RobDoc
DIS Legend
- Joined
- Aug 14, 1998
- Messages
- 34,195
Well, it's been a long day. I got up at 5:30am and left for the office at 6:20. printed my boarding passes online last night and learned that our flight was moved up by 30 minutes from the original 2:20pm to 1:50. I had to rework my patient schedule to accommodate leaving for the airport in time. I was able to get away at 11:30am for the hour drive to Indy.
Upon arrival and after checking bags, we learned that due to delays in Atlanta, our flight would be delayed by 30 minutes. (Great!!) So now we're back to our original flight schedule. In addition, due to the ground delay in Altanta, our flight crew was delayed - even though our plane was at the gate in plenty of time for the new departure. So, we ended up taking off at 2:30pm. Arrival in ATL was fine, but the ground delays had backed up air traffic, so our 5:40 flight didn't take off until 6:55. So much for a 7:05 arrival at MCO. We arrived in Orlando at 8:10 and made our way to the "Un-Magical Express" desk. (More about this great program in another post.)
We arrived at OKW about 9:20pm and got our 1BR villa assignment. No "Welcome Home" from the young lady at the front desk. Our reservation was made in July, 2004 for this trip. Our only requests were "upper floor" and buildings 23-28, 45 or 46. You might think that an owner, booking about 10.5 months in advance might get one of their requests ... BUT ... for the second time in our last 3 trips, we got room 4211 - a ground floor, HCA room. We asked if this was a HCA room and she verified that it was and stated that "nothing else" was available. She then added that she would "check in the back" to see if she could find something else and disappeared for a few minutes. My feeling if that if "nothing is available" at the front desk, how can something be available by checking in the back ... but ... what do I know! Not surprisingly, she returned a few minutes later and reconfirmed that, in fact, there was nothing else available.
Our room (4211) is clean, located next to the Turtle Pond Pool and The Turtle Shack. The primary difference with a HCA villa is the bathroom/shower area. It's a wheelchair accessible shower and there is no storage cabinet in the bathroom area, like in all other 1 and 2BR villas. The kitchen has no cabinet under the sink, the dishwasher and microwave are to the left of the sink, but otherwise the room is the same as any other 1BR villa.
(Our luggage arrived at the room via Un-Magical Express as I was typing this- about 4 hours after landing at MCO)
I plan to try to have a discussion with a manager at the resort tomorrow just to express my feelings about "room-ready" , for what it's worth. This room has been unused since Tuesday. There is a resort memo, dated 5/03/05 (Tuesday) on the counter, explaining that there may be a power outage on 5/04/05 (Wednesday) from 2am-4am for some maintenance. Apparently this room was not needed for "room ready" until 9:20 tonight.
It would have been nice to get at least one of our requests made almost 11 months ahead, but at least we are at WDW!
Upon arrival and after checking bags, we learned that due to delays in Atlanta, our flight would be delayed by 30 minutes. (Great!!) So now we're back to our original flight schedule. In addition, due to the ground delay in Altanta, our flight crew was delayed - even though our plane was at the gate in plenty of time for the new departure. So, we ended up taking off at 2:30pm. Arrival in ATL was fine, but the ground delays had backed up air traffic, so our 5:40 flight didn't take off until 6:55. So much for a 7:05 arrival at MCO. We arrived in Orlando at 8:10 and made our way to the "Un-Magical Express" desk. (More about this great program in another post.)
We arrived at OKW about 9:20pm and got our 1BR villa assignment. No "Welcome Home" from the young lady at the front desk. Our reservation was made in July, 2004 for this trip. Our only requests were "upper floor" and buildings 23-28, 45 or 46. You might think that an owner, booking about 10.5 months in advance might get one of their requests ... BUT ... for the second time in our last 3 trips, we got room 4211 - a ground floor, HCA room. We asked if this was a HCA room and she verified that it was and stated that "nothing else" was available. She then added that she would "check in the back" to see if she could find something else and disappeared for a few minutes. My feeling if that if "nothing is available" at the front desk, how can something be available by checking in the back ... but ... what do I know! Not surprisingly, she returned a few minutes later and reconfirmed that, in fact, there was nothing else available.
Our room (4211) is clean, located next to the Turtle Pond Pool and The Turtle Shack. The primary difference with a HCA villa is the bathroom/shower area. It's a wheelchair accessible shower and there is no storage cabinet in the bathroom area, like in all other 1 and 2BR villas. The kitchen has no cabinet under the sink, the dishwasher and microwave are to the left of the sink, but otherwise the room is the same as any other 1BR villa.
(Our luggage arrived at the room via Un-Magical Express as I was typing this- about 4 hours after landing at MCO)
I plan to try to have a discussion with a manager at the resort tomorrow just to express my feelings about "room-ready" , for what it's worth. This room has been unused since Tuesday. There is a resort memo, dated 5/03/05 (Tuesday) on the counter, explaining that there may be a power outage on 5/04/05 (Wednesday) from 2am-4am for some maintenance. Apparently this room was not needed for "room ready" until 9:20 tonight.
It would have been nice to get at least one of our requests made almost 11 months ahead, but at least we are at WDW!
We will be arriving at OKW on Sunday I can't wait.
