Online Check-In is a very
popular topic for those who have never used it. Many wonder what the benefits
are or will it hurt your room requests. I will do my best to give all of you a
guide as to what to expect from Online Check-In, when to do it and most
importantly what not to expect and when not to do it.
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| Online Check-In or Not? |
Online Check-In will not
exclude you from the increasingly rare free upgrade, it will not ignore your
requests, nor will it give you golden FASTPASSES to all of the attractions. All
Online Check-In is designed to do is speed up your check-in time at the resort.
That is it. No more, no less. Room assignments are still done the same way they
have always been. The only difference is the resort will print out your package
before you arrive if you did Online Check-In. The only bonus, other that a time
savings, I have personally found from using Online Check-In is the frequency in
which my room has been ready prior to 3:00 PM has gone up.
Now that we know what Online
Check-In is, the only question that remains is who should use it. Online Check-In is designed for the frequent Walt Disney World traveler that will know what
everything in their arrival packet is without it being explained to you. If you
travel to Walt Disney World one or more times a year, know how your Key to the
World card works and can recite the Disney Dining Plan rules from memory, then
Online Check-In can help to speed up your check-in process. If this is your
first trip to Walt Disney World, the first time you have booked a package or added
dining plan then I would advise against using Online Check-In.
Of course, I am not one to
come to a conclusion without at least a little bit of experimentation. So
experiment I did, on my friends and family no less. I had a trip planned with
myself, my brother and a friend back when Online Check-In first came out. I wanted
to use this opportunity to see first hand how different groups would take to
the Online Check-In experience. We were all checking into the same resort at
the same time with the exact same package with room, tickets and the Disney
Dining Plan. The difference was the three group’s level of experience with Walt
Disney World. This is how it played out.
Group 1 The novice: This was
our friends group. They had never so much as checked into a hotel before let
alone booked a Walt Disney World vacation package. Everything in their package
was unfamiliar to them. Had they been on their own, they would have been
completely lost.
Group 2 The somewhat experienced
Walt Disney World guest: My brother and his family made up this group. They had
been to Walt Disney World many times but they have always stayed off property
or booked a room only. Even though they knew the ins and outs of the parks very
well and knew that their Key to the World cards would open the doors to their
room, they had no idea that their tickets and dining were on there as well.
Again, had this group done this on their own, they would have been lost or at
the very least had many questions.
Group 3 The pros: As you
might have guessed, this was my family and I. We travel to Walt Disney World
very frequently and knew what every last slip of paper in our package was. We
knew how the Key to the World cards, tickets and dining plan worked. Instead of
having a cast member go over every thing in our travel package one by one
and wait for our Key to the World cards to print, we were able to grab our
pre-printed package and hit the parks.
Hopefully, after reading the
three examples you will have a pretty good idea which group you and your party
would fit into. While there is a benefit to Online Check-In if you are very
well versed with how things work in Walt Disney World, it is not something you
should do if you only make it to Walt Disney World every few years or are
booked in a way you have never been booked before.
Richard
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