Animal Kingdom Lodge customer service?

[a1tinkfans]

I know I shouldn't do this, but I read all of the 1-star ratings on TripAdvisor (47 of them to be exact) and the recurring theme is poor customer service. My husband has been to Disney World one other time and his astonishment at the outstanding customer service at the POFQ is the reason we're going back.

We have reservations at AKL at a very busy time of year, so I'm worried that the customer service will be lacking...any words of encouragement from someone who's been there?

Thanks!

Ava

The experience that we had with customer service at check in was top notch. Lovely experience.
The "storyteller" for the kids was late, very late, no apology and rather grumpy, read 90 miles an hour and just got up and left. Not impressed at all. Many love the resort, we would not return. It was not a good fit for our family (food selection/dark& dreary, inside corridors filled with trays all day and night, like an obstacle course.) The restaurant was so backed up adn we waited with an ADR a VERY long time (over 45 minutes, if I recall correctly) they did apologize though....never ate at resort after that.... The plus side was looking out the balcony and seeing the animals, beautiful, But anyone can walk thru or look, so IMHO again in just in my opinion, not worth it..like I said, many love it to pieces

 

[kaytieeldr]

Same here great service lovely CM execpt the Boma podium

I've stayed at AKL twice and found the customer service to be terrible everywhere but at Boma.

That's actually funny - and shows that a GREAT deal of one's opinion is based on one's specific experience!

i beg your pardon? i'll have you know that i much prefer Vicotin

You smoke Vicodin? Isn't that messy? Is it a time-release caplet that you can just open and pour into your smoking device, or is it a pill you need to crush?

but I was not impressed with the customer Service at AKL. The front desk was down right rude.

The entire desk? How can a piece of furniture be rude?

There was a mistake with our Dining credits- we were charged for someone elses room service

NOT ascribable to the Front Desk.

and it took over an hour for the front desk to fix it

Clearly, yes, the responsibility of the Front Desk - but not ever an instant fix. I have no idea what a "reasonable" length of time to resolve this problem should be - but it happens to Guests at EVERY resort. Erroneous credit use, I mean, not necessarily for room service.

"Joey the Jerk" kept insisting that it was not a mistake. Only after I was in tears did he finally adjust it but still acted like giant jerk!

If it happens again, the Guest's reaction should be (and this comes from someone who often gets frustrated to the point of tears, PLEASE don't feel I'm trying to sound superior!), "We're getting nowhere; please get the Supervisor on Duty". Move up to Manager if necessary, and even on up to General Manager.

Our other problem was with the magic express. We had landed at 1 pm but our bags did not come to our room until after midnight. This was Nov 8, 2008.

Respectfully, luggage arrving eight hours late as yours did is VASTLY more likely due to the airline misdirecting it, or even just not putting it on your same flight for whatever reason - and CAN'T legitimately be blamed on the Front Desk.

 

[kaytieeldr]

The resort was dimly lit inside, the hallway signs were hard to read and it was a maze to our room.

None of those are Customer Service issues, but... dimly lit is part of the resort's ambience and design, as is the signage. The "maze" designation surprises be because, really, the resort is a big "C" with some small, simple branches running off the main hallways at regular intervals. That never seemed like a maze to me

 

[avahoneybee]

The dimly light portion of the resort is one of the things I personally love. It kind of reminds me of the same ambiance the Polynesian has. It's almost like a vacation within a vacation. I don't care for the Grand Floridian though, and others love it.

We all have different taste.

 

[StitchandPooh'sMom]

We stayed for four nights at AKL last month, and I actually posted when we got back about how amazing the customer service was. We had great service at check-in, lovely people in the concierge lounge, a very friendly greeter who traded pins with my 7 year old (and tried to give me back the pin since we had just bought it and had not even taken it off the card yet), very helpful CMs in the animal viewing areas, a great server at Boma, and very nice people at Bell Services and Resort Airline Checkin. We only saw mousekeeping once, but the room was always clean and ready when we got back from the parks.

The trip was not flawless - bus service was terrible - but the customer service was consistently friendly and helpful. The AKL CMs were among the nicest CMs that we have encountered at any resort.

 

[kaytieeldr]

One caveot... I should make a name for this "Law"

The number of people motivated to write a negative or complaint review on the internet is approximately 1-3% of the number who would never both to write a review that says "Everything was fine. No complaints, nothing to report. It was all just fine."

Just something to keep in mind.

Knox

Which is a corollary to the Hospitality Industry* rule stating "Treat a customer well and they'll tell two people; treat them poorly and they'll tell EVERYONE". Made even worse, of course, with the advent of the Internet

 

[CanadianGuy]

Which is a corollary to the Hospitality Industry* rule stating "Treat a customer well and they'll tell two people; treat them poorly and they'll tell EVERYONE". Made even worse, of course, with the advent of the Internet

Really to be honest - mine is just a poor copy of the one you referenced.

Foiled again.

 

[dizzneebabe]

We've stayed there 2x--once at Jambo and the other Kidani. Everything was perfect!!!! CM's were all very pleasant and always willing to offer assistance, if needed. You'll have a great time!!!

 

[Ava31]

Wow, thanks for all the responses! I realize that those 47 disgruntled reviews were a minuscule percentage of the reviews posted, but a common thread was the customer service and that's what is so important to DH. It's an important factor to me as well, but my top priority is cleanliness and that's why I was really scouring Trip Advisor. I also find that the poor reviews are typically very isolated incidents that are completely against the establishment's power, like someone's kid got their head stuck in a banister or something, and the traveler feels like the hotel is at fault because they didn't have the jaws of life on-site.

This thread has really helped ease my mind though, because the Trip Advisor reviews never really have a face to me...they're just random travelers with something to say and I always wonder if the hotel holds employee meetings to tell the workers that if they post a positive review on TA, they'll get their monthly bonus. Whereas, the posters here have a history of being real Disney connoisseurs that have experienced the best and the worst of Disney service. Even the negative reviews in this thread were more detail-oriented and constructive than many of those reviews...they give me something to watch out for.

Thanks bunches, everyone!

Ava