Wilderness Lodge: Just back, and some observations

[the.sandman]

just back loved hotel, my only problem is pool hoppers from FW. i think if this could be stopped there would be plenty of seats for everyone at the pool.
apart from this one complaint a very nice hotel

 

[si-am]

just back loved hotel, my only problem is pool hoppers from FW. i think if this could be stopped there would be plenty of seats for everyone at the pool.
apart from this one complaint a very nice hotel

I noticed that too (hesitant to bring up pool hopping here though )

We had several rides on the small resort launch that goes to Contemporary, Fort Wilderness, and the Lodge, and each time there were FW guests traveling to the other resorts to swim (I overheard them talking, telling their kids what they were doing.)

 

[NYY2SMP]

Has anybody else seen the paint chipping away like on the pic of the bathroom door?

 

[eliza61]

I take it you didnt do online checkin? I guess we better definitely do online i dont want to go through what you did.

Does on line check in help? I can't imagine if the room isn't cleaned and ready how that would speed up the process?

 

[stitchfan18]

We just got back from the BWV. One morning I was up early and walking around by the pool, and there were tons of dirty towels left on the chairs. I sat in a chair by the pool and was reading for maybe 5 minutes before a CM on a segway, (most likely one of the managers,) called someone on her radio to come clean up the pool area.She seemed really irritated that it was such a mess. It was probably 8:15 when I was out there reading, so I was surprised this hadn't been cleaned up already.

 

[amberg@eastlink.ca]

i'm sorry to hear you had so many things go wrong at wl! we stayed there in april and never had any issues. the only one that comes to mind. one day i forgot to leave a tip for mousekeeping, so we didn't get shampoo/soaps or a towel animal tht day. i felt awful!

Does on line check in help? I can't imagine if the room isn't cleaned and ready how that would speed up the process?

online check-in helped us immesnsley! we came in on the 15th and stayed at movies, checked out, hopped the bus to ak with carryons-yikes!- then hopped on bus to wl. when i walked up, i gave our names/info etc and at 10 in the morning our room was ready. i actually had to ask cus i was expecting it not to be ready. the lady said to me since i did online check in, i had already taken care of all the hard stuff and our room was ready and we could leave our stuff in the room and go to the park. i was so happy with this since we had a lunch ressie at crt.

 

[GailT]

Has anybody else seen the paint chipping away like on the pic of the bathroom door?

I don't care about chip paint I care about if the room and bathroom is clean

 

[goofy4prez]

We just got back from our week of staying at the WL CL and have very few complaints. We arrived around 11:00 am and the room was not ready. We left our carry on bags with guest services up front and went out and enjoyed the MK and returned around 4:30 to clean up and get ready for our ADR; our room was ready. For us, no big deal, we were not expecting the room to be ready.

We found the staff to be very courteous, we love the piped in sound of frogs, crickets, and birds (doesn't give me a headache like the piped in air freshener at the BC). The transportation was very efficient and rarely waited beyond 15 minutes for a bus. Our room (room 7049) was clean, not worn, and offered a great view of the courtyard, pool, and the lake.

I also encountered a FW person leaving the WL dock and heading back to the FW who mentioned being a guest of WDW, they were allowed to go to any pool on property they wanted. I didn't argue with them, but told them that's news to me and didn't believe that is correct. I then was pretty mean and suggested they may want to try out SAB at the YC/BCk knowing they will absolutely be carded prior to entering.

My only complaints were the veneson meatballs served one day in the Old Faithful club (sorry they were not good), and the one woman who decided she needed to comb her wet hair in the middle of the Old Faithful Club one morning around all the food. At first I thought perhaps it was a cultural difference (still gross), but then I heard that Basten accent (no offense to those from Boston) and knew ignorance was the case and not culture. Fortunately, when the staff was notified they removed all the open food and asked the woman politely to refrain from combing her locks around the club again.

 

[roydavid7771]

Thanks Goofy! I was starting to get worried about my stay here. My girlfriend and I are coming in nextTuesday and after reading some of the posts here, I was starting to get a little nervous. This is my first time staying at a Disney resort, having stayed at the Swan several other times. I do hope that we will enjoy our experience!

 

[Pig Pen]

Remember, check out time is generally 11:00 am. I find it pretty amazing that rooms get turned around as quickly as they do. I was a chambermaid in my early life and you would NOT believe the condition some people leave rooms. I won't go into details, but it can be pretty darn gross.

How long would you estimate it takes to completely prep a room for check-in? How many rooms are assigned per housekeeper? WL has 727 guest rooms. That's a lot of beds, tubs, and toilets to scrub.

 

[marymac123]

Has anybody else seen the paint chipping away like on the pic of the bathroom door?

I don't care about chip paint I care about if the room and bathroom is clean

I have...We had room 2001 last year...it had not only paint chipping(not as bad) but the bathroom door knob was falling off, which was fixed when we told the front desk about it. The heavy duty glue was left in our room for DD4 to find 1st, of course. But, the bathroom was gross, mold on the shower curtains, around the tub faucet & throughout the tiled shower-Also all the shower rings were all extremely rusted. This was my fault for not telling them about this sooner. Housekeeping & the front desk just couldn't grasp what I was about, so after 2x of the "special cleaning" our bathroom got - DH talked me into just cleaning it myself.

I will tell you other than that the staff was Great!!! Everything else was great-check-in/out, buses, boats-I did notice the towel thing but I just sat at the kiddie pool, feet in, w/DD. This was our 2nd time at WL, 1st trip as a family, we had stayed in the honeymoon suit in 2003. Loved it soo much DH won't stay anywhere else...Thus, our trip in 2 weeks for 10 days CL(paying xtra-hoping that I won't have to clean the bathroom again)

 

[Snape]

I don't care about chip paint I care about if the room and bathroom is clean

This is one of the reasons Disney can and will still charge exorbitant prices (for chipped paint, dirty rooms, and average service). People don't care. A slap of paint on that door would have taken all of 10 minutes to patch, but it's obvious Disney doesn't care. The OP is right - the room looks like a Super 8. Actually, most new super 8's look nicer than that.

 

[grimley1968]

I take it you didnt do online checkin? I guess we better definitely do online i dont want to go through what you did.

Online check-in has nothing to do with speeding up the process of getting the room ready. It is simply a way to do some check-in stuff online, rather than having to do it when you arrive. Rooms could still take until 3 PM or later to be readied, since rooms are not guaranteed to be cleaned and readied before then.

Since checkout is at 11 AM, it stands to reason that there be a gap of a few hours before those rooms are ready for the next guest. If the resort isn't completely full, there might be a few ready to go first thing in the morning, but those are probably filled up by a certain time, meaning that the remaining rooms must be cleaned between 11 AM - 3 PM for newly arriving guests.

There is no need to stick around the lobby waiting for the room to be ready, though. You can swim, go to a park, go eat, etc. while waiting for the room to be readied, while bell services will hold your luggage for you.

 

[Bradsdadg]

Has anybody else seen the paint chipping away like on the pic of the bathroom door?

Unfortunately, we have in just about all of our visits. Chipped paint, cracked walls and ceilings. Even at our stay last year the toilet at BCV was cracked around the base, so that if you sat down it would rock a little back and forth.

 

[stepdisney]

Remember, check out time is generally 11:00 am. I find it pretty amazing that rooms get turned around as quickly as they do. I was a chambermaid in my early life and you would NOT believe the condition some people leave rooms. I won't go into details, but it can be pretty darn gross.

How long would you estimate it takes to completely prep a room for check-in? How many rooms are assigned per housekeeper? WL has 727 guest rooms. That's a lot of beds, tubs, and toilets to scrub.

AND, we want it done correctly so this could take a while. This is the best point made so far. It takes me approx. 20 minutes to clean one of the 4 bathrooms in my house. To make the beds, vacuum the floors, dust, fluff, straighten etc. could take a while. I would rather wait than to have a dirty room.

 

[rob4059]

geez. We are heading down to wl for the first time in less than a week. You all have me worried.

 

[GailT]

We just got back from our week of staying at the WL CL and have very few complaints. We arrived around 11:00 am and the room was not ready. We left our carry on bags with guest services up front and went out and enjoyed the MK and returned around 4:30 to clean up and get ready for our ADR; our room was ready. For us, no big deal, we were not expecting the room to be ready.

We found the staff to be very courteous, we love the piped in sound of frogs, crickets, and birds (doesn't give me a headache like the piped in air freshener at the BC). The transportation was very efficient and rarely waited beyond 15 minutes for a bus. Our room (room 7049) was clean, not worn, and offered a great view of the courtyard, pool, and the lake.

I also encountered a FW person leaving the WL dock and heading back to the FW who mentioned being a guest of WDW, they were allowed to go to any pool on property they wanted. I didn't argue with them, but told them that's news to me and didn't believe that is correct. I then was pretty mean and suggested they may want to try out SAB at the YC/BCk knowing they will absolutely be carded prior to entering.

My only complaints were the veneson meatballs served one day in the Old Faithful club (sorry they were not good), and the one woman who decided she needed to comb her wet hair in the middle of the Old Faithful Club one morning around all the food. At first I thought perhaps it was a cultural difference (still gross), but then I heard that Basten accent (no offense to those from Boston) and knew ignorance was the case and not culture. Fortunately, when the staff was notified they removed all the open food and asked the woman politely to refrain from combing her locks around the club again.

Boston people can be very rude, how do I know that, I am from Boston, that was gross, i would of opened my mouth

 

[si-am]

OP here. It wasn't the room-not-ready-by-3pm issue that bothered me so much as the rudeness of the front desk when we asked about it.

 

[tami82]

I don't care about chip paint I care about if the room and bathroom is clean

Me too, I could care less about a bit of chipped paint, I do care about a spotless bathroom, especially the floor i dont want to see any stray hairs & such. That would bother me much much more than chipped paint.

 

[eliza61]

I don't care about chip paint I care about if the room and bathroom is clean

I do. Sorry at a deluxe resort I don't expect peeling paint or gouges in the wood. take the room out of service and fix it.
IMO if you're going to advertise a resort as "Deluxe" then live up to your advertisement or start charging 39.99/night