If you’re anything like me you have an intense distrust for anyone or anything you haven’t known for at least a decade. New things are scary and often disappointing. Scarily disappointing. Disappointingly scary. That being said you can imagine there are more than a few things I have yet to try. In this series, I’m going to try new things that aren’t really new at all and in reality have probably been around for years.

My family LEFT ME (for like a week) so I decided to do some tent camping over at Fort Wilderness in Walt Disney World over the weekend. This gave me another new thing to try that isn’t really new at all and has been around for quite some time now: Mobile Check-in. Mobile Check-in scared me for all the same reasons Mobile Ordering did: my order would be wrong, things would be missing, my phone would burst into flames, the sky would fall, etc.. What scared me the most about Mobile Check-in though was the thought of losing that potential free hour or two (or three or four) that you can sometimes get when showing up to your reservation early. While not always the case, it sometimes works out that your room is ready upon early arrival allowing you to start your vacation (i.e. take a nap) that much earlier. I’ve been lucky enough that this tends to happen more often than not, prompting me to get my family out of bed earlier and earlier to see just how far ahead of normal check-in (3 PM typically) we can get (I think my record is about 10 AM).

Before we get to whether or not the sky fell, let’s take a look at how we actually check in mobil-y, mobilized, in a mobile position…..

…..on your phone.

Let’s start with the view you’re presented with when you launch the My Disney Experience app. If you have an upcoming reservation, you’ll be presented with a prompt to start the mobile check in process as you can see below.

When you tap “Start Check-In” you’ll be presented with the details associated with your upcoming stay and the button to start your mobile check-in.

What follows next is a screen that gives you the option to select your communication preferences for your stay and, much to my surprise, a selection box giving you the ability to indicate when you will be arriving. You’ll then be presented with a screen confirming your details and an agreement to the privacy policy.

Then a few screens to confirm a few more details (like payment information, your billing address, etc.)

We did it and nothing (as of this moment) is on fire (yet).

I initiated my mobile check-in the morning before my arrival. If memory serves, I was actually able to initiate my mobile check-in what seemed like immediately after booking my reservation. I didn’t do this because A) what if they LOSE MY RESERVATION IF I CHECK IN TOO EARLY and B) I only came up with this article idea the day before my check-in.

So how did it go? Well, if you remember (or scroll up) I indicated that I’d be arriving at approximately 2 PM (1 hour earlier than stated check-in time). I received the notification that my room (campsite) was available at…..

Just before 2 PM!!!!!

I gotta say, this had me like whoa. I figured mobile check-in was going to be a way to reduce lines at the front desk while giving you a post 3 PM check-in time in as non-confrontational a way as possible. EVERYONE wants to get in their room early and I just assumed that taking the mobile route was a guarantee of going to the back of that check-in line. It’s worth noting too that even though this was the campgrounds (in August) it was Friday afternoon (you’d figure a prime check-in time) and the reservation itself wasn’t easy to get.

BUT HOW DO I GET MY MAGIC BAND????

Truth be told the jury is still out on this one. FULL DISCLOSURE my wife actually did a mobile check-in in the past and we didn’t pick up her magic band. It was a BB8 magic band and she was excited to get it but the check-in line had to of been at least an hour so we bagged it. I didn’t get a chance to head to the front desk early AM the day after check-in as we had things to do. I planned on hitting the front desk in the evening figuring they hold onto them (the magic bands) until they got picked up. We arrived back in our room, and before I could spin on my heel to go get her band there it was on the bed. I figured this or something similar would occur with the band I didn’t pick up when checking into Fort Wilderness. This time I did get to the front desk relatively early (say 10 AM-ish) only to be told that, because I didn’t pick up the band the day of check-in, that night it was sent BACK TO THE FACTORY. Not the mail room, not some central storage facility, THE FACTORY (which I can only assume means China). That’s a whole lot of shipping for one magic band. When I asked about this (and pointed out the situation with my wife’s band) I was told that with the camp sites there isn’t a way to do this (the dropping off of the band in your room) which makes sense. Fortunately I was able to get the color I ordered (this was important as I’m working on something awesome) but it begs to ask the question; what happens with those premium bands you can add to your reservation now?

All in, mobile check-in is great and I recommend you give it a shot. Magic Band concerns aside, skipping the what-feels-like-forever check-in line is worth the finger it takes to press the buttons to skip the line AND WE STILL GOT IN EARLY!

Now to go start an unreasonably large fire to roast hot dogs. For one…..