DISNEYSTEVE ? RE: Days Inn Suites

[msdis]

Please tell me more about your recent experience there. There seems to be nothing but bad posts. I have been considering this for our upcoming trip. I stayed there about 10 years ago and it was fine. Recent posts(not sure if that means recent stays) have very negative things to say. Was the room dirty, moldy, or in need or repair or paint? How about the pool? Green slime as someone said? We need a place with roomy accomodations, fridge and microwave, and cost effective for 9 people. Any other comments would be greatly appreciated from you or others. Thanks!

 

[4disneyfans]

I was browsing this morning and come across your post. We stayed at this hotel in Oct. 2002 and it was fine for a budget hotel. Alot of remodeling has been done and you can look at a room set up and pictures on the thhotels.com site and they are pretty accurate. Everything was fine. The kitchen was a nice bonus. Note that they do not have an oven and all kitchen utensils have to be rented . We chose to take a couple of pans [ from home]and go to the local Wal Mart there and buy paper plates ,cups, milk etc. We stayed for 2 weeks and never had any problems.Our total bill was in the $600 dollar range. For a no frills but clean and decent we were happy with this hotel.Our building was near the rear entrance of Old Town so it was fairly quiet. If you have any question I will be happy to answer them if I can.
** Was warned in advance that rental pans aren't any good {stick etc.} .

 

[Trena]

I tried price line for the first time and got Days Inn (next to Days Suites by old town). I haven't seen many good reviews for these properties and I'm a little concerned. I'm going with an open mind, we'll check the room carefully and ask for another if we have any problems. As long as its clean and in good working order, I'll be fine. I don't expect frills for $25 a night!

I would love to hear any positive reviews. We'll be there Feb 10- 14. I'll post a quick review when I get back.

Trena

 

[msdis]

Thank you for your post. We will be arriving late day and then the next day will probably be a park day then we move to OKW. So the frills matter not. But a clean room from top to bottom and in presentable condition is a must. I had remembered the rental on the utensils but had forgotten about no oven. Was there a charge for the use of the phone and safe? I don't remember about all that. Did you ever use the Bar-B-Que grills they have? How was Old Town? Did they provide dish soap and/or dishwasher soap? How about hair dyers and ironing supplies? Wow, I've been so spoiled by Disney for the last 7 years that I have no idea what to expect off property again. Thanks again for all your help.

 

[kilee]

Trena-
We stayed for 6 nights at the Day's Inn maingate east next to Old Town. I have read a lot of bad reviews on this hotel. We had a fine expierence. The room was clean and looked updated. The pool was clean and there were plenty of lounge chairs out. The laundry room and arcade left a little to be desired. But I can deal with that. We are staying there again for 7 nights in February. You can't beat the rate. They have a free shuttle to Disney parks with many running times.
Also we found it an advantage to have Old Town so close. On the day's we didn't go to Disney or Universal we were usually back to the hotel early. In the evening we could walk around Old Town looking in the shops and get a snack.

 

[msdis]

Does the Inn share the same pool as the suites. How did the outside of the suites look? Like it was kept up? My whole family said to go with it but I hate for it to be awful because then I would feel responsible. But the good news is, if it is, than OKW will look that much better, lol. We are taking the attitude we will be like the Griswalds on vacation. LOL.

 

[DarPa]

My family has stayed at Days Suites for the past 3yrs. and are booked for our upcoming May 2003 trip for another 9 nights. We have stayed 8nights in May 2000, and 9nights each for June 2001 and June 2002. I know this place gets bad reviews but we have never had any problems! Our room(suite) was always clean and we never had any maintenance problems(toilets etc) The hotel staff was always nice and helpful and we were always given our room requests! I have heard many times about rude employees during check-in etc. but we never encountered this problem. I will say that expect long lines especially on weekends as this place has always been busy when we've checked in. The one time when we arrived early and our room wasn't ready we just went ahead to the local walmart to stock up on our supplies. This worked out well for us or you can go ahead as most do and use the pools. They did go ahead and pre-register us and took care of all the paperwork so when we returned all we needed were room keys. Speaking of room keys and safe and phone charges they do charge for these. I have heard ppl complain of these HIDDEN charges but we were always made aware of them when booking and confirming our ressies. The phone and safe charges came to around $2.80 per day for both(with taxes included) so I guess about $1 something apiece. We didn't think a buck a day for phone calls(local) was bad as my mother stayed up the road at a Howard Johnsons and was charged $.50 every time she made a local call to us at our hotel! sometimes she called 3or 4 times a day!!! LOL We also were charged a deposit for room keys which was returned to us when we checked out and returned the keys. We have never seen the pools anything but clean and we stay the time a yr. when its HOT and they're used alot! We have never used the BBQ grills but have seen others use it.(I don't cook much on vacation LOL) Old town is great the kids love the rides, hubby loves the car shows and I love to shop!!! We always bring our own cooking things and dish soap,etc. from home. Also laundry soap etc as these would add up quick buying them from the laundry room.(they don't provide these) The hair dryers are standard hotel ones i guess we always have one from home too!LOL See a pattern here? We bring everything but the kitchen sink!LOL I'm an over-packer(is that a word??) but have never forgotten a thing that I'd need to buy later.(drives hubby nuts) He packs too light IMO!!!! Any how I'm rambling but hope I've answered somethings for you. I just wanted to say that our experiences were always good and the prices are great! I hope you have a great trip wherever you stay!

 

[Trena]

I feel much better now. Thank you so much. It looks like we will be there at the same time. If you see me at the pool, please say hello. (I have short red hair, and 2 kids. DD is 6 and DS is 3.)

 

[cdrn1]

My sister's family and mine stayed there a few years ago in a 2-bedroom suite which was quite adequate. It was huge; it even had a second living area. There were ten of us and it was plenty of room. It was clean and well maintained. We had a good experience there.

 

[msdis]

I'm feeling a lot better to book it now. One more piece of the puzzle down and about 6 more to go. Whew.

 

[4disneyfans]

Sorry, busy weekend. To answer a couple of your questions that might not have been answered yet. No, they do not provide dishwasher soap or detergent. The grills do not look like they were in the greatest of shape but have seen much worse in campgrounds etc.. We never used them so maybe someone else can help you on that. There was a hairdryer in the bath room but do not remember one in the vanity area in the bedroom.Which by the way was a really nice size. I ask the person I made ressies with to waive the phone and safe charge because we use cell phones and they did. Though I have heard of others that said the waive could not be waived. Guess it depends on there mood! Who knows. But the man who checked us in was very nice about it when I mentioned it. We were pre-registered so it only took a few min. but did see long lines at times.Met people from all over at the pool. Did not try the restaurants.Hope this helps.

 

[disneysteve]

Hi. A bunch of folks saw your post before I did, but I'll add my info.

We stayed at the Days Suites for 7 nites in November 2002 (Jersey Week). Days Suites and Days Inn are seperate hotels but are adjacent to each other. We had requested a room facing away from Old Town - I was concerned about noise. Check in was quick and friendly and they gave us a room in building J facing away from Old Town as requested.

The suite was clearly old, but pretty well maintained. The things that weren't perfect were really minor in our opinion, especially considering the price we paid ($39.95/nite). For example, the kitchen cabinets are white with a wood strip at the bottom. A couple of the doors had wood strips that didn't match the others. Big deal! One electric outlet in the living room was not working (I didn't even bother reporting that because it really didn't affect us - I plugged in what I needed in the other outlet.)

We had 2 maintenance issues during our stay. On the first morning, we discovered that the little knob on the bath faucet that makes the shower spray was missing. I called the front desk and someone was there in less than 10 minutes and replaced the part in about 30 seconds. He was friendly and apologized for the inconvenience. Another day, we got back and found that the maid had removed the empty tissue box but hadn't replaced it. I called the desk and someone brought a new box of tissues to us within 5 minutes (and that was 9:00 at nite). I have been in many far pricier hotels that didn't offer anywhere near that level of service.

I can't comment on the pools or BBQ grills because we didn't use either of them. I did walk over to the pool in our complex and it looked clean but we never really had swimming weather.

As someone reported above, there is a fee for phone and safe, which is true at many hotels today. Anytime I make a hotel reservation, I always ask what the real total is with tax and hidden charges. Even at $42 or $43 per nite, this is still a tremendous bargain.

Old Town is fun. Its a nice place to spend an afternoon or evening, especially off-season when the Disney parks close early. Our reservations included free Old Town ride tickets. I figured out that the free tickets we got were worth about $40 which basically made our first nite free. Also, the hotel is located within walking distance of quite a few restaurants. Flippers Pizza in Old Town has very good pizza and I think they deliver to the room, or you can just walk over and pick it up.

We haven't planned our next trip yet, but it will be this November and I'm fairly certain we'll be booking the Days Suites again. Go and have a good time.

Steve

 

[msdis]

Thank you both for your replies. I have reservations now and feel good about doing so. I wouldn't care except I am bringing family that has never been to WDW and this may be their only trip so I wanted the experience to be ok. Like I said we will only be there one whole day and then we are off to OKW for 5 nights. It's basically a place to eat a quick sandwich, get a cold drink, coffee and a quick breakfast and a place to sleep. As long as it's clean and presentable that's all I care. We will be so much on the go we won't notice a lot. Thanks a million again for all the quick replies and great advice.