need suggestions for golf cart rental

[serenitygr]

OK- I know this is short notice, but can anyone recommend RELIABLE golf cart rental companies that will deliver to the Fort? I am becoming totally disillusioned with Kenny and Tee time. Our one other trip to the fort 2 years ago, we had problems, where the cart was not there when we arrived, as promised, even tho we had been charged and told it would be. It took us 2 days to actually reach Kenny, who did get the cart there that evening, but we were never reimbursed for the 3 lost days we'd paid for, and never even got an apology.

Now we decided to try him one more time for our upcoming Christmas trip. We reserved 2 four seaters, and did this over a YEAR ago! Talked to the lady- told her of our last experience and how we were concerned about using Kenny again, and she ASSURED me everything would be just fine.

Last week (7 days ago to be exact) I decided to call Kenny and confirm everything, and find out the exact charge so I'd be sure to have that in our account before he took it out. Well- the end result, is he does NOT have us down for 2 carts- he doesn't have us down for the right amount of days- and basically has become unreachable. The 2 times I've somehow managed to get him on the phone, he can't figure out how he's going to fix this, and says he'll pull my paperwork out and see what he can do and call me back later that day. But of course, he never does.

Up until now, I've been really understanding and nice about it-mistakes happen and all that. And because I'm so excited about this trip, I will work around anything, because we arent' going to Disney for the golf carts. However, they were going to be a big part of this trip- that's why we got 2 of them- we were going to be spending a lot of time touring the Fort with the kids and their grandma, so I was so excited about it. That is why I set everything up a year ago- so I didn't get stuck in exactly the situation I'm in anyway- wondering if we're even going to have a golf cart at all....

So after just now leaving yet ANOTHER message for Kenny- I am begging all of you for any help. Is there any other companies I could try? Ones that are actually reliable? I know Disney has carts, and I know they are more expensive. But I have also heard you can't "reserve" them- it's a first come, first served basis, so being it's Christmas, I'm not sure how well that would work....

And I'm not trying to badmouth Kenny- really I'm not. For me the total frusteration is simply because he will not return my calls or let me know what is going on- I have no idea if he is even planning to take money out of our account, and if he does without telling me what is going on , at that point I will honestly be FURIOUS.....

 

[jayhawk74]

We always rent from Disney just for the peace of mind that the cart will be there when we check in and if anything goes wrong they are right there to fix it. Yes they are more expensive than Kenny, but so is eating at the Parks instead of brown bagging every meal. we just look at it as part of the expense of the whole Disney vacation.

 

[JAN HUGHES]

Have you tried sending him a text message? I've done that and gotten in touch with him. So sorry you're having problems. We've rented from Kenny three times and no problems but I always worry until we actually get the cart. I think if he ever fell thru I'd go with Disney. I've seen other carts there with company names on them but know nothing about them.

 

[ABitDistracted]

We just rented from Kenny for two weeks, for the third time. Which number are you calling? We had an issue with our cart, and he returned all of our calls very quickly.

My parents joined us at the Fort for a few days and golf carts were sold out so I have them the Tee Time number and Kenny had a cart for them.

He is super busy right now, I am on my phone now, but I will post the direct number that I have from a few days ago as soon as I can. WDW carts were sold out the whole time and when I was checking out I overheard them telling a woman she could reserve a year in advance and she laughed bc she just booked a trip a couple weeks ago. She moved to WL...

 

[ABitDistracted]

Try 407-276-0809.

Happy vacation!

 

[serenitygr]

Thanks AbitDistracted- that is the number I have. And I know he gets my messages, because the very first time I called he DID call back a couple days later. But now it's like he's realized he's made a mistake so he won't contact me. And of course, he didn't call once again. We leave on Monday, and at this point he doesn't even have our cell phone number so he has no way to get a hold of us. I'm about ready to leave a not very nice message for him.

I don't have a way to text him, but I have contacted him again the last few days both through his website and also on his facebook messages. No response to either. Maybe I need to leave a direct post on his facebook wall.... I just don't know what else to do. If he doesn't contact me and resolve this by Monday morning, I will definitely be doing all I can to warn people about what has happened in my situation. I could just cry it seems so unfair.

 

[Grammyof2]

I am going to share my recent experience. It is not a bashing but the facts.

We had to cancel our 15 day trip when I was hospitalized. We contacted Kenny before he even took the payment out. All was clear. Then he took the payment and we called him and we said "oh yeah, I remember". He said he would return the payment. He called again the day before we were supposed to arrive and again said "he forgot" but would return our payment. The day we were to arrive he called again because we hadn't picked up???????

Since then I have left many messages, emailed, etc and no response. No return of the payment. I chalked it up to a learning experience and realize we will not get the money returned.

Unfortunately I will not use him again.

 

[serenitygr]

Grammyof2: I seriously would be turning him in if you didn't get that resolved. There is NO excuse for your situation, in my opinion. Seems like the past few months, (even though some people have used Kenny with success) there is ALOT of bad experiences happening with him. I am pretty sure, unless he miraculously calls me today and we get this figured out, that I will not ever use him again. And I will do my best to warn others as well- I don't look at it as "bashing". I guess I would appreciate knowing the bad as well as the good, if I were considering a rental in the future. Had I known of your experience, and if someone had a similar experience to what I'm going through- it would have cautioned me to look elsewhere when I actually had a lot more time to do so.

 

[serenitygr]

Just posting an update on our situation- my husband finally got a hold of Kenny yesterday- still not sure what is going to happen, so stay tuned. I will definitely post an update on how this ends once we arrive at the Fort. He is telling me we will have a cart, so we shall see.....

 

[starjazz]

This is what happened to us in February. I had to threaten him to get refunded. He did refund, but I told him back then he needed to get more organized and act like a professional. Clearly he didn't improve. Sad.

I'd definitely stick with Disney rental. Thats what we ended up with, and they were great. We even lost the key once, they went and picked up our cart at the pool, drove it to our cabin for us, and delivered a new key - no charge. Pay the extra for the peace of mind!

http://disboards.com/showthread.php?t=3073248&page=2

 

[rangebob]

You can book carts 1 year in advance. I booked one about a month ago for Jan 9-11. The cost is around $63.00 per night. Call 407-824-2742 and they will get a CC # from you and they said they will charge it the day before arrival.

 

[super_camper]

Just posting an update on our situation- my husband finally got a hold of Kenny yesterday- still not sure what is going to happen, so stay tuned. I will definitely post an update on how this ends once we arrive at the Fort. He is telling me we will have a cart, so we shall see.....

So what about the second cart you reserved? Kenny promising one cart when you had two confirmed for over a year just wouldn't work for me.

I used Kenny once and it worked out just OK, we rented a 6 six seater but something went wrong and it wasn't available for us so he gave us two 4 seaters. Its funny the way he operates as his carts appear to never leave the fort, he just told where to find it and where to drop it off when we were done.

Last time we just skipped Kenny and went to Disney, it has always been a great experience with their carts.

 

[bigblock396]

I am going to share my recent experience. It is not a bashing but the facts.

We had to cancel our 15 day trip when I was hospitalized. We contacted Kenny before he even took the payment out. All was clear. Then he took the payment and we called him and we said "oh yeah, I remember". He said he would return the payment. He called again the day before we were supposed to arrive and again said "he forgot" but would return our payment. The day we were to arrive he called again because we hadn't picked up???????

Since then I have left many messages, emailed, etc and no response. No return of the payment. I chalked it up to a learning experience and realize we will not get the money returned.

Unfortunately I will not use him again.

Grammyof2 --
If I were you, there are 2 things I would do:

1. Contact your credit card company and dispute the charge. Very easy to do and I'm almost positive you will get your money refunded. This is assuming you used a credit card; never used Kenny so don't know how it works.

2. Post a comment on his facebook page reminding him of the missing refund and that you know he's busy and probably just forgot. I wouldn't bash him but would definitely get my point across about the refund that you are due.

 

[mouserly]

I wish this conversations would have happened before we went on our trip. We went for 9 days, just returned on 12/13/2013. Through other discussion boards, both Kenny and Sun City were recommended to us for golf cart rental. It was our first time staying at the Fort and we were slightly put off by the cost of renting a cart from Disney.

We tried to call Kenny about six times but he never returned our calls.

So, on to Sun City. Matt talked to my sister (she is the one who called). We reserved the cart. It was really cheap - I think $200 for the entire week. But even the original phone call was a little odd. He acted like we should have a "secret code" to rent from him. It was a little confusing. But we suppressed our suspicion and reserved the cart. Then he told her that he would leave a cart "hidden" in the Fort someplace and we should call him on Friday and he would tell us where it was. Strange.

Friday we try to call him. He does not return our calls. Finally, he calls us about 8pm and tells us where the cart is. We go there. It is not there. Long story short, we spent FOUR hours looking for the cart. Finally he drops off another one in the middle of the night to our cabin.

Everything was fine, except that the cart was filthy and couldn't keep a charge. But - you get what you pay for! We were okay with this. We were happy to have a cart. He gave us no instructions with what to do with it when we left. So we left it in the original place our cart was supposed to be and hid the key like he had done and texted him where that was.

Seven hours later he calls my sister, SCREAMING! He used foul language and was so mad at where we left the cart and told us that we didn't notify him in time. Well, he never told us what to do with it!!!

So, after all of this, we LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the Fort. And we will likely never stay anywhere else. But we will NEVER, EVER rent a cart from anyone but Disney. It is just not worth the frustration and poor customer service.

 

[bama_ed]

I wish this conversations would have happened before we went on our trip. We went for 9 days, just returned on 12/13/2013. Through other discussion boards, both Kenny and Sun City were recommended to us for golf cart rental. It was our first time staying at the Fort and we were slightly put off by the cost of renting a cart from Disney.

Mouserly, I mentioned in another thread that you posted in that I didn't recall hearing of this golf cart vendor. I don't pretend to read EVERY thread on the DIS Camping Board but I have a passing interest in the golf cart topics.

Kenny and his company had a sterling rep here as the alter DIS rental company but they have slipped in performance over the last year at a time when they are probably very busy. I'm not making excuses for his performance because I rented only once from him 4 years ago, I'm not him, but he like other small businesses live on their rep and performance.

As I said in the other thread I didn't recognize that vendor name but I've not heard it here on the DIS Camping Board. If I missed the reference someone will post a link with an old, unedited thread. But you have to be wary of other discussion boards (emphasis mine) because they could be shilling for friends, relatives, or themselves.

I hope serenitygr will let us know once she arrives at the Fort if Kenny followed through and if she was satisfied (we are guests in her thread after all). And if you have questions about going to the Fort in the future, this board is a long standing, time tested resource.

Hope to bump into you at the Fort some day.

Bama Ed

PS - I like to bring my bicycle to the Fort myself....

 

[starjazz]

My advice - rent from Disney only.

They are professional, helpful, right there, good carts, good batteries, and...they're Disney. You can be sure you won't have the same troubles I keep reading and hearing about from Tee Time, and Sun City and whoever else keeps popping up with bad reviews.

Yes, it costs more, but this is not a place where I'd risk skimping.

 

[sharadoc]

Just got back from a week in a cabin. Rented from Kenny, used texts and phone, all worked great and cart was just fine. No problems and Kenny was responsive. We'll use him again.

 

[serenitygr]

We've been here since Sunday- so far so good. Kenny called us the day before arriving- arranged where our carts would be. He got 2 carts to us, happy about that! No turn signals on them, and no sides, so not as nice as the cart we had 2 years ago from him. But they both seem to run fine- Joe's is actually speedier and mine a lot slower, which suits both of us. Haven't heard anything from Kenny regarding switching to just one 6-seater so hopefully he made it so we can have these the whole time... Happy so far!

 

[Lyndria]

Glad the carts worked out for you. We used Kenny a few years ago and everything was professional and smooth.

 

[Grammyof2]

Just wanted to update on my experience.

I did receive the refund of payment 2 days ago. Kenny was very nice when he finally returned my calls.

I went with Kenny because of the recommendations here but from now on I will either tow our own cart or rent from Disney. I really only needed the cart since my grand kids were joining us for part of our trip and we wanted to be able to transport them to the pools and ride around and look at decorations. It was just to much aggravation for the savings.

We have been business owners for years and I truly understand that word of mouth and recommendations are your very best advertisement. The amount of confusion and lack of return calls or emails for weeks is just not acceptable to me. Your mileage may vary and I do wish Kenny the best of luck.