Are we less likely to get a room request if arriving around 8pm?

maryj11

DIS Veteran
Joined
Jun 13, 2002
We arrived around that time the past couple years and did not get our room requests. We arrived around 11:00am in the past and have gotten close to our requests. Not always, but seems we had more luck.
I just wondered if it most likely because we arrived later then check in time?
 


Technically, it shouldn't. But you never know. However, if you do online check-in, and if online check-in works as it's supposed to, you should get a text much earlier in the day with your room location and number (when it's ready). Your room should actually be assigned for you well before you get there.
 
I will add that we got our room text from Pop mid-afternoon while we were at DHS. I had requested ground floor and saw that it was 4th floor. I wasn't thrilled because we were planning to stay until around park close at 8. I went to the front desk when we returned and they were still able to move us to a ground floor location. Neither was in the building we requested, but it was still a decent location (very close to the bus stop but unfortunately near the smoking area). But I was still happy they were able to get our top priority and get us on the ground floor.
 


I will add that we got our room text from Pop mid-afternoon while we were at DHS. I had requested ground floor and saw that it was 4th floor. I wasn't thrilled because we were planning to stay until around park close at 8. I went to the front desk when we returned and they were still able to move us to a ground floor location. Neither was in the building we requested, but it was still a decent location (very close to the bus stop but unfortunately near the smoking area). But I was still happy they were able to get our top priority and get us on the ground floor.
Did you add your expected time of arrival when you did online check in? Or did you do online check in?
 
Did you add your expected time of arrival when you did online check in? Or did you do online check in?
I didn't do online check in. I called about 10 days out to add our requests. I don't think anyone asked about expected arrival time and I didn't think to add it.
 
Technically, it shouldn't. But you never know. However, if you do online check-in, and if online check-in works as it's supposed to, you should get a text much earlier in the day with your room location and number (when it's ready). Your room should actually be assigned for you well before you get there.

I asked a similar question and someone brought up a good point that if you are using DME, they know your flight info if you are flying. Hence, they know when you are arriving.
 
I'm not sure what percentage of guests actually use DME for their trips, but that's an interesting point. We've never used DME, but have used online check-in a lot (although 25% of the time, it doesn't actually work for us to go directly to the room and get in!). But we usually know when our room is ready and the room number, even if we arrive later.
 
It's going to depend very much on what you've requested.

Let's say you're staying at Pop Century, and you request "not ground floor." Well, there are over a thousand rooms at Pop that would meet that request, so your chances are really good no matter what time you arrive.

But if your request is something like "50's bldg, second floor, facing the pool, no connecting door," that's a much smaller number of possible rooms, so yes, the later you get there, the lower your chances of getting a room that meets all of your requests.
 
I asked a similar question and someone brought up a good point that if you are using DME, they know your flight info if you are flying. Hence, they know when you are arriving.
I’m not sure the resort keeps track of the arrival of your flights. I guess they may since they slip the DME papers under the door at check out.
 
I’m not sure the resort keeps track of the arrival of your flights. I guess they may since they slip the DME papers under the door at check out.

But that's not the same as an assignor using DME arrival times while making unit assignments 3-5 days out. The assignor also doesn't really know, 3-5 days out, which unit gets turned over quickly for an earlier arrival vs. the one that gets checked out of at 10:59AM completely trashed.
 
As someone who used to be a rooms controller for the ASR's, I can say at least during my time working there, it was definitely harder to meet someone's requested room types as the day went on. Not saying it's not impossible, but the available rooms become limited as more and more people check in.

Think of it as a game of Tetris, you have x number of reservations checking in every day for different lengths of stay, and you have to try to find the room the guest wants that fits their requests. It can be tough, and sometimes the front desk would offer to do room changes if we couldn't meet their requests they wanted and were okay with moving the following day.
 
We arrived around that time the past couple years and did not get our room requests. We arrived around 11:00am in the past and have gotten close to our requests. Not always, but seems we had more luck.
I just wondered if it most likely because we arrived later then check in time?

We've arrived very late (after midnight) several times and have always gotten our requests. This isn't to say that it does/will happen every time for everybody, but has been the case in our experience.
 

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