Concierge/Club Level Information - Part III (October 2010)

[disneydreamin247]

Y'all are awesome with the info on AKL!!! RachelTori, the map is great! Now I understand what you mean about pods, Kudu Trail, etc. ZZUB, your location on the Zebra Trail does look perfect!! I'm thinking this might be good for us...it appears to be an elevator ride away from the pool, or close to it anyway. I'm thinking the 2nd or 3rd pod will be the best. By the way, ZZUB...I really like the verse in your signature...one of my favorites! Thanks again, everyone, for the info. I'm sure I'll have more questions before our trip

Hi Pas & Dani! Nice to "see" you over here

Nowhere on the resorts board is safe from us!

 

[hstrickland]

Nowhere on the resorts board is safe from us!

So true, so true!!

 

[mickeyluv'r]

Y'all are awesome with the info on AKL!!! RachelTori, the map is great! Now I understand what you mean about pods, Kudu Trail, etc. ZZUB, your location on the Zebra Trail does look perfect!! I'm thinking this might be good for us...it appears to be an elevator ride away from the pool, or close to it anyway. I'm thinking the 2nd or 3rd pod will be the best. By the way, ZZUB...I really like the verse in your signature...one of my favorites! Thanks again, everyone, for the info. I'm sure I'll have more questions before our trip

Hi Pas & Dani! Nice to "see" you over here

I don't recall exactly where our room was located when we stayed CL at AKL, so no help there, but it was close to get to the lounge, with an excellent view. We did have to take the elevator, so it took a few minutes, but we were not far from the lobby. I think I know where they are talking about. Non CL we had a room that was near the elevator which leads right to Simba's lounge, and the pool. It was a pool view room, but we had a viewing deck almost across the hall from our room. That was a super room location!

The view from the AKL CL lounge is fantastic!
One more important point - the CL lounge at AKL has a restroom. A very nice, very clean restroom. Not all the resort lounges have restrooms. (CR for example) so that is a big plus, IMO.

 

[PolynesianLili]

Hi all!

A friend of mine is going to be staying at the Club Level at the Polynesian in December. She was told by her travel agent that the club level no longer serves food (i.e., dinner or lunch type snack food) other than wine and cheese at dinner time. Is this true? I mean I know the food there cannot be considered a full meal, but do they still offer small item that are almost like meals?


Thank you!!

 

[nascargirl]

We head to our favorite place tomorrow the BWI-CL Our first trip of 2012 with many more to come. Just looked at the weather forecast and if it holds true, the sun shall shine the entire week with the temps Sun-Tues around 80 and the rest of the week in the mid 70's. If anyone is staying CL at the BWI, would love to meet and say Hi!.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

Hi all!

A friend of mine is going to be staying at the Club Level at the Polynesian in December. She was told by her travel agent that the club level no longer serves food (i.e., dinner or lunch type snack food) other than wine and cheese at dinner time. Is this true? I mean I know the food there cannot be considered a full meal, but do they still offer small item that are almost like meals?


Thank you!!

That information is 100% false because all the Club Level lounges at the Deluxe Resorts still offer various items through out the day at different times. Plus if that was actually true someone would have posted about it on here along time ago.

 

[alex9179]

Hi all!

A friend of mine is going to be staying at the Club Level at the Polynesian in December. She was told by her travel agent that the club level no longer serves food (i.e., dinner or lunch type snack food) other than wine and cheese at dinner time. Is this true? I mean I know the food there cannot be considered a full meal, but do they still offer small item that are almost like meals?


Thank you!!

I have not stayed there but we are booked for Oct. I asked this question on the Poly thread and a recent guest said that for evening service they usually have 2 hot items along with 1-2 cold salad/soup, plus nibbles. I believe Monday is sushi, so no hot items that day. I highly recommend that your friend contact IPO at the resort to confirm the menu.
"Lunch" are just snack type things like whole fruit, cookies, popcorn, crackers. Breakfast has oatmeal along with pastries and muffins or bagels. Dessert and cordials for the late evening.

 

[sjs314]

Nowhere on the resorts board is safe from us!

Dani - Too funny, I too lurk on this thread as CL @ AKL is one of my resort loves and one day I willl be back there.

 

[disneydreamin247]

Dani - Too funny, I too lurk on this thread as CL @ AKL is one of my resort loves and one day I willl be back there.

I think a RC trip split at AKL CL and Poly CL sounds heavenly

 

[DisMomAmy]

Hello! I just booked our very first Club Level stay!! We're booked club level at Beach Club for three nights prior to our stay at our off-site timeshare (Sheraton Vistana Villages). Other than a different check-in procedure, help with ADRs (which I have already done on my own) & the food/snacks in the lounge, I have no idea what the other benefits are.

I know I have to go back through this thread but that's not going to happen tonight! So tell me, what are your favorite things about staying club level? What are the other benefits that I need to know about?

And is there someone I am supposed to email? Even if I don't need help with booking ADRs?

Thank you!!

 

[mouseketeermama]

We just booked our first CL stay at the Poly for next month. I keep seeing that we should email IPO. Will the book our dining for us? Is that where I send my room request to? What should I include in my first email? I don't want to seem crazy, lol!

 

[DisMomAmy]

We just booked our first CL stay at the Poly for next month. I keep seeing that we should email IPO. Will the book our dining for us? Is that where I send my room request to? What should I include in my first email? I don't want to seem crazy, lol!

I'm right here with you trying to figure this all out!

 

[mouseketeermama]

I'm right here with you trying to figure this all out!

LOL, so glad to see I am not the only CL virgin!

 

[bowbat]

DisMomAmy & mouseketeermama -- Since you're both within the 180-day ADR window, you should receive an email from your resort's IPO office in a few days. I just checked, and I got the email from AKL CL three days after I booked (YMMV). The email they send will include a form for you to fill out with all your trip info & any requests. If you don't want to wait to receive that form, you can go ahead and email the IPO now -- the email address for each resort IPO is on page 1 of this thread.

I can never get the form they send to work for me anyway (I'm on a Mac; maybe that's why?), so I always just respond with an email telling them my reservation number, dates of our stay, who's in our travel party, when & how we'll be arriving, what (if anything) we're celebrating, and anything I need assistance with. I generally do my own ADRs, but let them know what I've booked so they can include that in my reservation file.

Hope that helps! Hope you both have a great time!

 

[mouseketeermama]

DisMomAmy & mouseketeermama -- Since you're both within the 180-day ADR window, you should receive an email from your resort's IPO office in a few days. I just checked, and I got the email from AKL CL three days after I booked (YMMV). The email they send will include a form for you to fill out with all your trip info & any requests. If you don't want to wait to receive that form, you can go ahead and email the IPO now -- the email address for each resort IPO is on page 1 of this thread.

I can never get the form they send to work for me anyway (I'm on a Mac; maybe that's why?), so I always just respond with an email telling them my reservation number, dates of our stay, who's in our travel party, when & how we'll be arriving, what (if anything) we're celebrating, and anything I need assistance with. I generally do my own ADRs, but let them know what I've booked so they can include that in my reservation file.

Hope that helps! Hope you both have a great time!

Thank you so much! I will await their email!
Enjoy AKL! We almost booked there!

 

[krb2g]

We're back from our Christmas CL stay at the BWI. For the most part, it was fantastic. For some reason, it took them almost an hour to check us in (first they had the wrong dates on the reservation, then they had trouble figuring out how to put our undercover tourist tickets onto our KTTW cards, then my Mom was paying with a bunch of different gift cards, so I think that took some time too), but after that everything was great. The staff in the lounge (especially Lorenzo, who thought my family should be helping me write the 42 postcards I sent) was fantastic. The food was amazing. We particularly liked the 5-7 selection, which always had a fish appetizer (tuna or salmon), apple slices and caramel dipping sauce, and these amazing pb&j sandwich rolls (dusted with powdered sugar). Also cheese, veggies, and a few hot appetizers. Could have easily made a meal out of these selections (but we didn't). If you're trying to do breakfast in the lounge and make some of the EMH holiday RDs it gets a little tight (no way we were getting to the AK at 7 am when that was when breakfast was put out), but we managed to get most of the things we wanted to do done. We were in the same room for the third trip in a row (but we have to stay deluxe CL because of our party size, and there are only 10 of those rooms, so maybe not that surprising). Love the room (and the view over the boardwalk!). We've always ended up on the third floor, but don't find the walk to the lounge bad. We were traveling with another family, and their room was right next to ours. Magical Express worked fine (luggage arrived perfectly, but did not have a tag for the return trip for my brother and the pre-pay baggage phone number wasn't working; it took about 15 minutes to sort out at the airline check-in desk outside the hotel).

I was pleased to see Boardwalk-specific merchandise, including t-shirts, an adorable luggage tag that was sold out by the time we did our shopping (next trip!), pins, and shot glasses (I did get one of these) at Dundie's Sundries and a beautiful print (the 5x7 was a steal at $20) in the General Store shop on the Boardwalk. I could barely bring myself to give the print to my mother for Christmas (instead of keeping it for myself!).

EDITED TO ADD: We couldn't get the wi-fi to work on either my father's or my sister's computer (both running some form of Windows). We asked about it in the lounge, but didn't get a really clear answer. We didn't pursue too heavily as we could all check email/photopass pictures on smart phones and we were way too busy to spend a lot of time on the internet, but just as a heads up...

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

We're back from our Christmas CL stay at the BWI. For the most part, it was fantastic. For some reason, it took them almost an hour to check us in (first they had the wrong dates on the reservation, then they had trouble figuring out how to put our undercover tourist tickets onto our KTTW cards, then my Mom was paying with a bunch of different gift cards, so I think that took some time too), but after that everything was great. The staff in the lounge (especially Lorenzo, who thought my family should be helping me write the 42 postcards I sent) was fantastic. The food was amazing. We particularly liked the 5-7 selection, which always had a fish appetizer (tuna or salmon), apple slices and caramel dipping sauce, and these amazing pb&j sandwich rolls (dusted with powdered sugar). Also cheese, veggies, and a few hot appetizers. Could have easily made a meal out of these selections (but we didn't). If you're trying to do breakfast in the lounge and make some of the EMH holiday RDs it gets a little tight (no way we were getting to the AK at 7 am when that was when breakfast was put out), but we managed to get most of the things we wanted to do done. We were in the same room for the third trip in a row (but we have to stay deluxe CL because of our party size, and there are only 10 of those rooms, so maybe not that surprising). Love the room (and the view over the boardwalk!). We've always ended up on the third floor, but don't find the walk to the lounge bad. We were traveling with another family, and their room was right next to ours. Magical Express worked fine (luggage arrived perfectly, but did not have a tag for the return trip for my brother and the pre-pay baggage phone number wasn't working; it took about 15 minutes to sort out at the airline check-in desk outside the hotel).

I was pleased to see Boardwalk-specific merchandise, including t-shirts, an adorable luggage tag that was sold out by the time we did our shopping (next trip!), pins, and shot glasses (I did get one of these) at Dundie's Sundries and a beautiful print (the 5x7 was a steal at $20) in the General Store shop on the Boardwalk. I could barely bring myself to give the print to my mother for Christmas (instead of keeping it for myself!).

EDITED TO ADD: We couldn't get the wi-fi to work on either my father's or my sister's computer (both running some form of Windows). We asked about it in the lounge, but didn't get a really clear answer. We didn't pursue too heavily as we could all check email/photopass pictures on smart phones and we were way too busy to spend a lot of time on the internet, but just as a heads up...

Thanks for posting your review and I wonder if we happened to be in the lounge at the same time and didn't know it. I was there from 12/08/11 - 12/22/11 and I believe you were also there around the same time.

 

[SharonLowe]

I'm curious about anyone's recent experience with the Poly IPO. My 180 day mark came and went and I didn't get an email. My TA ended up having to contact them to get them to send the planning form. I made my own ADRs because I hadn't heard from them. I sent in the planning form and have heard nothing back from them. Is this typical of other's recent experiences? Thanks for any and all replies.

 

[pas130]

Hi Pas & Dani! Nice to "see" you over here

Nowhere on the resorts board is safe from us!

Very true

I think a RC trip split at AKL CL and Poly CL sounds heavenly

Me too

Dani - Too funny, I too lurk on this thread as CL @ AKL is one of my resort loves and one day I willl be back there.

On our RC trip

I'm curious about anyone's recent experience with the Poly IPO. My 180 day mark came and went and I didn't get an email. My TA ended up having to contact them to get them to send the planning form. I made my own ADRs because I hadn't heard from them. I sent in the planning form and have heard nothing back from them. Is this typical of other's recent experiences? Thanks for any and all replies.

I have gotten pretty fast replies from Poly IPO. Send another email to IPO...Good luck! Or just call and make sure they have your info correct.

 

[mickeyluv'r]

What are the other benefits that I need to know about?

I'm sure others will give you details about being contacted.

The service you'll get from club level is going to be subjective and personal. It may be that you don't use the club staff with help for anything. Or it may be that they save your vacation. I think it's intentional that Disney doesn't spell out all they can do.

I know my way around WDW quite well, but at least once each visit, I end up with a question. They are very valuable sources of information, and if they don't know the answer, they usually know who to call to find it, and usually there is no line! Concierge on the first floor can asnwer many questions -but you have to wait in line.

Often getting the answer quickly makes all the difference, like how to get to dinner quickly. I'm not going to stand in line to ask whether the bus or boat is faster, but the club staff may hear us talking about our dinner, and offer a suggestion to take the boat. Whew! they just saved us fifteen minutes!

I must stress - they can't do everything - but often they can help point you in the right direction.

It is also worth saying the obvious, not all staff are equal. Some have more training/authority than others. Sometimes it matters how you ask the question. Sometimes you don't have to ask at all -they offer their services.

I further think the staff is authorized to offer different possibilities based on individual needs. If you have a special need -they may be able to sprinkle a little extra pixie dust in your direction.