Checking into resort after Midnight Question

[stan30k]

My wife and I are arriving in Orlando at 10:58 pm on Oct 7 and I am guessing that we will arrive at POP around 12:30-1am ish. We have a reservation there starting on the 7th. Will there be someone there at the desk to check us in and give us our room key, passes, etc...? I have heard somewhere that the front desks shut down at a certain time. If that is true, what time?
Thanks for any help!

 

[GrowingUpDisney]

We almost always check in after midnight and although there is usually a skeleton crew we have never had a problem checking in. We have stayed at values to DVC resorts and never had a problem.

Have a great trip.

Niki

 

[Rob562]

A few extra comments that might help clear up a few things...

If you have a confirmed reservation at a Disney resort with a deposit paid on it (whether just the deposit on a room-only or the entire balance on a package), Disney will hold your room until 7AM the following morning. After that, you *might* be considered a no-show.
If your travel plans change, you're severly delayed, or you just think that you might be arriving very late, it's a good idea to have it noted in your reservation.

And to address the confusion over the front desk "closing for the night", I think the OP might have been mis-interpreting part of what I and others said in another recent thread.

First off, as others have said, there is *always* someone at the Front Desk in the WDW resorts.

But what happens is that every night, they must shut down their computer system to run their "end-of-day" processes. It essentially closes the books on one business day, and opens the books on the new one. But it takes a while to process all of the credit card charges, room payments, check-ins, check-outs, and other accounting necessities, and then to open the books on the next day's business.
(Pretty much every retail business in the world has a similar process, but because most businesses aren't 24-hour operations, they're a lot easier to deal with)

During this shut-down, which takes a couple hours, the CMs have very limited access to the system. They cannot print room keys, they cannot check people in and out, they can't even take your money if you wanted to make a payment toward your room charge account.

So, if you arrive late at night (I think they try to get things started between 2 and 3am), you *might* run into the system being shut down to run this process. I ran up against this once where I'd left my room key behind at a bar on PI, realized it on the bus back to the resort, and stopped at the desk to get a new one. But they couldn't make one for me until the morning. They offered to let me into my room using a master key, but my friend still had his room key, so it wasn't necessary.

I don't know for sure, but I would presume that the Front Desk has a procedure in place for Guests that haven't arrived yet when it comes time to shut their system down. (My guess would be they do some kind of basic check-in and pre-print those Guests' room keys and set them aside for when the Guests do arrive.)

While the end-of-day process *might* finish earlier than 7AM (the official earliest you can pre-register for a check-in that following day), they'll only guarantee that it'll be done by 7AM.

Hope that cleared a few things up.

-Rob

 

[stan30k]

And to address the confusion over the front desk "closing for the night", I think the OP might have been mis-interpreting part of what I and others said in another recent thread.

First off, as others have said, there is *always* someone at the Front Desk in the WDW resorts.

But what happens is that every night, they must shut down their computer system to run their "end-of-day" processes. It essentially closes the books on one business day, and opens the books on the new one. But it takes a while to process all of the credit card charges, room payments, check-ins, check-outs, and other accounting necessities, and then to open the books on the next day's business.
(Pretty much every retail business in the world has a similar process, but because most businesses aren't 24-hour operations, they're a lot easier to deal with)

During this shut-down, which takes a couple hours, the CMs have very limited access to the system. They cannot print room keys, they cannot check people in and out, they can't even take your money if you wanted to make a payment toward your room charge account.

So, if you arrive late at night (I think they try to get things started between 2 and 3am), you *might* run into the system being shut down to run this process. I ran up against this once where I'd left my room key behind at a bar on PI, realized it on the bus back to the resort, and stopped at the desk to get a new one. But they couldn't make one for me until the morning. They offered to let me into my room using a master key, but my friend still had his room key, so it wasn't necessary.

I don't know for sure, but I would presume that the Front Desk has a procedure in place for Guests that haven't arrived yet when it comes time to shut their system down. (My guess would be they do some kind of basic check-in and pre-print those Guests' room keys and set them aside for when the Guests do arrive.)

I believe this was the post that I read about the desk closing. Thank you everyone for all of your help and advice!!!

 

[Club34]

i apologize that i didnt read every post thoroughly here so maybe this has been brought up. i was wondering if that online pre-check-in stuff might help make sure you have your room semi-waiting for you when you arrive in that late late hour? you could do it earlier in the evening before you leave for the airport if thats feasible.

 

[C&B Young]

During this shut-down, which takes a couple hours, the CMs have very limited access to the system. They cannot print room keys, they cannot check people in and out, they can't even take your money if you wanted to make a payment toward your room charge account.

This is true. POFQ was prepared for our late arrival and had the room keys already done up before system shut-down. All we had to do was add our credit card to the room keys the next morning when the system was back up.

 

[sweetpee_1993]

This thread has been great info for me! Thank you! For our January trip we'll be arriving after midnight at AKL. Now I just wonder what resorts share the DME with AKL so I can guess-timate how long it will take to get there from the airport. Considering the hour we'll be fetching our own bags from baggage claim so they can travel with us on the bus. If it's going to be a long wait for other people to board then stops at other resorts I may go ahead and book a limo transfer for us to shorten the process. I know everyone will be dead-tired from a full day of work, school, packing, etc.

 

[stan30k]

I was thinking about doing the online check in, but can I do it if I booked the trip with AAA?

 

[swimmom]

This thread has been great info for me! Thank you! For our January trip we'll be arriving after midnight at AKL. Now I just wonder what resorts share the DME with AKL so I can guess-timate how long it will take to get there from the airport. Considering the hour we'll be fetching our own bags from baggage claim so they can travel with us on the bus. If it's going to be a long wait for other people to board then stops at other resorts I may go ahead and book a limo transfer for us to shorten the process. I know everyone will be dead-tired from a full day of work, school, packing, etc.

At that time of day it could be any resort depending on where familes are staying. When we arrived that late we were on a bus with five other familes staying a different resorts. We lucked out and were the second stop.