Disney gave my room away after I was in it

[PrincessofQuiteAlot]

I had a reservation at the All Star Movies for Sunday and Monday night. When we checked in at 3:00 Sunday, we were told the system was down and they gave us a room key without our name encoded on it and a map with our room number and building written on it.

I was with my elderly mother and three year old neice. We walked back to our room in the Love Bug section, checked out our room, decided to go over to Downtown Disney to eat. We didn't unload everything from the car, just left my purse in the dresser drawer and my neices back pack. There was also a paper that had my reservation info and my credit card info written on it.

When we got back to the hotel at 9:30 p.m., we picked up my car from the front parking lot and drove over to the Herbie parking lot. Lugged in a pile of luggage and a half asleep child. Got up to the room and the key didn't work. I assumed there was a problem since the system had been down and it wasn't a "real" key. My mother then tried the key as I was holding my niece, and as she put the key in the door, the door swung open (she didn't touch the door handle). A woman was standing in the doorway of our room I was so confused. I had the paper with me with the room number written on it, and it was my room - the lady says "oh, I found your purse and stuff when we checked in at 5:00 and took it to the office"

By now it is 10:00 p.m. My neice started to cry. All of our luggage is lying on the sidewalk in a pile. There is no security people anywhere around. I call on my cell phone to the front desk. The manager NEVER apologized, only kept telling me since the system was down, it was a paper snafu and that my purse was in the office. I told her since I had already stood in line once to check in and thought I had a room to send someone immediately to show us our new room. Ten minutes later, a cast member shows up on a Segway (a two wheel bike) to hand me the keys to my new room.

Where is this room I ask? Well, its over in Mighty Ducks he says - No map, no offer to help get me there, and he takes off on the segway leaving me, family, and luggage on the sidewalk.

Ok, I am a very laid back person, but now I am furious. I call back to the front desk and tell them if someone is not there with a golf cart in minutes, I am going to start screaming at the top of my lungs.

Ten minutes later, they show up with my purse and other items. They put us on the cart and drive us across the hotel to the new room. We drag my niece and all luggage up to the third floor, get in the room AND IT IS A SMOKING ROOM AND MY NIECE HAS MAJOR ASTHMA - I look at the man (I tried really hard not to shoot the messanger). Because it is now so late, they have no other rooms available. I get back on the phone and tell the manager what I think - she finds us a new room, have to drag everything down and around another building. By now it is 11:00 -we are so wound up we cann't get to sleep until after 1:00 a.m.

I When I went down to speak to the manager in the morning, it was a different manager. I explained to her that if the night manager had only started out with an apology to me, instead of making excuses, it would not have been quite so bad. As it is, I will never go back there. They offered me one night off of our stay - what do you think? Has this happened to anyone?

P.S. the Magic Kingdom was beautimous and hardly crowded at all - so did get some magic after all!!

 

[Kallison]

That is appalling! They should have comped all your nights for that major snafu.

 

[Destination Disney]

God bless those poeple if that was me and my husband! After reading this thread I am still in shock! I have no words except, I would definatley write a letter to the GM of the resort. That behavior by all CM's was unexcusable. I am not one to harp on the should of, could of, and would of, but seriously, your ordeal could of had a much more devistating outcome. Think about it!

Sorry that that happened to you...talk about putting a damper on your exciting disney vacation!!!

 

[jwfla422]

WOW! ....deep breath... SO sorry to hear about your awful experience. I would have been freaked in your shoes! I would definitely email guest relations about this whole incident and how poorly handled it was.

Be sure to document dates so they can look up to see what manager was on during that time and if there any records as to what was going on (ie. the computer glitch, etc).

There is ABSOLUTELY no excuse for the CMs/Mgr's lack of compassion for what happened, sounded like she was just trying to cover herself. Major lack of competency. I would find out who the GM is of the resort and be sure to "cc" them on the mail. (the email address to guest relations is: wdw.guest.communications@disneyworld.com-I believe).

 

[CarolA]

Misstakes happen and they did not handle it well.

However, as I read your story I was shocked at what could have been....

Hotels are NEVER that safe. Do NOT leave your purse out like that in ANY hotel, I don't care who runs it. If it has valuable stuff it needs to be either in the safe or on you. Also, you should never have your pin number anywhere near your bank card. What if someone broke into your room? What if Disney had given the room to a dishonest person????

 

[lovethattink]

So sorry that happened to you. That must have been so unnerving! We had something similar to that happen at the Boardwalk Villas the 1st year that it opened. We had checked in, got our room, unpacked, put on swim suits and started to head outside as the phone rang. I answered the phone. It was the front desk telling us they put us in the wrong room. I told them we had already unpacked and were headed to the pool. They apologized and said they would send someone to help us pack up and move. They sent 3 people who arrived very quickly and helped us pack up our stuff to move. We complained to the CM's who were moving us. They sympathized with us, but could not do anything about it. We called the front desk when we got to our new room. The manager asked how he could make it better. I said to keep people in the room they originally assign them. Since that wasn't possible, he offered us dinner on Disney and asked where to eat. I asked DH and he said a place. One of the CM's in our room said he'd say Coral Cafe. So I said that. We ended up with seats right at the glass to watch the fish! Definitely worth the move. Sometimes I wondered how the situation would have been handled if I hadn't been there to answer the phone???

 

[Mom of Sleepy Bashful and BabyDoc]

I am so sorry this happened to you. You have every right to write a letter and complain, although I'm never sure that ever does anything except make us(the writer) feel better.

This is one of the reasons that we never go to the parks on our first day. We just chill out, shop, eat at Chef Mickey's, ....that sort of stuff. There have been SO many threads like, "so they said our room wasn't ready, so we went to the parks and didn't get back till 9:30" or something like that.

Don't get me wrong. That is no excuse for Disney screwing up. I just don't like to chance starting out our vacation with all that stress.

And I've said this before, I'll say it again. When will people like that night manager realize that a simple, "I'm sorry, I will make it right", can make all the difference!!

 

[thepianoman]

I'm sorry to say that this sort of thing seems to be happening more and more often these days. We stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge in May (not our first stay at this resort) and were given keys to an already occupied room! I opened the door and walked in on a mother and her young infant alone in the room. The security ramifications of something like that are appalling. Fortunately, I was not someone intent on causing harm, but what if I had been?

You can believe from that moment on that I was very concerned for my wife's and young son's safety in the resort, not to mention the safety of our personal belongings. There is absolutely no excuse for someone being allowed access to an already occupied room, regardless of computer snafus or paper mixups. I should mention that the computer system was completely functional when we encountered this problem. My first question to the front desk staff (I'm sure steam was coming out of my ears!) was how in the world their computer system could be so poorly designed as to allow two sets of keys to be distributed to two different groups of people for the same room on the same day? I was met with a shrug and not much sympathy from the cast member on duty.

A former student of mine happened to be working at Zawadi Marketplace, so I went to talk to him about it. He gave me the name and phone number of the GM, who I contacted while we were still in the hotel. Eventually, everything was resolved to our satisfaction, but it certainly put a damper on the beginning of our vacation. It seems that this problem is not confined to value resorts, as I have seen reports other than mine concerning similar circumstances at other resorts as well.

 

[BrianD]

PLEASE write a an email to WDW guest relations. They need to know all of this. This is not the way Disney handles their guests (or at least is supposed to handle their guests.) Disney does pay attention to the comments they receive.

I am so sorry you had to deal with that situation on vacation. Hopefully the next time will be more magical!!!

 

[Hippychickali]

This is certainly not how a hotel guest should be treated - Disney or not. I realize that mistakes happen but right from the start they should have sent some compassionate CM with a golf cart to bring you your belongings and take you to your new room. I think that they did make up for with the free night's stay. I think that was proper compensation but I would still write a letter so that they pay more attention to their guests in the future.

I agree with Carol, though. Please never ever leave something like a purse not locked up in a hotel room. When I hear things like that, I just shudder at the possibilities.

Ali

 

[catbad]

I checked in to the All-Star Movies at about 5:30 p.m. and was given room 6801 in the Love Bug. My husband, son and I went in after a 45 minute check-in due to only one person working at the desk. I requested Toy Story two months in advance of arrival and confirmed with the hotel 5 days prior to arrival. Well; I got Love bug. Something didn't feel quite right when we went into the room. It was clean yet at the same time.... not. I then proceeded with unpacking and saw a couple of small things on top of the TV and a receipt on the bed. I didn't think much about the receipt (it just happened to have the same price on it that I paid, so I thought the hotel left it there). As I was finishing up unpacking I opened the drawer to put my sons clothes away and there was a purse.

An entire purse, "who would leave this behind?" I thought. I looked inside and saw belongings, credit card, and cash. And thought how could somebody leave this behind. We brought it up to the front desk to the same lady that checked us in. She didn't know how it happened and just said that maybe they were transferred resorts to Pop-Century. I though it was wierd but moved on.

We had a good evening and went to bed early to get an early rise to take our son on his first trip to Magic. As soon as we fell asleep someone was trying to get into our room. At that time it snapped in my head that this has to be the person looking for their things.

Sure enough it was. Basically what happened was the 2 ladies and child had their luggage and thought they had the wrong room and they looked at the paper again and said that they didn't. I said is your last name ******. She said "yes". "I thought it was you. I found your purse and things and brought it to the front desk. I didn't take anything I just looked for a name and brought it downstairs" I then went inside and grabbed the paper with my info on it, it was the same as hers. My son wasn't crying just now awake at 10 pm. We had a very nice conversation while she was between holding times on the cell phone with the resort and her mom (which looked pretty darn good for her age) was very pleasent. We pretty much laughed and tried to make the best of it. The little girl was falling asleep where she stood (at one time she was on her blanky on the cement) and when the guy that came on the segway with her purse I felt very relieved. He had to come back with a golf cart to get the rest of her things and it took awhile and I wished her luck and that's how it happened.......

Here's the funny thing......after we just finally fell asleep again the phone rang. It was the front desk just making sure that the room was VACANT.....not cool. The next morning at 5:30 a.m. I went down to the desk after almost no sleep and spoke to a manager and received 6 free counter service meals. It was a bad start but, the resort was perfect for my son and Magic Kingdom was empty till 3 pm. My son and husband had a wonderful time.

And that is the other side of the story.....

 

[Hippychickali]

Are you really the other lady in the room? Small world.

Ali

 

[catbad]

Yes that's me. Talk about a coincidence. But we always check the forums to keep on the up and up since we haven't visited since my son was born.

 

[DukeStreetKing]

Wow, what a freaky coincidence. But what a difference in stories. I guess it just depends on what side of the door you are on.

 

[robinb]

Does anyone else hear that freaky Twilight Zone music?

 

[jgates]

She is just lucky she had someone as honest as you. I don't consider it acceptable in any manner. I probably would not have questioned the purse as I probably would have suspected that it was left in error and the cleaning crew did not catch it.

I don't see much difference in their stories. I just think that Princess was VERY lucky that it was catbad!!!

 

[Sammie]

Wow, what a freaky coincidence. But what a difference in stories. I guess it just depends on what side of the door you are on.

And sometimes which side of the desk.

 

[PrincessofQuiteAlot]

Hey Catbad - i'm glad you made it back from your adventure - are you hearing "it's a small world after all" regarding this incident?

Please guys, I hope you know I am blaming Disney for this mess, not Catbad - when I re-read my title, I don't want anyone to think Catbad did anything by moving my things from my room, I would have done the same thing if I had found a purse - (she even invited us in to wait for the CM). I don't know how to edit a posts title - I should have said "Disney gave my room away after I was in it"!!

My issue is with the front desk - the loose paper that had bank info on it was stapled to my purse when they returned it (the office stapled it)- who knows how many people had access to it at the front desk. They certainly had access to my phone number as I was required to give it everytime I called on my reservation - a simple phone call would have let me know there was a situation. How did Disney know I wasn't hurt or taken from the room?

And yes Catbad, the snafu's continued after we left your room. I honestly was ready to put everything back in the car and just drive home. I'm sorry I originally wrote that your son was screaming/crying when we knocked on the door. I thought that he was.

Anyway, I am glad that we both arrived home safe and sound -

 

[catbad]

Hey Princess--

I kinda figured that a combo of anger and dissapointment wrote that letter. You and your Mom truly were a pleasure to be around. It was a very bad situation but I was glad it was with you. Have a wonderful holiday season. I will be writing guest relations and I suggest you do the same. Magic Kingdom was wonderful though, wasn't it and it was so dead until around three. That made all of the aggrevation worth it.

Once again have a great holiday season .

Catbad

 

[Ladyhawke10]

This is about the worst thing I've ever read about check in. I have a new fear of staying at a hotel--someone else being given my room after I leave my things in there! So wild! I really hope guest relations hears more about this and there is an investigation about how all these awful mishaps happened...it doesn't sound like enough was done and this is REALLY bad.

I can't believe the front desk even called the room after everything to see if it was VACANT. They'd already checked two families in the room--what..was there a third family in the lobby needing a room!?