Anyone else have this problem?

[tatajess]

We stayed at OKW during late December and was appalled by the condition of the room we stayed in. We were in a grand villa (building 16 I believe), and found SO many problems with the room.

After waiting until nearly 6pm for the room, we spent the entire trip discovering new problems. There were several minor problems, such as a hole in the wall, the balls on the banister were all loose or missing, and the floors were dirty (hair and chocolate in the carpet--YUCK!).

What we couldn't believe was that two of the sinks leaked--an upper bathroom sink flooded the floor, and the kitchen sink was leaking onto the counter. The bathroom leak was discovered as I stepped into the puddle in the middle of the night. To make matters worse, I discovered the leak in the kitchen as I was ready to plug in the toaster (also broken by the way) that was sitting in the puddle.

Bugs were constantly roaming the dining room table and counter.

I have been a DVC member since 1992 and have stayed at OKW exclusively, however, I was shocked to find how much the resort has declined. After several calls (daily) to engineering, housekeeping, and maintenance, we gave up informing them of new problems that came up.

After arriving at OKW at 12pm (Dec 22) and having to wait SIX hours to get a room because of "housekeeping", we were completely disappointed and left OKW for the first time actually excited to go home.

Has anyone else experienced these types of problems at OKW?

Are they planning on improving/remodeling the rooms anytime soon?

How is Saratoga Springs compared to OKW? Does Saratoga seem cleaner?

Sorry to rant, but our family has never been so disappointed about a vacation! (being in Epcot on Christmas day in downpour rain didn't make things any better!! )

After two days, they told us we could be moved to another room, but with a fridge full of food, everyone was too exhausted to move. We did, however, get $100 credited to us. We used it to dine at Olivia's...the one highlight of our trip!

 

[tjkraz]

Fortunately that's never happened to us.

Sounds like you got the runaround from the resort staff. For what it's worth, buy the second day I would have marched to the front desk with a list of problems and not left until we had a plan for getting it fixed. With the number of things you quickly listed, option #1 would have been them moving us to another room--granted that might be difficult during Christmas week.

Even though it's 6 months after the fact, I'd put the story in writing to DVC and the resort manager. For the number of points you likely spent on that room, I'd at least make someone spend a few minutes reading the gory details.

 

[DebbieB]

I stayed in a 1 bedroom in building 37 last month, everything was OK. You must have hit a bad room. The fact that it took so long to get it ready leads me to think the guests before you left it in bad shape (example - chocolate on the carpet). I would have called the member satisfaction manager at member services.

 

[RweTHEREyet]

Just curious to know why you waited six months to post something about this? I think I would have presented myself in person at the Hospitality House and insisted on talking to someone face to face, espcially since you where using holiday points for a Grand Villa.

 

[Lasrnw]

We're here now and the only issue we had was that the mattress pad did not fit the bed.....not even close....maybe a full size pad on a king size bed, so I called Mousekeeping and they brought a new one right over.

 

[tatajess]

Just curious to know why you waited six months to post something about this? I think I would have presented myself in person at the Hospitality House and insisted on talking to someone face to face, espcially since you where using holiday points for a Grand Villa.

I went to the front desk SO many times asking for a manager or someone that could help us. They wrote down the bug problem and sent pest control to look at it and they sent someone to come and tell us they had no more round banister tops. We told every person we could think of about our problems and the major leaks were fixed. When you go on vacation you expect maybe one minor problem, but this was awful...

 

[ryoung]

We were at OKW over New Years and thought that the housekeeping was not up to the usual standards. It was nothing to the level of your problems, however. We too had to way a few hours for a room to be ready.

Hope things have improved.

Randy

 

[dianeschlicht]

We have never had that severe a problem at OKW, but once a couple of years ago we had a room that needed refurbishing. It wasn't dirty though. I guess I would have camped out at the font desk and complained loudly enough to get things done while you were there. A GV is not a small number of points and it isn't worth a bad experience to let it fester so long that you are still unhappy 6 months later. I hope you wrote a letter 6 months ago when you got home. If not, you need to do that unless you don't care if things get changed. We had a great room in building 13 in December last year. It was very clean and the only minor defect was that someone had kicked a big dent in the door of the new dishwasher. WE had a GV in building 15 last October and it was in great shape!

 

[Pluto4Pres]

We had a 2BR in Bldg. 16 in Jan.2004. It was recently refurbished, new appliances etc. I think we had a clogged sink problem but it was fixed promptly. Over the years we have gotten units that were close to re-furb time. It's the luck of the draw. The disturbing part that we hear about lately is the failure to re-furbish the unit to the original standards, plastic blinds etc. They should have the bannister pieces in stock and repair them promptly. I think it is a violation of fire code to have incomplete bannisters or parts exposed that could catch hands, fingers, or clothing.

I'm going to try and book a 2BR for this Dec. today. We're sending our BIL's family and he is bringing his MIL. Boy if they get a room like that... we'll never hear the end of it.

 

[Laurajean1014]

We've stayed at OKW for over 10 years. This equates to more than 220 times at various buildings. Within that time, we called:

Housekeeping - 0 times
Maintenace - 1 time (bulb blew)
Electrician - 1 time (so humid the lock to room malfunctioned!).
Exterminator - 1 time (I found a tiny bug in bath area - 1 bug is too many for me).

We love OKW and think it's quite clean and pristine. You may not like it, and that's fine. You may feel more comfortable at another hotel or maybe somewhere off-site. Are off-site places (Governers, Vistana, etc) cleaner?