Hi Everyone.
We will be arriving at POFQ in mid September. Our flight does not land until 8:00pm. Does anyone have prior experience with a late landing and when they receive their bags back in their room, that they could share.
Of course we will be packing a days worth of clothing in our carry on, but I like to be all unpacked before we go to sleep.
So we land at 8pm, are using DME for transportation, checking in and seeing our room and then heading out into the resort to get a bite to eat at the lounge. Do you think our bags will be waiting for us at around 11pm?
Thanks in advance.
If you are landing at 8, you can expect to be at POFQ by 9:15 or 9:30 (after a 10 p.m. landing, it took me only 56 minutes from landing to POFQ, but that's faster than the 70 minute average). You should expect your luggage within about 3 hours from resort arrival, so it's possible your luggage would be delivered to you by 11, but I wouldn't bet on it.
As for someone's comment about hearing about people not getting their bags 'til 2:00 a.m. ... well, that would be expected if someone landed at MCO around 10:00 p.m. My personal experience: with our 6 year old and 4 year old, landed 10 p.m., arrived at POFQ 11 p.m., packed carry-ons with immediate needs, meant to ask to have DME bags held 'til morning but forgot, phone woke us up at 1:15 a.m. asking us if we wanted our bags now or in the morning (2.25 hours after resort arrival). So some might call my luggage ready at 1:15 a.m. a horror story, but they simply would be uninformed. For someone who arrived at a resort at 11:00 p.m., 1:15 a.m. luggage availability would be an example of luggage ready AHEAD OF SCHEDULE!!! It's an example of the system working better than promised, not an example of a problem. The only problem in that scenario is that I forgot to ask to have the DME bags held 'til morning (and yes, we flew after the restrictions on liquids were already put in place!) and we got uneccesarily woken up due to my own negligence.
Keep in mind that if you claim your own luggage you'll probably arrive at POFQ later than if you let DME do the luggage handling. In the time it takes to wait for your bags an so on, it's probable that you missed the first available bus to POFQ and will have to wait for the next one. No worries, you are not scheduled for a specific bus and you didn't miss out on anything, it's just that you'll get to POFQ later.
If you decide to get your own bags, make sure you DON'T put the yellow DME luggage tags on your bags. If you do, they won't show up at baggage claim for you to claim ... they'll be in the process of being delivered to your resort by truck.
On a different note ....
You mention getting a bite at the lounge. Scat Cats stops serving food at 10:00 p.m. (and even then it's ONLY wings, mozzarella bites and nachos). You can get food from the adjacent food court, but you won't have access to the bar menu after 10.
WOW 
