Online Check-in - Indicated Arrival Time

I guess these folks were never taught the golden rule! :roll_eyes:

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Correct. On our last trip, we got the “room is not ready” text when we entered the resort area. At 3, we went to the desk to see if the room was ready. CS told us that time is not guaranteed. I asked her to please check since the visit before, we had never received a room-ready text but discovered at 5 that the room had been ready from about 1:30. It was the same this past trip–room had been ready but no text. For the record, we HAVE received room-ready texts in the past. Both “no notification” times, no room number showed up on the app until I’d gone to the desk.

FWIW - had a split stay Poly Villas and BCV in June. Got room ready texts in early afternoon for both. I remember it was about 145 at BCV, can’t remember for Poly, but we were at DHS and we left there about 3 and that was AFTER getting room ready text.

So, while, as always, YMMV, I think it is largely dependent on what room you are assigned, and where it falls in the cleaning schedule that day.

If you check in at 3 pm, you will be assigned an available room. It is unlikely it will meet any vanity requests you have made. It is logistically impossible for housekeeping to turn over every room by 3 pm when the hotels are full.

Rooms are generally assigned 3-5 days out. A later change of assignment would typically only happen if the room became unavailable either because the previous occupant had to extend their stay or something mechanical/pulmbing required the room to be taken out of service.

If you arrive early and your previously assigned room is not yet available, you could ask about changing to another room that was. It may or may not be possible.

The only reason housekeeping would be turning over every single room was if an entire hotel was vacated on the same day. I’d imagine that doesn’t happen often on land. (However, ship housekeeping crews do it every single turnaround day…and generally they only have from like 8-1 to get that done.) I would think in a land-based hotel, they would prioritize the rooms that are checking out and complete those before doing regular service to the others. At least that’s how they did it at the large convention hotel I used to work in (reservations, but I knew how housekeeping worked).

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Not to scare you, but here is our experience from January.

Studio villa at AKL Jambo.
Arrived at about 9:30am. We didn’t use DME and didn’t expect the room to be ready that early. I started to receive texts in the early afternoon saying the room was not yet ready.
By 4 I was ready to go to Publix and get supplies, so we did that thinking by 5 we’d surely be in the room. I received 2 more texts between 4 - 5 saying the room was still not ready. Ok…
We were quite exhausted by this point as we had flown in that morning and used most of the day at the parks. I expressed this at the front desk twice and nothing remotely resembling a solution was offered. Just that the room was not ready yet.
tick tock… 7 o’clock pm… I decided to bring my daughter with me to the counter. The much better cast member than the one I dealt with earlier made a room happen. And gave us 3 fast passes for the next day as compensation for the inconvenience.
the upshot is the room was so far location wise from what I had requested. the room they planned to assign us had a mainentence issue of some sort.
So, bad luck on us but that is probaby about the worst case scenario for being well past “check-in” time.

Aside from that, we have stayed DVC for many years and I can only recall once getting in before 4.

Hello- my first post after months of lurking :joy:. Just adding our check-in experience from May 2015. Our flight arrived around 8:30 am and we took the ME to WL, arriving there a little after 10 am. We were pleasantly surprised that our room was ready. I even went back and checked the time on the picture I took of my daughter in our room- 10:35! :+1:

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My response was for people making requests and expecting that specific room to be ready. People who didn’t make any location requests will have a room at 3 pm or before.
It is fairly rare that non resort hotels have the number of people requesting not only specific rooms by numbers or trying to cloak an upgrade request like a WDW resort.

Or of course your assigned room may have been given to someone else who already arrived and wansn’t happy with theirs!

And by “turning over” I assumed the PP meant cleaning. They still have to clean each room, even if they’re not actually changing sheets etc in each room.

Making requests does not mean you’ll have to wait until 3 or before. I’ve made requests - general things like “top floor, corner room” and not a specific room because I know that this is not a cruise ship, and therefore I cannot pick a room number AND that the odds of that one single room being available in the great game of room assigning tetris is slim to none - and gotten the room well before 3pm multiple times.

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In hotel speak, a non-check-out is a cleaning. A check-out is a turn over.

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Except in this forum/chat, people are not making the general requests you mentioned. They are indeed requesting by room number, or specific location (1st floor, forty foot from elevator, view of a purple flower and ready at 11:30 am or some other ridiculous request). They are trying to cloak an upgrade to preferred, water view, Club Level or even a suite by putting in a request and asking/demanding “Magic” because it is their birthanniversababymoomgraduengageddivorce celebration. People who have never worked in a hotel don’t think room assigners know exactly that Room 123 is a corner suite.

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OP here.

Unfortunately, when it came to POP, I wasn’t able to get anything remotely close to anything I’d have preferred. I was hoping to be close to the Art of Animation Bridge, have a lake view, or have been on the first floor (even just one would have been nice). We were about as far as you could get from the bridge, on the third floor, and had a view of absolutely nothing. Room wasn’t ready until almost 5:30. It’s all good, didn’t spend much time in the room anyway. Being on the third floor sucked, especially because we were at the end of the hall by the stairs, but had to pass our room to go to the elevators (weren’t going to get two strollers and the kids up the stairs at the end of the night).

Stayed at POR FQ for one night. Awesome room, beautiful view of the pool (didn’t request anything). Check-in was early (though we didn’t get an email, but it was in the app by around 10) and they granted a late check out at 12:30. Worked out nicely, since it was our last night there and we went back early and spent most of our time at the resort. Wish I had more time there though, definitely enjoyed the scenery at POR. The buses… that’s a different story.

So, no luck on my end with the reservation request. I’m sure a lot of it depends on how busy it is on your check-in day. Our check in was a Sat, the last possible Sat you could book the beginning of your trip and have free dining. I’m sure that was a major factor. For POR, we checked in on a Friday, likely less popular as a check-in day.

So, that’s my story…

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