Tikiman
He kuikawa ka 'ikena o kela wahi ho'oku ka'a e wai
- Joined
- Apr 28, 2001
Well yesterday was a comedy of errors. Got to airport on time and found out that our plane would be arriving 1/2 hour late. No big deal. Then we get on the plane and are told there is a minor mechanical problem. That took another 1/2 hour to resolve. We were then cleared for takeoff...yay! We moved up to the runway and were next to take off...and air traffic control closes our route. Ugh!! Took another full hour of sitting on the runway until we finally took off. So now we are a full two hours late. We were supposed to land 6:15 at MCO and now it's looking like it will be 8:25.
We finally land at MCO and board the ME. And yup you guessed it...we are the last stop. We get dropped off at the poly at 10:05.
We were checking into club level. No one meets us off the bus so we head into the GCH. Wait in line at the check-in desk and finally get the attention of a rather unmagical cm. I tell her we are checking in CL and she looks at us and says, "name?". So I tell her and she just starts typing. No aloha, no smile, no nothin. So I say "I'm assuming we can't check in at the Hawaii building since it's a few minutes after 10:00". And she tells me they have all gone home. I ask if there is any way we can have them put a couple crackers or desserts in our room since the kids haven't eaten since lunch. She tells me "nope too late". Then she just hands us our key. No mention of club hours, no 'enjoy your stay', no nothin. Doesn't even tell us what room we are in. So I ask her what room we are in and how to get to Hawaii.
She tells me we are on the 2nd floor. UGH. My one and only request was 3rd floor. What I found interesting is that when she checked us in she didn't even say "I see you requested 3rd floor, I'm sorry it is not available". No acknowledgment at all. And no leis either. She tells us there are no 3rd floor rooms available tonight but that we can check back in the morning.
So we head over to our 2nd floor room. The windows are all fogged up so we can't see out. I say "let's open these sliders and see this TPV we paid for". Open the slider and massive cobwebs cover the whole opening. Cant lean on rail or anything. Looks like it hasn't been opened and cleaned for months.
So my DH goes down to talk to manager. Manager says we definitely didn't get the CL experience. Offers to move us to a standard non-CL room for tonight and check us into a 3rd floor CL room in morning. My DH asks if we can just pay the reduced rate but keep our current room for the night. Our carry-ons are already there, kids are starving and tired. Manager says no but assigns us to a room in Raratonga. Also tells us to go to bell services and inform them of our room change so ME knows where to deliver our bags. So we do that and then we go back to room, gather all our stuff, and head to our new room in Raratonga...only to discover a king bed. Ugh! So back we go to front desk.
Guess what...manager is now unavailable. Need to re-explain issue to new CM. He agrees to put us back in our original room at a reduced rate. But first we need to go to bell services again to inform them of the room change.
It is now just before midnight. Bell services says our bags will be in our room by 12:00. So we go to captain cooks for a bite to eat. Get back to room at 12:30 and still no luggage. So we call down to luggage and valet on our room phone. My DH explains issue and it takes a good few minutes for him to realize they have transferred him to GF luggage and valet by mistake. They transfer him to poly and he re-explains issue. We end up getting our luggage a bit before 1 am.
Now, I am not usually a negative Nellie but this was seriously the worst CL check-in we've ever had at Disney. I guess the magic goes home at 10 pm.
Honestly, we were all laughing by the end of the night it was all so chaotic.
Kids and dh are still sleeping now. They are all exhausted from our late night. Here's hoping they still have that 3rd floor room for us today...
Unfortunately I hear the front desk staff has a high turnover rate. Even when I checked in last year they were uninformed and not real friendly. She even seemed annoyed that I knew more about the room categories than her but I try and give people the benefit of the doubt that it was just a bad day for her.
Checking in late is something I try and avoid (along with Magical Express) and often the good rooms are gone by that time because often earlier people are asking for better rooms if they are available.
Concierge in Hawaii does go home at 10:00 and I would not expect them to stay later since most of the time they have nothing to do that late. They have no ability to provide you with food in your room and even if someone wanted to go out of their way to put something in there, the lounge is locked up and nothing is available.
Im sorry your trip started off so rough but checking in that late can be a less than magical experience because most of the staff is gone.