Our family has just returned from a wonderful stay at WDW, we stayed at AKL Jambo House. My only complaints are, go figure, the behavior of guests and was wondering what others' experiences were. At two Disney swimming venues, most notably AKL Kidani Village, we had a terrible time with pool chairs. There are little signs everywhere that say basically "In consideration of other guests, please do not use belongings to reserve pool chairs." People were terrible about this! Families would drape belongings on whole swaths of chairs along the pool, and then go swimming leaving their chairs completely unoccupied. We walked around in circles looking for somewhere to put our things and for me to sit, and there was nowhere. Along the back of the pool, I saw one chair with only a hotel towel on the end of it, a kid sitting on a chair two chairs down and a man sitting on a chair four chairs down. I went ahead and sat on the chair and he rolled over, and told me it was taken. I finally went to a manager and asked him to make a polite announcement enforcing the guideline because I could not find a chair. I tried to explain to him that each family really only needs one chair if they are swimming on the pool, one is certainly enough to hold bags and shoes. He refused to make the announcement and said that people had the right to claim chairs. He then offered to find me chairs. Since he didn't seem to get the concept, I restated that I really only needed ONE chair for the four of us. He found us two. ???? After sitting down for a few minutes, I noticed other families walking around looking bewildered and frustrated, and went over to offer one woman my second, unneeded chair. People were finding places in the bushes to put their things! This is ridiculous. Why put they signs up if they don't mean anything? The non-helpful manager, James from New Jersey, may have helped me in the short term, but he did nothing for the other families wandering around trying to find just one chair for Mom or Dad to sit on. He only reinforced the rude behavior of the guest by condoning it, and he had a much greater responsibility than that. Having chairs near the pool is especially important for parents of school aged children who may be old enough to go into the pool alone, but you still want to keep an eye on them. And besides, those greedy families draping their stuff on five poolside chairs don't OWN them, so why aren't we allowed to move their stuff if they are not sitting in them, especially if it is only a hotel pool towel? We also found this problem at Typhoon Lagoon. Chairs should be for people who actually want to SIT in them, or one chair per family at most to hold belongings. With the expensive rates of Disney hotels, they should manage this better to better serve ALL of their guests, not just the rude ones.
Anyone had a better experience at another Disney hotel with a better enforced policy? I don't want to go to the Kidani Village pool again because of this.
Totally agree. When I go with my kids I get two loungers, one for youngest DS who likes to lounge more than swim, and one for myself. Oldest DS just swims, gets out, and goes to the room so why get him a chair?
