Just wanted to share a mini (relatively
) review of our 9 day YC CL stay with you all while all the details are still fresh in our memory. I will caveat this by saying we had a MAJOR issue our first night that was just handled horribly and could have ruined our vacation if we let it. This isnt a negative review, its just our experience. I am almost sure none of you will have the same one.
Pros: GREAT location, really friendly CM staff on CL, SAB, and CL Lounge
Cons: Construction, Elevators and A/C on the fritz, Maintenance / Mousekeeping disaster.
When we arrived we were walked upstairs to the CL area and checked in. Our room was not ready, so we headed to the parks for a few hours until it was. We were in room 5219 with lovely views (I will post them on my TR as soon as I get the pics uploaded) of both SAB and the lagoon. We unpacked everything so we didnt need to worry about it, then headed back out for dinner.
We returned to the room late, where Disney florists had scattered rose petals all around the room, candles, the whole nine yards.
It was lovely, and romantic, just what I had hoped for when I ordered it. My DH went to use the bathroom and I walked out on our balcony.
A minute later, he came running out with a very bad look on his face. Apparently, someone before us had decided it was a great idea to dump cigarette butts / ashes in the toilet, and it overflowed.
Wouldnt stop running either. Bad. Very bad. Not exactly the way we wanted to start our anniversary, by any stretch of the imagination.
I called Maintenance and explained what was happening. 10 minutes later, no one had showed up.
Called again. Mind you, the toilet has NOT stopped running / overflowing at this point, and water is streaming into the sink / carpeted area at this point. Not clean water either. They said they were on their way. When 10 MORE minutes passed with no one showing up, I went downstairs and found a manager. They got maintenance to fix the problem, and promised Mousekeeping would be up to clean the mess. I was expecting a wet vac. We didnt get one.
Yeah, you can guess where this is going
. While I was downstairs trying to find a new room for the night (no luck, completely booked
) we waited another 30 minutes for Mousekeeping to show. Its around 12:30 at this point and we had been up since 4AM. Their solution was to put towels down, no bleach, nothing. At that point we were both exhausted and just wanted to sleep, wed deal with it in the morning. I had to call Mouskeeping twice that night though, because the towels, understandably so, were just soaking everything up, and were not keeping a walkway dry. I was worried things would spread throughout the room more if we didn't get it soeaked up into towels. We used flip flops to go to and from the bed and threw them out in the morning. I was crying, it was such a disaster, and Im not a crier
.
The next morning, after two MORE towel requests (thats how horribly soaked the carpet was
.) We got ready for the day and stopped by the CL Concierge desk. They had no idea what had happened (this all occurred after 10PM, and I guess no one thought it would be something they would want to know about
.
) but said they would take care of it. I just asked them to get the carpet clean, because our room was NOT sanitary at that point.
They made sure it was done, and almost dry by the time we returned to our room that evening. Yes, my room reeked of carpet cleaner, but that outshone the alternative!
The rest of our trip was uneventful
though I was still very unimpressed with Mousekeeping, to be honest. Remember those rose petals everywhere? It took three notes to housekeeping to clean them up / vacuum them off the floor before it got done. I started leaving the tip envelopes with notes on them to BEG them to get it done. Again, took the CL Concierge CMs to get the carpet vaccumed.
Also, the elevators were being worked on, which meant there was only one working at any time during the first 5 nights of our stay. Since we were on CL stairs werent an option, so there was a lot of waiting around. The A/C also broke upstairs around the lounge area one day, but our room was fine. Also, the scaffolding was up and construction was underway, though that was minor.
I feel that the YC in general really didnt take care of us to the level we were paying, but I DO feel that the CL Staff did everything they could for us. They tried, its not their fault the housekeeping staff was subpar. We also did get a credit for ½ the first nights cost from the hotel manager. Again, I would have expected more for that big of a unhealthy disaster
, but at that time, I didnt want money, I wanted the carpet cleaned!
Stephen and Mychael from the CL CMs were AMAZING, and really helped us out. Also, the Lounge area CMs were extremely friendly and really paid attention to their guests. I noticed that repeat guests were treated to better service than those of us first timers, but again, I dont really have a problem with that, to be honest. I think you should get perks for repeat visists. (again, just my opinion)
We both agreed that while this was by no means the best stay at a hotel, even at Disney, but we looked at it this way:
Construction Its September, quiet season, and they have to do construction SOMETIME! The resort is old, and obviously could use some work. Its a trade-off Im willing to take in order to have NO lines at all the rides in the parks.
Mousekeeping You could find a bad staff at any hotel, anywhere.
Maintenance If we werent on CL, we would have taken the stairs, no problem.
All that being said, the location, the views, and
. Im not going to lie
. The little TV down in the lobby showing classic Disney cartoons means we will most likely come back for a second stay to the YC next year. Overall, it was a great vacation, and we had a blast. I also left comments about the staff when we checked out, just to give my experience, hoping it would help improve things.
Oh, and before I forget, we DID have a phonebook. Just sayin.
and we had to walk down the stairs. 
