Early check-in & morning EMH

[NemoRocks78]

Two quick questions for y'all!

How is morning EMH? Is it worth it? If we didn't do it, will the park be insanely pack by regular opening time and FP return times already for late in the day?

And speaking of morning EMH... is it OK to check-in at like 7am and get the room keys (I know the room would obviously not be ready) so morning EMH could be done?

Thanks in advance for the help!

 

[Master Yoda]

Morning EMH is great. You can really get a good jump on a park. For the most part most people on vacation do not want to get up at 6 AM to make it to a 8 AM park opening which makes attendance somewhat light. At MK we can typically do all the rides in FantasyLand and start on TomorrowLand before the park opens at 9 AM.

You will not have a single problem with check in at 7AM.

 

[NemoRocks78]

Excellent! Thanks, Richard. :wave:

 

[eroyee]

That's what we do,too. Hit up all the rides in Fantasyland, with POOH riding 2 0r 3 times and then on to Haunted Mansion, etc. by 9 a.m. Its really worth it to us.

 

[CleveRocks]

If a park has morning EMH, go for it! But if you won't be there for the morning EMH, then you should NOT go to that park on that day.

 

[susan5027]

7am check in??????

Okay, I have to ask this. How early can one check in??? I have suffered each and every time I've been to WDW (which is not often enough) from the "West Coast Penalty." There has got to be a better system in place than the first come first served rule, leaving us west coast people to the last picks of the day. :brick: Our flights do not come in to MCO until late in the day. We never get the opportunity to get the room we request. I have made reservations as soon as allowed only to be assigned some of the least attractive rooms for the price range and category. The best option I have used is to keep our bags packed and change rooms on the next day. This is getting tiring to do on our trips. I've even looked into finding a red eye flight, but that just is not practical with kids.

 

[fosse76]

Okay, I have to ask this. How early can one check in??? I have suffered each and every time I've been to WDW (which is not often enough) from the "West Coast Penalty." There has got to be a better system in place than the first come first served rule, leaving us west coast people to the last picks of the day. :brick: Our flights do not come in to MCO until late in the day. We never get the opportunity to get the room we request. I have made reservations as soon as allowed only to be assigned some of the least attractive rooms for the price range and category. The best option I have used is to keep our bags packed and change rooms on the next day. This is getting tiring to do on our trips. I've even looked into finding a red eye flight, but that just is not practical with kids.

What do you suggest? The first people to check-in should get the worst rooms? It isn't Disney's fault that your flight gets you in later in the day. I can't imagine there is much variance in the rooms at each resort...other than the location (i.e., a standard is a standard no matter where in the hotel it is located). If you are tired or relocating rooms then stop relocating and stay put. It's not like they are giving you a room with dirty towels and stains on the carpet. Perhaps you should reserve a preferred room in the future, since location is the only thing that could be subpar (generally speaking of course).

 

[coltow]

Morning EMH is great. You can really get a good jump on a park. For the most part most people on vacation do not want to get up at 6 AM to make it to a 8 AM park opening which makes attendance somewhat light. At MK we can typically do all the rides in FantasyLand and start on TomorrowLand before the park opens at 9 AM.

This is exactly why we always do morning EMH and never do the evenings. Hardly anyone wants to get up early on vacation but have no problem staying up late. We have 2 little early risers any how and love to go back to resorts for afternoon breaks so the morning hours work great for us. We found the crowds at evening hours insane and so we avoid them.

 

[krankenstein]

Okay, I have to ask this. How early can one check in??? I have suffered each and every time I've been to WDW (which is not often enough) from the "West Coast Penalty." There has got to be a better system in place than the first come first served rule, leaving us west coast people to the last picks of the day. :brick: Our flights do not come in to MCO until late in the day. We never get the opportunity to get the room we request. I have made reservations as soon as allowed only to be assigned some of the least attractive rooms for the price range and category. The best option I have used is to keep our bags packed and change rooms on the next day. This is getting tiring to do on our trips. I've even looked into finding a red eye flight, but that just is not practical with kids.

I don't agree with this, I've checked in at 7 am before and been stuck in the far side of the 90's at Pop. It simply comes down to what rooms are available on that particular day and the requests that have been made.

 

[KaliSplash]

Yes, you can check in at 7 a.m. We checked in about 8 a week before Christmas and actually got into our rooms! That's not the norm of course, we were prepared just to get our keys with admission and dining plan and come back about 2, but they had rooms ready, so we were able to get the stuff into the room and not have to worry about coming back and dealing with that.

I highly recommend the EMH. When you get each park's biggie attractions out of the way, it makes decisions much easier the rest of the day.

 

[susan5027]

I still am wanting to know what time is the earliest check in time. And I still think a better system which takes into account the earliest booking time along with optional personal requests should be considered. A combination of human and computer input would be efficient, equitable, and compassionate for all guests.

 

[NemoRocks78]

Thanks for the help everyone! :sohappy: :wave:

 

[Master Yoda]

I still am wanting to know what time is the earliest check in time. And I still think a better system which takes into account the earliest booking time along with optional personal requests should be considered. A combination of human and computer input would be efficient, equitable, and compassionate for all guests.

Officially 7:00 AM. Unofficially whenever the resorts systems are done with the nightly updates.

 

[Nansafan]

I still am wanting to know what time is the earliest check in time. And I still think a better system which takes into account the earliest booking time along with optional personal requests should be considered. A combination of human and computer input would be efficient, equitable, and compassionate for all guests.

Disney does not assign rooms until about a week before your check-in date. As many people on this board can tell you, the more personal requests you make, the harder it is to accomodate your requests because what you request might not be available in your room category. For example, we stayed at the Caribbean Beach last year for 9 days. We had a group of 10 and used 3 rooms. My sister and brother-in-law requested a king size bed. They could not be in the same village as our other 2 rooms because our village did not have any rooms with king-size beds. They were placed in the next village to ours. When you make your room request, make it as simple as possible, i.e. connecting rooms, or close to food court, or close to bus stop. Getting all 3 might not happen but you might get one of them. As quoted on every confirmation we've received, room requests are not guaranteed. On the Caribbean Beach trip we requested connecting rooms but didn't get them. We did get rooms right next to each other though. They did the best they could to accomodate our request and we checked in at 1:00 PM.

 

[lbrad]

This is exactly why we always do morning EMH and never do the evenings. Hardly anyone wants to get up early on vacation but have no problem staying up late. We have 2 little early risers any how and love to go back to resorts for afternoon breaks so the morning hours work great for us. We found the crowds at evening hours insane and so we avoid them.

We are the same... kids are early risers...head to the parks early while they are full of energy... and take an afternoon break at your resort bed/pool:wave:
Teenagers on the other hand sleep-in and stay out late...unless you want to mingle with the teens get up early

 

[KingStefan]

If a park has morning EMH, go for it! But if you won't be there for the morning EMH, then you should NOT go to that park on that day.

This is what I have found as well. In fact, we generally go to morning EMH, then park hop when it gets crowded. touringplans.com is great for advising which parks will be most and least crowded.

 

[KC82271]

I agree to go for it if you can. The rides will be walk-on and its worth getting the "longer lined" ones out of the way when no one is there.

As for checking in late and not getting what you want - I don't believe that. I flew the last light out of Newark into MCO and still managed to get what I needed - and had two rooms! Like someone else said, the rooms are assigned a week ahead of time - not "first come, first served" - although that is probably the case if you make last minute changes!

 

[CleveRocks]

I'm sure this can vary from resort to resort, but generaly speaking, it's not like every single room is pre-assigned 4 or 5 days in advance. This would be for some special needs things, etc. For the most part, rooms ARE assigned as people arrive. In other words, let's say you have a reservation for a preferred location room at Caribbean Beach Resort. There are 384 rooms in that category. Let's say that on your check-in day, 70 of those rooms will be available, and there are reservations for all 70. They don't pre-assign the Smith party to room 3340 and the Jones party to room 2520, etc. When you approach the front desk to check-in, you will be given a room that's available that matches your reservation. It's up to the CM at the front desk to check your noted requests, and it's up to you to nicely make sure the CM checks that.

Again, this may NOT be the case at some WDW resorts, but it is the case in, at very least, most of the WDW resorts.