My eldest went to halls last year, our slot was 1pm. It was a large city centre and the meet/greet team were standing at 50m intervals for 2 miles before we hit the University area. They were just standing there with t-shirts with arrows on to show people the correct route, it was very simple clever. Lowered my stress as well, as it is stressful being in a strange city, stuck in traffic with just a 15 minute timeslot to adhere to that is still two miles away.
When we reached the roundabout there was traffic control in place so only cars going to the uni could use the approaching roads. We had a print out we had to show so the Greeters knew what Hall to direct us to.
As mentioned our slot was 1pm, we arrived in the queue at quarter to (we had left home at 4am). We were directed to a parking spot and the unloading team literally descend on you to empty your car. One nearly took my cool box and thermos! A team carried everything, I wasn't allowed to carry anything other than my handbag, they kept saying "let us, it is our job".
They had the room key, but this might differ and you may need to go to the accomodation to collect the key.
As soon as the car was empty we had to move the car, it was literally parked for less than five minutes.
We were shown to the room and we immediately took an inventory of the room. You need to look for marks on the walls or chips out of the desk or wardrobe doors. If the room is ensuite then you need to look really carefully to see if there is black mould anywhere, do the taps turn easily and do they drip? Flush the toilet and check the cistern refills normally. Put the shower on and let it run, then turn it off to see there is no build up of water in the shower tray.
Check under the bed, in drawers, behind desks etc., to check for stains on the carpet. Don't be afraid to move the bed to the other side of the room to check the carpet. My top tip, and this sounds totally daft, I take coloured string and put it around the edge of any stain on the carpet, mattress etc., and take a photo on my mobile.
Write anything you find on the inventory, also put Photos taken in capitals underneath.
Clean the room before unpacking if necessary. I cleaned the bathroom and dusted throughout. It wasn't a dirty room, just stale.
As we were unpacking, the others in the flat started to arrive. It took us about two hours to unpack, set up laptop and printer, make up bed and unload kitchen stuff. We had too much kitchen stuff so some lived in crate in the room.
Whilst unpacking we were writing a list for anything we had forgotten. We then went to get these leaving eldest to meet others in the flat. We dropped these off, had a cup of tea (made by one of the other parents) and then us and two other sets of parents left. We felt very strongly that this was the correct thing to do.
However, one girl in the flat had a DM who was staying the night. In the room!! They were going out to eat and then she would be leaving the following day. You could tell that this was the DM idea and not the daughter and it was awful as the DM was in the bedroom and calling her back in when she was in the kitchen getting to know her flatmates.
I felt incredibly sorry for her to be honest, such a shame.