The we loooooove Bonnet Creek thread Part 3

[mcc63303]

Arriving on Saturday, from those that have been at Disney during Thanksgiving week what are the chances or past experiences of any of the Disney parks closing during any day due to crowd size? Thinking of returning to BC for lunch or dinner and returning to the parks afterward.

[AndyFL]

Originally Posted by mcc63303

Arriving on Saturday, from those that have been at Disney during Thanksgiving week what are the chances or past experiences of any of the Disney parks closing during any day due to crowd size? Thinking of returning to BC for lunch or dinner and returning to the parks afterward.

Be sure to pay attention to the bus schedule, they don't run in the middle of the day most of the time. I'd hate for you to go back for a midday lunch only to find yourself stuck there until the buses started running again.

[manhattanman]

Sorry if this has been answered before. We are arriving in Orlando early on Saturday along with another family who are flying fom a different city. I know that check in is 400 and that some people have been able to check in early but this is based on availability and is not guaranteed.

If we get there and the room is not ready it seems that they call you when it is ready. What do people do in the interim? Can you drop off your luggage and use the resort ( the pools etc)? What about towels ? Should we pack swim clothes into a carry on bag, and change in the restrooms?

If the pools are not available what do people do, sit in the lobby and wait for a call?

[Bellamouse]

Well we had a car, so we went shopping - we went to Downtown Disney and had some lunch at Wolfang Puck, then we went to Super Target and bought some food, then we stopped at some kitschy t-shirt shops out on 192. Our room was ready when we got back.

But if you don't have a car, you can definitely use the pools. I think there are shower rooms near the pools (I didn't see them myself but I read here that others said they are there). You could take the shuttle over to Downtown Disney or to one of the parks as well.

Yes the bell stand will hold your luggage. I'm not sure about towels - I know you can check out towels for pool usage, but I don't know how it would work without having a room number assigned. I would talk to the front desk about that - I'm absolutely sure they would come up with a solution for you for that.

[LisaCat]

Originally Posted by Bellamouse

Yes the bell stand will hold your luggage. I'm not sure about towels - I know you can check out towels for pool usage, but I don't know how it would work without having a room number assigned. I would talk to the front desk about that - I'm absolutely sure they would come up with a solution for you for that.

The Wyndham in Vegas (we were there 3 weeks ago) gave me a "special key" to access the pools and the elevators up to the Activity Center there while I was waiting for our room. I'm sure that BC has a similar set up.

I did a search and looked at the result posts and don't see a current shuttle schedule posted. Does anyone have one from a recent stay that they could upload? Thanks!

[Bellamouse]

You don't need any keys to access the pools. They are all open. You will just need to ask about the towels, and where to change. As I said, there are places to change, I just can't tell you where they are because I didn't need/use them. But they're there.

[manhattanman]

Originally Posted by Bellamouse

You don't need any keys to access the pools. They are all open. You will just need to ask about the towels, and where to change. As I said, there are places to change, I just can't tell you where they are because I didn't need/use them. But they're there.

Thanks so much, this is precisely what I was looking for. What about parking, I read that you don't need a parking pass but just a room key, if we get there before 4 can we keep some stuff in the car and park without a key ( yet) or parking pass and enjoy the pools while we await the call from the front desk?

[Bellamouse]

Yes, once you are in the gates (they have to let you in with your reservation so you can check in!), you just park anywhere. They don't check the parking passes. Also, you can still get your parking pass even if you don't get your room (that's what we did). So after we came back from shopping (before we got our room) we just showed the parking pass to the gate attendant and he opened the gate.

There are two gates - one that has an attendant and one that only takes the room key. So just make sure you go to the manned attendant gate when you first come in - they will ask to see your reservation, and then if you leave, make sure you get your parking pass first, and then go back through the manned gate to get back in with the parking pass.

Once you have your room, you can bypass the manned gate and just go through the gate that uses the room keys.

[momof1+1+2]

We just checked in. Resort is beautiful. Our room is very nice...not as large as a villa on property but for us that is not an issue. When we went to get our parking pass there was no hard sell at all. They didn't have me even fill anything out and knew we weren't owners.

My complaints: they offered us a lower floor room on check in and I politely asked about possibly getting a fireworks view. He asked me to wait and went and checked in back. He came out and offered us a fireworks view in I believe tower one but I could be wrong. Awesome....two minutes later he says oh I can't give you that room. Hmmm....okay so we end up doing a pre check in and he would call us if a fireworks view room comes up. I am thinking wow awesome customer service! We went to the pool area and we were checking things out when 10 minutes later they call that a room is ready. I go to check in and it is a parking lot view...I am confused at this point and explained to the woman that we wouldn't mind waiting for the other room and she proceeds to tell me I should have requested that. Ok we did though so she goes to the back to check and comes back and said there will be no fireworks rooms available today. I asked how that could have changed from 15 minutes ago. Her response was I am not an owner so I will not get one...owners have preference. Ouch. Conversations went on...desk manager got involved and said the same thing. At this point the room isn't the issue it is being treated as second class because I am not an owner. I get the reason behind it but the presentation and conflicting information really made it a bad situation when it didn't need to be.

In addition we found our dishwasher full of dishes when we got to our room and a pair of underwear in a drawer.

I hope this isn't an indicator of more to come.

[Spanky]

Tower 1 - one bedroom 515. If you get my room check the bedside drawers. I just realized I left a package of Michey Mouse chocolate pretzels. Since the bag is open you probably won't want to eat them but the bag came with a niffy Mickey shape clamp closer with a magnet for using to hold things on a refrigerator. I can't believe i went off and forgot to check all the drawers!

[Upatnoon]

Originally Posted by momof1+1+2

We just checked in. Resort is beautiful. Our room is very nice...not as large as a villa on property but for us that is not an issue. When we went to get our parking pass there was no hard sell at all. They didn't have me even fill anything out and knew we weren't owners.

My complaints: they offered us a lower floor room on check in and I politely asked about possibly getting a fireworks view. He asked me to wait and went and checked in back. He came out and offered us a fireworks view in I believe tower one but I could be wrong. Awesome....two minutes later he says oh I can't give you that room. Hmmm....okay so we end up doing a pre check in and he would call us if a fireworks view room comes up. I am thinking wow awesome customer service! We went to the pool area and we were checking things out when 10 minutes later they call that a room is ready. I go to check in and it is a parking lot view...I am confused at this point and explained to the woman that we wouldn't mind waiting for the other room and she proceeds to tell me I should have requested that. Ok we did though so she goes to the back to check and comes back and said there will be no fireworks rooms available today. I asked how that could have changed from 15 minutes ago. Her response was I am not an owner so I will not get one...owners have preference. Ouch. Conversations went on...desk manager got involved and said the same thing. At this point the room isn't the issue it is being treated as second class because I am not an owner. I get the reason behind it but the presentation and conflicting information really made it a bad situation when it didn't need to be.

In addition we found our dishwasher full of dishes when we got to our room and a pair of underwear in a drawer.

I hope this isn't an indicator of more to come.

Curious, how did you get your reservation? Did you rent from an owner or through some other fashion?

I'm sort of not surprised that they are trying to hold some of the best rooms for owners. I'm sure they've gotten some heated feedback from owners complaining that they paid thousands for their timeshare and then they find out in the resort hot tub that someone who rented a week on ebay for $600 has the awesome fireworks view, while they are stuck on the ground by the minigolf.

I also wouldn't be surprised too if the Disney resort tradition of "request-itis" is starting to impact WBC. As more and more people read that they can request a fireworks view, suddenly 9 out of 10 guests request one. I've seen little evidence that calling ahead works, but people will try.

Still, I agree that you did not have a good customer service experience. The best solution for WBC is just to say "sorry, nothing available" without getting into a long excuse about why not.

Perhaps the next fireworks view move will be the "$20 bill" trick so popular in Vegas.

[momof1+1+2]

We rented from an owner.

[Upatnoon]

Originally Posted by momof1+1+2

We rented from an owner.

Sometimes when I checked in they mentioned I was the guest of an owner -- and sometimes not.

It will be interesting to see if more people report striking out when asking for fireworks views or if yours was just a random event.

[SYLVESTER7577]

Originally Posted by Upatnoon

Sometimes when I checked in they mentioned I was the guest of an owner -- and sometimes not.

It will be interesting to see if more people report striking out when asking for fireworks views or if yours was just a random event.

My wife and I checked in three weeks ago Saturday at 4:30. I called the Monday
prior and requested an upper floor in tower 4 or 5 but forgot to mention the fireworks view. When we were checking in I asked about my request and he said an upper floor (14) was noted but it was a lake view. I then asked if a fireworks view was possible. He went and got the supervisor w/o me asking and after a few questions from him he said one moment and went into the office. A moment later he came out and gave us a room on the 14th flloor tower five. We of course were very greatfull and the view was unbelievable. So I consider it to be like a chess game. You can only move your chips to the possible openings at the time. Calling in a request a week prior was a tip this thread offered and made all the difference in our case.

[manhattanman]

Has anyone brought a wii to play in their rooms? I know that there is a common wii but I was wondering if anyone has hooked up a wii in their rooms. You cant do this on a disney cruise and in many hotels is is hard if not impossible to switch sources from cable to anything else.

I dont anticipate using the wii much but if the weather is not great it might help with cabin fever. But if it cant be done its not worth bringing it.