Sorry, this is long! So readers beware!
This past summer I decided to take an impromptu, late August DW trip, since the great discounts came out. I've never taken my boys anywhere alone, but I figured that they were old enough now to stay with me and be safe. I was expecting this to be an easy trip, based on our April 2012 BCV stay, which is why I risked my first trip alone with my two older boys (6 and 5...left the 2 year old at home!). Well, it turned out to be a horribly stressful trip, and I'll try to give you the "abbreviated" version of what went on.
Checked in Tuesday night, they only had a king room with a rollaway bed. I asked for our groceries and stroller to be sent over to the room and the boys and I walked over to see where the room was and to drop off some stuff and head to EPCOT. The room was 1st floor on a corner, RIGHT next to a back exit. We came back from EPCOT around 12:30 am to find NO groceries/NO stroller. I tried to call the front desk/bell services, but the phone didn't even have a dial tone (it was plugged in, I checked). I had to re-dress the boys and walk down to the lobby. They said that they'd send the stuff to the room and make a note to fix the phone in the morning. By 1:30 am I had mostly unpacked and they finally delivered the stroller and only some of our groceries (Garden Grocer delivered them to BWI!). Bell services promised to go get the rest of the groceries and bring them in the morning. Garden Grocer never responded to my email about the delivery mix-up. Anyway, the room turned out to be awful b/c my kids are wiggly sleepers, there was luggage rolling by the room all night, and the exit door slammed/people talked loudly coming in and out all night too. None of us slept well at all.
Wednesday morning I got up to get ready and the hair dryer DIDN'T work. I still couldn't call bell services from the broken phone, so on our way out to MK I asked the frong desk AGAIN to have the phone and hair dryer fixed, and reminded bell services about the rest of our groceries. We were promised it'd all be taken care of when we returned. Also, EVERY morning, before we left for the parks, I packed up a lot of our stuff to have it out of the way for the housekeepers. That turned out to be a waste of good park time. We came back the first day around 2:30pm to a room that hadn't been cleaned, nothing had been fixed, and still no more groceries. I put my boys down for a nap and went down to the lobby to talk to them AGAIN (I wouldn't normally leave them, but I thought I could get back within 5 minutes or so!). This time the CM offered to move me to a double queen room, no day bed. When he switched the rooms in the system, the CM said that I was now locked out of the room where my boys were sleeping, but INSISTED that I had to immediately pack and get out of there so that they could re-sell the room! I asked him how I could even get in, let alone pack up the room, and how could I call for a bellman with no working phone? It took him 20 minutes to find someone to let me in, but they both insisted that they didn't have time to wait for me to pack, so a bellman would come back at some point in the future. I packed up and about 30 minutes later a bellman came with a luggage cart, which I loaded while he called the front desk to see which room I would be in, since the one they had switched me to had already been given away! I woke up my exhausted boys and moved finally to a double queen room with day bed (the one good thing, so that they could sleep better in separate beds!). I reminded the bellman that I was waiting for groceries, and he promised to send them. This room was much better, and since everyone was up we decided to head back to the parks. We came home around 11 pm to NO MORE GROCERIES again.
I called and reminded bell services that I was waiting for them. They promised to send them in the morning since it was so late.
Thursday morning, nothing was delivered to us before we headed out to AK. When we came back from AK around 2, the room hadn't been cleaned yet, but the groceries were FINALLY delivered, so I took the boys to the pool. We went back to the room after 4 and it still hadn't been cleaned. There was a housekeeper in the hallway, so I asked her if I could take a quick shower and then she could clean, assuming that our room would be one of the next ones. She asked me to write "5 pm", as her return time, and sign a piece of paper, so I did. We headed out to Epcot for the evening, returned at 10 and the room WAS NOT cleaned!
Friday morning we headed to HS. Came back around 2:45 and the room hadn't been cleaned yet again. By this point I was out of clean towels, coffee pods, clean glasses/mugs, toiletries, etc., so I called Mousekeeping to ask to please go ahead and send someone to the room. I'd take the boys down to the lobby, skipping naps again, so that it could be done. 20 minutes later the housekeeper showed up and said "You needed me to come back?", and I told her that NO ONE had cleaned our room since we'd been there. She didn't say anything. We went to the lobby for an hour, where I went back to the concierge to ask him to cancel our April trip to BC. I was so frustrated at this point, almost in tears, and ready to just go home. He asked if the boys liked ice cream and if that would help me decide to keep the reservation. I told him no thank you, and he called over the female hotel manager. I told her what had been going on, she appologized, gave me her card and told me to call if I decided to come back so that she could take care of us, and she comped the wasted groceries and food we had to buy in the parks instead for 2.5 days (VERY nice of her, since it was really Garden Grocer at fault for delivering the food to BWI, but since Bell Services kept promising that they'd fix it and never followed through, she felt they were at fault too).
When we returned to the room, the housekeeper had only made the beds (changed sheets? I don't know) and put more towels in the room. Nothing had been cleaned, the coffee mugs were just rinsed out and sitting on the counter with coffee rings still in them, NO replenished toiletries or coffee, and she didn't even clean out the old coffee pod. The housekeeper definitely took her tip envelope though!!! I went out in the hallway to ask another housekeeper if this was a standard cleaning and she said no, appologized for the other housekeeper, and replenished the room for me. I couldn't believe all this was STILL happening!!!
Saturday morning, packing to leave, my 5 year old woke up and told me that he found a peanut in his bed during the night. I said "That's gross, you didn't eat it did you?", to which he said "No, I hid it in my covers". He started digging around between the blankets and pulled out what looked like a ball of POOP!!!!!!!!! I immediately yelled for him to drop it and come wash his hands, and then I called the housekeeping line to ask for a manager to come down. (BTW, my 5 year old has been potty trained for over 3 years and NEVER has accidents, so I know whatever this thing was WASN'T his!). My 6 year old son yelled that there was another piece of poop looking stuff on the floor. The manager came and picked up the stuff, appologized and said the last night would be comped.
Anyway, I'm so sad to have, what was, my favorite resort ruined for me, but I just think it'd be really dumb to go back and risk this kind of thing/these kinds of things happening again. Just the stress alone was enough to ruin the whole trip. Well, along with the HOUR LONG bus trip from the park to BC, where the three of us had to stand the whole time, smashed between the seats, as we were the fifth stop! I think it was from AK...but no one got off the bus until YC/BC. There were only people getting on and the driver kept telling everyone to move back and make room. It was totally rediculous and my boys were getting really mad and tired of standing up for so long.
I went ahead and cancelled our April 2013 trip completely, and switched our December 2013 trip from BC to the Polynesian. The reservations CM encouraged me to try BC again in December and definitely call the manager for her help, but I still don't think it'd be worth it. BC has some major housekeeping issues, and trouble with following up on what they say they'll do!
Come on now be realistic.
