This will be my first trip where I am in charge of the planning. I have been several times with family, but this is the first trip with just me and DH!
Questions about check-in - I will do online check-in, but what time can I actually check-in at the front desk and expect to get into our room? We are not planning to go to parks the day we check-in, but instead just hang around our pool and Disney Springs and maybe even do some monorail touring. We will be driving through the night, so we wanted this day to rest up before our park days start. Will the resort hold our bags while we are roaming about like this?
Thanks in advance for any help/advice! Oh, and this is also my first topic to post 
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Welcome aboard!
This is one of those “How long is a piece of string” questions. It depends - sometimes a room will be ready for you when you arrive, other times it won’t be ready until the official WDW check-in time.
Yes - feel free to drop your bags off after you try to check-in and wander away!
Welcome! I have arrived at 9:00am and my room has been ready, and I have waited until almost 6:00pm.
If you are driving, pull up to the front. Bell services should help you unload your car and then either move your bags to storage or your room.
Question: Do you care what room you get and what kind of view there is? I was told by a few different Disney travel agencies that if you care about where your room is, you should not do online check-in. It’s a computer that just assigns you a room and it may be not where you want to. They said always check-in at the resort.
Dreams Unlimited Travel was one of the Disney travel agencies that told me this.
Rooms are assigned at each resort by the room assigner. If you want a specific room I would send actouring plans room request fax.
Always also do the online check in to speed up the process!
Have you actually done this recently? I’m being told differently. (just want to make sure)
Yes I have but more importantly it is the process that Len has advised. A request is a request but I fax is the only way to get that request to the room assigners. If you call wdw your call goes to a “call center”. You should always have your info in the system, if for no other reason- so they know what time you are arriving .
If they text you a room number and it is no where near where you want to stay there is a direct link to a phone number to call. If you wait you are behind all of us that sent a fax, got a text and called, and everyone that checked in days before you.
You can trust the info you get from a travel agent. I will trust the info I get here.
Do what you are comfortable with- regardless what any of us say!
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Great info! So a few questions.
- Do we text AND send a fax? (cause on the room view pictures it says to “TEXT”…do they mean fax?)
- How far in advance to our check-in date should we do this?
Thanks again.
You go through the steps and touring plans automatically faxes your request 5 days before check in. You do online check in but you do not make any requests that would confuse the assigner (I make no requests or “ upper floor”.)
The text part is you do have to add text to the fax: your name/confirmation numbers and anything else you want them to know.
If that’s the case then when you check in at the desk you’re basically stuck with whatever’s left.
Thank you for the help with this. 
I also posted on chat - just to make sure I have not lost my mind, but nothing has changed.
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Wait, is there a live chat channel here too? Other than the forums?
Do you have the touring plans app?
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It is the wdw lines app- or you can get to it through the touring plans website under “ my conversations”- I think. The app has a “chat” feature. Make sure you log onto you touring plans account.
Warning: we talk completely in abbreviations since there is a post limit!
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Thanks everyone…I will do online check-in and send a TP room request. I do know a certain building we would like at CSR. If they give us something different though, we will go to the front desk and see if anything can be done to change it.
August 2017 I had TouringPlans send the room request fax and I did online check-in for POR-Royal Room-Garden View. I had a room close to what the room request had asked for. (It ended up being a great room.) I got an email that my room was ready at 10:58am. We arrived at the resort around 1pm and still went to the lobby to check-in because it was my children’s first Disney trip and we wanted to give them the “traditional experience.” That CM gave us the same room number that was in the email I received, but it was worth it to stop at the check-in desk since we had time because she gave them their first trip buttons and a special letter from Princess Tiana because we were staying in a Royal Room. It was also our first time at that resort so she went over all the resort-specific items with us too.