Buena Vista failed to deliver reserved ECV.

[cruisin5]

And the final chapter in this saga...Diana (the correct name for the manager) arranged to have a brand new Golden Lite Rider delivered to our resort this morning. It worked GREAT! And she called later in the day to ask how things were and to let us know that the charging unit for the third ECV was fried! So no way I could have charged anything with it. She was very apologetic. They are going to refund another day for us. While their ECVs are failures, their customer service was great. Still don't know if I'll ever rent from them again though.

Glad their customer service followed through!

 

[arminnie]

OP - I am extremely glad that you posted. While I have my own scooter now, there may be a time when I rent again. I will never consider Buena Vista.

 

[maxiesmom]

I'm really shocked someone is attacking the OP and trying to defend the downright abysmal service they received. No way should it take 4 units to get one that functions as it should.And it is ridiculous to think it is acceptable!!!!!!

I for one am thankful for the post. It may not be too long before having to rent an ECV for a family member, and now I know who to stay away from.

 

[cruisin5]

To clarify: I'm the OP who reserved a portable ECV that wasn't delivered. EpcotQueen had the 3 failed units. It was me (OP .. Cruisin5) that felt I was flamed.

 

[cobright]

OP here! Well, I knew it was just a matter of time before I was slammed for posting. Thanks Cobright for living up to my expectations. No bashing, just relaying the truth.

I'm sorry that you felt attacked by my post. It was not my intention to do so. To be clear, I never suggested, nor do I believe, that you did anything wrong. You were disappointed by this companies inability to meet your needs and some obviously sub-par customer service. That said, when you make a public statement you invite a certain amount of constructive criticism and along that vein I wondered that your reaction seemed a little severe. I don't mean it as an insult, it just seemed like you took the company's failure very personally.

What happened to you was essentially you ordered something and at the last minute find out that the company cannot deliver on that order. It's a pain, but it happens every day. Trust me, BV wanted to rent you a portable ecv. If there was any way they could have done so they would have. Something outside the scope of 'normal' occurred. They have two possible choices, get you into a different machine, or give you your money back. I have had companies disappoint me dozens of times and only on the rarest occasion has my first and final reaction been to sever all ties with them and post a poor review.

Personally, when I'm disappointed by a business I like to give them an opportunity to make it right before posting a negative review. You didn't do that and I was critical of that. I'm sorry you felt slammed, I only meant to raise what I feel is a fair point.

*note* Just to get this out of the way, I am in no way affiliated with BV or any other mobility rental company. To be honest, I have been on site when a BV scooter was delivered with a dead battery. From what conversations I've had in the area on the subject, BV isn't really any better or worse than the other companies for reliability, all of them turn over a huge number of machines a day and mistakes happen.

 

[cobright]

I'm really shocked someone is attacking the OP and trying to defend the downright abysmal service they received. No way should it take 4 units to get one that functions as it should.And it is ridiculous to think it is acceptable!!!!!!

I for one am thankful for the post. It may not be too long before having to rent an ECV for a family member, and now I know who to stay away from.

Knowing which company will occasionally drop the ball is easy. They all do it from time to time. Every one of them. What I would really be interested in is, when a mistake is made, how far will the company's management go to make the situation right for me.

Last weekend I was delivered an uncooked pizza. This is a true story. It was already late so even getting another pizza that night wasn't going to do me any good, the kids needed to get to bed. So I put on a pot of mac n cheese and then called in to the pizza place. I could have simply requested a refund, roast the place on yelp, and then resign myself from ever buying from them again. But if that's how I did things I would eventually run out of places to get a pizza, because nobody gets it right 100% of the time.

So I called the place, asked to speak with the boss, explained my disappointment. Turns out they had thrown a breaker and when they put the pie back on the conveyor the oven hadn't warmed back up enough. Given the opportunity, the manager was willing to drive me a replacement that night but that wasn't going to help. So we came to an understanding where he refunded my pizza and gave me a free pizza on my next order. If anyone asks, they make a good (not great) pizza for a good (not great) price, and have good (not great) customer service. They've disappointed me once, but then again so have most people.

 

[Bete]

Until you get a bad scooter yourself, you really don't understand. With that said I had a marvelous 6 days with two scooters from Lake Buena Vista. I will tell everyone a trick I used. LBV dates their batteries. So, if you take the cover off you can tell how old the battery is. Our batteries were dated 10-17 for a December trip. I knew we had new batteries; so, I felt confident we should be fine and we were. If I had older batteries I would have been prepared to plug in and top off the batteries at the parks. Also, we had the Victory model which is a stronger scooter.

One trip was a disaster for us and we used Apple Scooters at the time. Both scooters gave us a problem. You could not use them for more than 4-5 hours at a time. We managed by taking an afternoon break and recharging the scooters.

You can't expect to get a brand new scooter each time you rent, either. I have thought about buying a scooter, but we really only use them right now to go to amusement parks and maybe a museum or zoo occasionally; so, we aren't ready to do it.

 

[Simba's Mom]

. You could not use them for more than 4-5 hours at a time. We managed by taking an afternoon break and recharging the scooters.

I guess I should consider myself lucky. We're only about 6 hours a day in the parks kinda people (certainly not commando). I've never had the scooter charge notification go down to less than to 3/4 charged. Once I forgot to charge it overnight, so I used the same charge for 2 days. I got to thinking that was pretty normal, but reading some of the experiences here has shown me otherwise. Thanks for the wake up.

 

[cruisin5]

Thank you Cobright. We were fortunate that the scooter was a want and not a need, at least for now. Your apology and thoughtful words are appreciated.