A not so magical wedding & honeymoon

[RockPrincess]

Hello!

I'm just looking for a bit of advice please and hope that somebody can help. I've recently returned from our wedding and honeymoon at WDW (Wishes bride) and overall we felt so let down by Disney. I won't go into massive detail on here but basically our honeymoon was awful, we stayed at Port Orleans, who messed up multiple times, and none of the staff seemed to care we were getting married or celebrating our honeymoon there. I don't expect the world but a little bit of recognition would have been nice!

In regards to the actual wedding, again, we didn't feel valued at all (by each other, our guests and even outside vendors, absolutely yes! But not at all by Disney themselves) We heard nothing from our planner in the month leading up to our wedding and honestly just felt like a number, we didn't get that special feeling we believed we would get at Disney.

I have contacted the main guest relations email with my concerns, along with filling out a wedding survey which was emailed to us shortly after the wedding and I have had no response - does anyone know how long it generally takes to get a reply? Or have an alternate email address to contact? I'd just like to speak to someone about my experience.

Has anyone else felt like this or did I just get unlucky?

I've been visiting WDW for over 20 years and have never felt the need to complain before, but I've come home feeling so drained and upset after this visit.

 

[wilkeliza]

For the resort did you mention your displeasure at the time of the incidents? Were the mess ups fixed then and there? Did you escalate it to hotel management while on property? Now that you are home emailing is all you can do.

For the wedding portion since you didn't go into detail it is hard to offer any other advice then to email Disney Weddings and call them directly. The WDW guest service email won't be able to help with anything Disney Floral and Wedding as they are 2 different portions of the company and although happen on the same property guest services can not fix a wedding issue. Again I do hope you brought it up at the time as it is always much harder to fix after the fact. You should be able to call the number you used when initially booking.

 

[TinkLoverSam]

I agree with everything @wilkeliza says

 

[RockPrincess]

Thank you for replying! Yep, brought the issues up as they came up at the resort, they were resolved but it took a lot of time and stress to get there - not ideal when trying to plan/celebrate a wedding & honeymoon! Escalated to a manager eventually (after being told the day before nobody was available). It took me crying at the front desk and asking to cut my reservation short for a manager to get involved, she apologised and offered us a free carriage ride (which was one of the things they messed up with) and free Surrey bike rental, and we just accepted that but expressed we were still not happy. I just didn't want to ask for too much back and seem like an unreasonable person, but didn't know what else to say. I'm not great with complaining especially when it's face to face, and I just wanted to get out of the lobby at that point.

Ahh thank you for that! I didn't realise they were separate. Yes the issues here were also brought up whilst we were there and we were told they would be noted and passed on, but it's been a couple weeks now and nothing.

Is there a general timeframe it takes for guest services to reply? I'd prefer not to call because I know I'd end up in tears again

 

[wilkeliza]

Thank you for replying! Yep, brought the issues up as they came up at the resort, they were resolved but it took a lot of time and stress to get there - not ideal when trying to plan/celebrate a wedding & honeymoon! Escalated to a manager eventually (after being told the day before nobody was available). It took me crying at the front desk and asking to cut my reservation short for a manager to get involved, she apologised and offered us a free carriage ride (which was one of the things they messed up with) and free Surrey bike rental, and we just accepted that but expressed we were still not happy. I just didn't want to ask for too much back and seem like an unreasonable person, but didn't know what else to say. I'm not great with complaining especially when it's face to face, and I just wanted to get out of the lobby at that point.

Ahh thank you for that! I didn't realise they were separate. Yes the issues here were also brought up whilst we were there and we were told they would be noted and passed on, but it's been a couple weeks now and nothing.

Is there a general timeframe it takes for guest services to reply? I'd prefer not to call because I know I'd end up in tears again

The email is usually a couple days to a week. It has to go through a system and get assigned to a CM to respond.

 

[BlondeBelle]

Oh no, I'm so sorry to hear this happened! That's my biggest fear, with all this cost and effort, to just be a number. It happens in the parks fairly easily, with the many thousands of others, and it's my worst nightmare that I would be treated as just anyone else when celebrating something so big!

 

[mb187143]

Thank you for replying! Yep, brought the issues up as they came up at the resort, they were resolved but it took a lot of time and stress to get there - not ideal when trying to plan/celebrate a wedding & honeymoon! Escalated to a manager eventually (after being told the day before nobody was available). It took me crying at the front desk and asking to cut my reservation short for a manager to get involved, she apologised and offered us a free carriage ride (which was one of the things they messed up with) and free Surrey bike rental, and we just accepted that but expressed we were still not happy. I just didn't want to ask for too much back and seem like an unreasonable person, but didn't know what else to say. I'm not great with complaining especially when it's face to face, and I just wanted to get out of the lobby at that point.

Ahh thank you for that! I didn't realise they were separate. Yes the issues here were also brought up whilst we were there and we were told they would be noted and passed on, but it's been a couple weeks now and nothing.

Is there a general timeframe it takes for guest services to reply? I'd prefer not to call because I know I'd end up in tears again

OP i know you mentioned you didn't want to get into details but with respect to the wedding they are kind of important. It may help those of us who have been brides to give you some advice.

Were things actually not done correctly at your wedding, for example? Food that you paid for not provided or other services rendered incorrectly? Those kinds of things are actionable and past brides have certainly worked with DFTW on service mishaps.

You don't have to share but it might help you to so that you can get more specific advice.

 

[RockPrincess]

Thank you, I had a call from someone on Friday to discuss the honeymoon problems further, which is now being escalated to someone higher. They agreed that there were definite service issues there.

With the wedding it was mostly the lack of contact from my planner before and after which was disappointing, it kind of felt like after the balance was paid that was it, a little follow up a few days before to check we had arrived ok would have been nice, or even just a generic 'Thank you for booking with us' email or card from Disney Weddings themselves would have been lovely. It all just felt very impersonal, I was just curious to know if other brides felt this way too or if we just had a bit of a bad 'one-off' experience. I just feel that with having a massive branding of 'Disney Fairytale Weddings & Honeymoons' and having a big emphasis on Happily Ever After that they'd make a bit more effort to ensure that their couples felt more valued. Maybe I just set my expectations way too high!

We also had a couple of issues with our cake being not as we envisioned too. We passed over a design we loved, but our cake just looked kind of cheap in comparison, and they had used way too much buttercream filler under the fondant. It was almost like the cake was uneven and they had tried to rectify with extra buttercream? For an $800 cake it was really disappointing.

 

[Nikisha421]

I haven't been on the boards in ages...This story sounds so saddened...I hope all was resolved

 

[Seia]

I'm very sorry to hear you had problems on your honeymoon. I hope they are resolved for you.

In terms of the wedding, I think a lot of it depends on the personality of the bride as well as the planner. My planner was friendly, but definitely someone who was mostly down to business. And that was fine with me - I wanted someone no nonsense and on top of things. I'm wondering if you had a one-off experience. Did you not hear from your planner at the rehearsal before the wedding? Did you not get flowers sent to your room on the wedding day or a card sent to you afterward from the floral department? We did and so I assumed that was standard. You could probably try to get some money back for your cake if you were unhappy with it. I would try to do so soon, before you get your final invoice. I think ours came about 3 weeks after the wedding.

 

[lpizzuro123]

While our wedding was 8 years ago, and was truly magical, there were definitely some problems.

We were staying at SS and the carpeting in front of the sink area was completely flooded. We did tell the front desk and while they said they could move us to another room - we got the call that the new room was ready on our wedding day as we were heading to our Dessert Party in Epcot. There was no way we were going to move all our stuff at that point. We were at SS for a week - but during that time spent 2 nights at The Boardwalk - while my stepson was staying in our room at SS. We enjoyed our Dessert Party and when it was over my stepson and one of the groomsmen went to our room and packed it up and moved us to our new room (we were at The Boardwalk that night). The next day we did complain to the front desk again and they gave us 6 one day passes (including hoppers) for free - we should have tried for more but we were ok with that.

We like our planner but there was not a warm fuzzy feeling dealing with her - a lot of our preplanning was with her assistant (who was great). All in all - I guess it is what you make of it - our wedding was perfect for us - and we would not have done it any other way.

 

[lpizzuro123]

Just as an FYI - we did not get flowers sent to our room - but we were given matching Disney wedding watches at our reception from our planner. I believe that was standard back then - not sure if they still do this. We were a Wishes wedding - so we got 2 free AP's - which I do not think they still do either.

Most of the information I got for our wedding was right here on the disboards wedding site. I do not go in this site as much as I used to but this site was so much help in planning our wedding - I felt like I knew things even the planners did not know from everyone on these boards. I made screen prints of bouquets, centerpieces, cakes, etc. and brought these to our planning session. The girls on this board help make our wedding perfect.

 

[Ember]

My story is almost ten years old, so take it with a grain of salt. Disney delivered out of focus wedding photos to us, which is beyond unacceptable. But trying to get anything from them was like pulling teeth and they were hostile the whole time. They refused to even apologize, which was infuriating. Their line at every turn was "half of the photos are in focus!" which I guess they though I should be grateful for. I faught with them for months, before I was tired and drained and accepted a half-hearted resolution.

So if you're going to pursue this, just keep asking questions and stating your case.

 

[gemxoxo]

My story is almost ten years old, so take it with a grain of salt. Disney delivered out of focus wedding photos to us, which is beyond unacceptable. But trying to get anything from them was like pulling teeth and they were hostile the whole time. They refused to even apologize, which was infuriating. Their line at every turn was "half of the photos are in focus!" which I guess they though I should be grateful for. I faught with them for months, before I was tired and drained and accepted a half-hearted resolution.

So if you're going to pursue this, just keep asking questions and stating your case.

sorry to bring up an old thread, but i came on here searching bc i am having a similar problem. may i ask what they offered you? i am so disappointed with the photos from our magic kingdom shoot. we have to order our album since we are approaching the deadline to do so, and i can't even find enough pictures to put in there. it's been 2 years and i've tried to just let it go, but it's upsetting that the pictures were so half-assed.

 

[RockPrincess]

An update from me (I wasn't getting any notifications throughfor some reason, apart from the last post!)
So I spoke to a guest services cm and a wedding cm over the phone in November, the guest services person said someone higher up would be calling back, heard nothing. The wedding person thanked me for my feedback and said it would help future guests - not really fair on me but she wasn't bothered about rectifying my situation. I'm not good speaking with people so I didn't chase it any further, but did consider just cancelling my combined park shoot and 'second honeymoon' trip because I was getting to the point where I just didn't want to go back to Disney, after 20 years of regular trips, and just felt really disapppinted and deflated.

My mom then pushed it because she didn't think it was acceptable, so chased them up on her own, she wasn't impressed with the photos either as when we got them back (6 weeks after the wedding) there was hardly any of her with me, and pretty much none of our guests. The photos were great, but felt like with two photographers more of the 'atmosphere' if the day should have been captured, there wasn't much at the reception at all really.

A week before we were due to depart on our 'second' honeymoon, they offered us complimentary accommodation, and whilst we were there they surprised us with a remake of the top tier of our wedding cake. It was nice, but kind of felt like a last minute thing just to keep us quiet or something :/ It's still completely changed my mind on Disney and the service they offer, overall I'm still not impressed, but I'm glad we weren't completely ignored in the end.

 

[adisneyaunt]

I'm glad u were able to get some acknowledgement of your disappointment.
Sorry to hear it was subpar.
Made me sad ....thx for sharing ur story. Perhaps it can alert others to self advocate if they too are feeling disappointment during the entire process
And belated congrats to you both!

 

[Ember]

sorry to bring up an old thread, but i came on here searching bc i am having a similar problem. may i ask what they offered you? i am so disappointed with the photos from our magic kingdom shoot. we have to order our album since we are approaching the deadline to do so, and i can't even find enough pictures to put in there. it's been 2 years and i've tried to just let it go, but it's upsetting that the pictures were so half-assed.

Apologies, I'm not on the boards much at all anymore. As part of the deal I was not allowed to disclose the outcome. I will say it was a heck of a lot less than being provided complimentary accommodations. I loved my Disney wedding. But I still feel resentful that they ruined such special photos and couldn't be bothered to make it right.

 

[LadyD]

Apologies, I'm not on the boards much at all anymore. As part of the deal I was not allowed to disclose the outcome. I will say it was a heck of a lot less than being provided complimentary accommodations. I loved my Disney wedding. But I still feel resentful that they ruined such special photos and couldn't be bothered to make it right.

If Disney messes something up in connection with your wedding, you really have to push back hard and insistently to get any sort of resolution out of them. They will definitely try to get out of fixing their mistake after the fact.

 

[MouseJen]

I must admit I'm finding the lack of communication about my wedding very frustrating.

Fingers crossed the planner has this in hand but as someone who is usually does all organising lack of communication is making me very nervous.

 

[lurkyloo]

I must admit I'm finding the lack of communication about my wedding very frustrating.

Fingers crossed the planner has this in hand but as someone who is usually does all organising lack of communication is making me very nervous.

What type of wedding are you having? How far out are you? Disney planners are working on dozens of weddings simultaneously, so they usually don't really start focusing on your event until you're within a few months of your event.