning fastpass is for a popular Tier 1 ride you will have limited or possibly no options to reschedule it in the event of a delay.

 

[Ralph&Pam]

I would also recommend booking one of your Tier 2 fastpasses first, so if you end up being delayed in route to the resort you can likely change the time without losing the fastpass.
If your morning fastpass is for a popular Tier 1 ride you will have limited or possibly no options to reschedule it in the event of a delay.

That sounds like an excellent strategy. I wish I had thought of it.