Check-in problems

[MushuHill]

Last night I was ready to check-in at midnight. It let me put in my credit card info and departure info. After that I started on my personal info and the whole system crashed. I stayed up until 3 AM constantly checking. After that I set my alarm to go off every 30 minutes so I could see if it was back up. At 8:30 AM my husband woke up and took over checking. At 9 he called and Disney said the check-in system was down and should be back up in the next few hours. It finally came back up at 12:30 PM. Good thing I didn’t have to work today. That was stressful, but I still got a boarding group 5 and the first PAT.

 

[n2mm]

Glad it worked out. I’ve been in your shoes. So very stressful. I notice on the dcl website yesterday there was a message about online checkin not working. I’ve gained many gray hairs doing online checkin over the last 18 months with this download system. After doing checkin 7 cruises now with multiple cabins sometimes, it never gets easier. So stressful and unpredictable.

 

[mmouse37]

Check in has been horrible since cruising restarted. It has been that way every cruise I checked in for last year, The other night I stayed up to check in for our cruise in March and 3 ships were checking in that night. It was a disaster. Took me until almost 3:00 am to check in 2 cabins. Nothing would load, icons kept spinning, the site would kick you out, nothing would save.

It is a known problem since they started making everyone check in on the same night. It used to be based on Castaway Club tier so was staggered. I wish they would go back to that way.

MJ

 

[Lizgistix]

that was similar to my experience in December checking in. So while that was down, I went over to activities and booked the Royal Gathering. At least got that done while check in was broken.

 

[Mango7100]

Last night I was ready to check-in at midnight. It let me put in my credit card info and departure info. After that I started on my personal info and the whole system crashed. I stayed up until 3 AM constantly checking. After that I set my alarm to go off every 30 minutes so I could see if it was back up. At 8:30 AM my husband woke up and took over checking. At 9 he called and Disney said the check-in system was down and should be back up in the next few hours. It finally came back up at 12:30 PM. Good thing I didn’t have to work today. That was stressful, but I still got a boarding group 5 and the first PAT.

We were with you. Stayed up until midnight just to check in, gave up at 1 am, and tried again at 7. After calling and being told the only thing we could do was to keep trying periodically while they fix it, we randomly checked and were able to get group 8 arriving at 1145. I’m fine with it, I just didn’t want to be stuck arriving late. What is the first arrival time?

Even if 3 ships are checking in, there is no reason their site should not be able to handle it. Realistically how many people would be checking in max…like 13-15000? Ridiculous

 

[cmph]

I guess I got extremely lucky this week (2/10 check-in date). I'm on the west coast, so midnight EST is not a big deal. It worked (via the app only) right on time, never kicked me out or crashed, and I got boarding group 2. It never did show up via the browser on my computer; I had both up and ready to go. It's crazy that it works so smoothly one night and fails miserably the next!

 

[n2mm]

I really wish they would stagger the checkin time by tier. Or even save some of our info.

 

[soniam]

I really wish they would stagger the checkin time by tier. Or even save some of our info.

They totally should let us enter into before checkin.

 

[anricat]

They totally should let us enter into before checkin.

This would make life so much easier. At our leisure we could enter in all our info so when checkin time came, bam, that's all we would have to do.

 

[MushuHill]

We were with you. Stayed up until midnight just to check in, gave up at 1 am, and tried again at 7. After calling and being told the only thing we could do was to keep trying periodically while they fix it, we randomly checked and were able to get group 8 arriving at 1145. I’m fine with it, I just didn’t want to be stuck arriving late. What is the first arrival time?

Even if 3 ships are checking in, there is no reason their site should not be able to handle it. Realistically how many people would be checking in max…like 13-15000? Ridiculous

11:15-11:30

What ship are you on? We are on March 13, Magic.

 

[Mango7100]

11:15-11:30

What ship are you on? We are on March 13, Magic.

Dream on 3/13

 

[4 mickey]

Check in has been horrible since cruising restarted. It has been that way every cruise I checked in for last year, The other night I stayed up to check in for our cruise in March and 3 ships were checking in that night. It was a disaster. Took me until almost 3:00 am to check in 2 cabins. Nothing would load, icons kept spinning, the site would kick you out, nothing would save.

It is a known problem since they started making everyone check in on the same night. It used to be based on Castaway Club tier so was staggered. I wish they would go back to that way.

MJ

Hi
juste read you checked in 2 cabins so I take a chance in asking you
we will travel with my sister and brother in law

in order to be able to bring them at palo
se booked me in a cabin and my sister
and my husband and BIL
will I be able to do both check in ?
or can let’s say my sister can do one and me one ?

for palo reservation will i be able to book for the 4 of us ?
ihave to say I am a bit worried as it’s my first time doing this

thanks for any help you can give me

 

[MomOTwins]

And this is why people ask if the cost of staying at WDW or the Hyatt and taking DCL bus is worth it over car rental/uber/private car.

Our cruise fb group has hundreds of posts from frustrated people last night dealing with technical problems with the overloaded system—staying up until 2 or 3 am. I woke up this morning, did it with no technical problems over a morning coffee, and didn’t have to choose a PAT and got automatically assigned BG 2.

DCL check in at midnight is the WORST and 100% worth skipping if at all possible. A lot of times a value resort or the airport hyatt is not much more money than offsite hotels.

 

[mmouse37]

Hi
juste read you checked in 2 cabins so I take a chance in asking you
we will travel with my sister and brother in law

in order to be able to bring them at palo
se booked me in a cabin and my sister
and my husband and BIL
will I be able to do both check in ?
or can let’s say my sister can do one and me one ?

for palo reservation will i be able to book for the 4 of us ?
ihave to say I am a bit worried as it’s my first time doing this

thanks for any help you can give me

We had our cabins linked and I was able to check in both cabins. I had the other cabins guests' passport photo and their security photo to upload. I just put cash for the payment type and they went back in at a later date and added their credit card.

If your cabins are linked you should be able to check in both cabins, one after the other. Make sure you have all their info and photos.
Or, I think if you and your sister both stay up each of you should be able to check in one of the cabins at the same time.

As far as Palo I was able to book for all 4 of us but I did that before the check in night. We booked about 2 months before our cruise so I was able to look for Palo as soon as I was paid in full.

Good luck!!

MJ

 

[tntstults]

We had our cabins linked and I was able to check in both cabins. I had the other cabins guests' passport photo and their security photo to upload. I just put cash for the payment type and they went back in at a later date and added their credit card.

If your cabins are linked you should be able to check in both cabins, one after the other. Make sure you have all their info and photos.
Or, I think if you and your sister both stay up each of you should be able to check in one of the cabins at the same time.

As far as Palo I was able to book for all 4 of us but I did that before the check in night. We booked about 2 months before our cruise so I was able to look for Palo as soon as I was paid in full.

Good luck!!

MJ

What time is boarding group 2?

 

[mmouse37]

What time is boarding group 2?

There is no set time assigned to each boarding group but....boarding typically starts around 11:30 or so. Boarding group 2 would be called right after Concierge and Boarding group 1 so before 11:40 thereabouts if boarding starts at 11:30.

MJ

 

[mmouse37]

And this is why people ask if the cost of staying at WDW or the Hyatt and taking DCL bus is worth it over car rental/uber/private car.

Our cruise fb group has hundreds of posts from frustrated people last night dealing with technical problems with the overloaded system—staying up until 2 or 3 am. I woke up this morning, did it with no technical problems over a morning coffee, and didn’t have to choose a PAT and got automatically assigned BG 2.

DCL check in at midnight is the WORST and 100% worth skipping if at all possible. A lot of times a value resort or the airport hyatt is not much more money than offsite hotels.

We were originally staying in Port Canaveral the night before cruise so wanted to stay up and try for an early PAT. Well that turned out to be a PAT of 12:15 and Boarding Group 15 or something like that.

Our plans changed and we are know staying at WDW the night before so we decided to book port transfers (rental car rates were crazy) to the port. I just booked them a few minutes ago and when I just checked our Port Arrival form we were changed to a PAT of 11:00 and Boarding Group 3.

MJ

 

[cmph]

What time is boarding group 2?

That changes, depending on the itinerary/ship/departure port. I'm in 2 on the Wonder in March, listed on my port arrival form as 11:00-11:15.

 

[laceltris3]

I recently checked in on Royal Caribbean for a cruise over spring break and it was AMAZING. I could do it in the app, without getting shunted to a poorly functioning website, and I could pick PAT first, before entering info, and booking other things, dining, shows, etc, was on a different timetable. All of check in took 10 minutes for everyone in our party.

After 10 Disney Cruises and dealing with spinning wheels and waking up at midnight, it's a cruise miracle to check in on another line.

 

[RedHead0186]

That changes, depending on the itinerary/ship/departure port. I'm in 2 on the Wonder in March, listed on my port arrival form as 11:00-11:15.

Keep in mind, port arrival time is different than boarding time. PAT is literally when you are scheduled to/'allowed' to arrive at the port. There are several steps you need to do once you arrive, and then you will likely have a wait in the terminal until your boarding group is called. There is a correlation between PAT and boarding group (earlier boarding groups have earlier PATs), but your PAT and your boarding group are two different things.

My parents cruised DCL for the first time in 20 odd years last September and didn't realize it (and I didn't think to explain it). They thought/assumed that once we got to the port and through security, etc., that we'd walk right on the ship. Waiting is always hard, but doubly harder when you weren't expecting it. We were group 5, I think, and boarded around noon IIRC, so still not bad. But there was a wait between port arrival and boarding.