Customer Service at ASMo

[RIDisneyFan]

(Duplicate post - moved from Orlando area hotels)


This is DH, my wife normally does the posting on the boards here. I am just wondering if I am making a mountain out of a molehill. We had ADR for CRT on Saturday 09/24. That morning started off ok then I ran over something at the ASMo that punctured my tire on my wheelchair (WC) and the CM that we told was nice and offered to lend me a chair for the day and they would see what they could do to fix my tire. This was at or about 9am that morn and we got back in around 5 or 6 (I forget which) that eve and it appeared that they had done nothing to fix my WC or even look at it as Val (one of the managers there) told me they would do. I would like to state that my chair is much lighter that the park chair and much easier for me to get around in and operate than a park chair. They finally, after pressing the issue, got a patch kit and a pump and handed it to me to fix it myself.

I felt that they should have sent someone to a bicycle shop and got a tube and replaced it, as my WC tires are normal size bicycle tires. When I asked why they did not patch it for me they told me that it was a liability for them since it was a personal WC and not a park WC. The patch worked I was able to use my chair after staying up well past 11pm to fix it. I just felt that because it was punctured my something on the hotel property that they would repair it for me w/o question.

After we got home I went to a bicycle shop here and it cost me all of $5 and replaced it myself. I am just wondering really why the hotel could not do this for me there. If I am making too big of deal out of this I apologize but to me it is a big deal as it is such a tiny thing they could have done.


This is DW - The only thing I was upset about was that they gave my DH a wheelchair to use for the day, they took his chair and said they would have someone look at it. They knew we were going to be at MK most of the day, they just said to check with them when we got back. When we did check back at the end of the day, nothing had been done. If they had told us in the morning that they couldn't do anything to fix his chair, we would have come back from the park earlier (we had an ADR for CRT that morning) so that we could do something ourselves.

 

[DannyBoston]

First off I want to say I agree with you 100%. The only reason I can think of is liability, maybe the CM didn't know the rules and honestly thought they would be allowed to fix it for you. Even if Disney sent it to a repair shop off property, they are still responsible.

 

[SueM in MN]

I guess I don't agree. If one of the tires on my DD's wheelchair went flat, I would not think that the resort was responsible to repair it. That would be the same to me as noticing that one of the tires on my van was flat while I was in a parking lot at the mall and expecting the mall to fix my tire.

Her current wheelchair has "flat proof" tires (they are not solid rubber, but are gel filled and won't go flat if punctured). When she had a wheelchair with regular tires, we traveled with a patch kit, an extra tube (much cheaper at the bike shop than from the wheelchair company) and a small bike tire pump. So, we were always prepared if something did happen. We also have the situation that if DD's own wheelchair is out of commission, there is no way she could borrow one. So, we have to be prepared.

I think, in your case, what probably happened, was that the person who took the wheelchair from you thought it would be no big deal to fix - and that the bike people could do it. My best guess is that when they called the bike people to have them look at it, they said that they could not fix it for liability reasons and would not even come to look at it. If they touch it, they had some liability.
During repair, iif they break a spoke or bend a rim on a bike or a WDW wheelchair while fixing a tire, it belongs to WDW anyway. (Actually, I'm not sure, but think the WDW wheelcchairs have solid rubber tires, so the bike shop probably doesn't do any repairs on them in any case). But, if they do the same on your wheelchair, they are liable. Since you were gone most of the day, they couldn't reach you (and may even have forgotten about you). One thing they could have done better was to give you a time to call back for more information OR arranged that they would leave a message on your room phone for you to call and get later, even if they thought when they took the cahir that they could fix it.

Probably what they should have done was to call the bike shop while you were still there to see if they were able to do anything. They could have put you on the phone with the bike shop so you could tell them what you needed to fix it (patch, tube size). That way, you would have known right away that they would not fix it. It would have been nice customer service for them to provide a patch and pump (or even a new tube) without you asking for it. But, I would not have expected that they would fix it and I would consider it a favor for them to provide the things I needed to fix it.

So, I guess, I would not complain that they didn't fix it. I would complain though that they didn't have a better way to communicate with you.