Resort Thread Disney's Club Level (CL) Thread

[pas130]

YAY!!! That is great news!!!! Even short trips are amazing, sometimes even more so because you cherish every minute and really appreciate the details.

I am so excited!! AND I get GF too! SCORE!

 

[trishadono]

November will be our first time to stay CL and I'm wondering how the check-in works. Specifically, how will we know if someone is there to escort us or not? Will they be standing there with a sign or something when we exit DME? Not sure what we should look for upon arrival? Also, how do they know you are arriving and to send someone down to escort you if you're taking DME? Is it based off the estimated arrival time you give when you fill out your form for IPO, or do they have another method of monitoring when guests are near and escorts may need to head down to wait? Thanks in advance for the insight (and any additional tips to make check in go smoothly--have appreciated reading about others' experiences and suggestions)!

I don't know for sure, but I bet it is the magic band scan at the airport before you get on the bus...just a guess though. I'm in the same boat with our first CL trip in October...can't wait!!

When you get off the bus just tell the valets you are staying club level and would like an escort. They will call one for you if not there. Sometimes they are already there with a tablet greeting quests as you get off the bus. I'd say I am about 50/50 with my results. Once i was told to go inside to do but they found me an escort there after all.

 

[SleepingUgly]

When we got off the bus at BC recently for our CL stay, there was only one other family who got off the bus with us. They had four in their group - mom, dad and two kids. I was traveling with my three girls, and since this is reflected on our reservation, I'm guessing that's how they knew to identify us. They did scan our magic bands before we boarded the bus so I'm sure that info goes into the system, and the driver probably radios / calls into each resort before arriving so someone can be outside waiting, if necessary. It was actually interesting that the other BC family on our bus, who was not staying CL, also had someone greet them and walk them to the regular check-in desk. We had arrived @ 12:30 pm on Labor Day so it wasn't too busy at all; I'm sure that had a lot to do with it.

A few years back, when we stayed GF RPC, we had rented a car and drove to the resort so checked in at security and I'm sure they called the hotel to let them know we were pulling up. We were greeted that time as well, but check-in was at a desk in the main lobby, not upstairs at RPC. Not a big deal, though. The personal greeting and immediate service were much appreciated!

 

[mom2randj]

Good information regarding the valet and pick up service for CL. ok, so total wristband newbie here - the last and only other time we have been to wdw, they didn't even have wristbands. When are you suppose to put these on - when we get off the plan before we get on DME?

 

[jlundeen]

You will need to scan them at the DME area, then you don't need them again until you need to open your room door, need to get into a park, use a dining credit, or charge something on it (if you choose to do that).

I like to put mine on when I get on the plane...I pretend it's the first DISNEY ride!!!

 

[poohs4me]

Just booked AKL CL for Pre-Easter Stay. I know it is a super busy time. Anything I should be sure to email IPO beforehand about? I am not to my 180 days out yet

 

[Corinne]

Update: after reading the responses, I did speak up. One of the CL managers, Denny, was very nice and agreed we should have been escorted to the lounge. I explained how we were told "they were busy" upstairs, and that it "would be quicker" to check us in there. He asked if I knew the CM's name, which I did not recall. He assured me this was not the norm, and offered to pay for our appetizers for our anniversary meal that night at Artist Point. When the bill came, the charges were not removed. We had just enjoyed a wonderful dining experience, so I was not about to tell them what we had been promised. I'm sorry that was Denny's job......talk about over promise/under deliver!

Bottom line, the rest of the staff at the WL CL were all wonderful, and this incident didn't ruin our trip by any means.

 

[mickeynut1]

Polynesian CL still has the chocolate milk singles, as well as juice boxes. They are in the back so just ask a CM and they'll get them for you. We were there 3 weeks ago and the CMs were great, they couldn't do enough for you, especially Ivette in the mornings and Irv in the afternoons and evenings.

Glad to hear great things about Poly CL CMs, makes me even more excited to try Poly CL .

Just booked AKL CL for Pre-Easter Stay. I know it is a super busy time. Anything I should be sure to email IPO beforehand about? I am not to my 180 days out yet

Congrats on booking AKL CL! We love AKL and CL is on our list to try as I am always reading great things about it. I never use IPO, but you could email them with any requests you have, ADRs you want booked, etc. .

 

[bookluvingbabe]

We definitely experienced a mixed bag of service at the CL at the Beach Club during our August stay.

I think what broke me and actually left me in tears, was that you tell them multiple times what time you expect to arrive. They ask during all the interactions you have with them leading up to your stay.

I don't expect my room to be ready. But I do expect them to have someone ready to take me up when I arrive. I do expect that when the "welcome drink" is offered for them to return with it, not to have a shrug and an "oops, we are out of stock." Urgh... Still makes me mad! I also don't think I should encounter a charging problem literally 90 seconds after finishing the check in because the CL CM didn't listen when I told him how to set up the charging privileges on the bands.

Still, the food was lovely. The texting service was amazing.

Not sure when/if we can afford to this again. That also made the glitches all the harder to bear.

 

[Kebby]

Can someone give some reccomendation for club level room requests at YC? I need to put them in soon and we have never stayed. I think the level up from standard!

 

[Iowamomof4]

Our Disney trip was full of glitches - from not having charging privileges at CBR to not being able to access our dining plan at BC CL! We had a triple split-stay (AofA, CBR, then BC CL) and I know that contributed to the problems. We tried to avoid any issues by physically checking in at CBR so we could be sure everything was set up correctly and we were properly checked OUT of AofA and checked IN to CBR. Unfortunately, we couldn't charge snacks to our room a couple hours later at Starring Rolls and then, even after getting help from our TA and me making a trip to guest services at Hollywood Studios, we STILL had problems when we went to charge the gratuity at Sci-Fi. It was SO irritating. Sci-Fi put in a call to CBR and got our charging privileges going at that point so from then on we were fine, but GRRR...

Then, when we were ready to check in at BC, our reservation was completely messed up. At first they told me they'd have to "rebuild" it, later they said they were able to fix it instead. Unfortunately, the problems didn't end there. We had two rooms (family of 6) but somehow the dining credits weren't pooled and I only had access to half the credits. My husband seemed to have access to all the credits. However, NEITHER of us had access to one set of snack credits! What a nightmare! They did comp us some money (one amount on the initial check-in and another amount the day we checked out because of all the trouble we continued to have), but wow! I hope to avoid split stays in the future. It was WAY harder than people made it out to be, at least for us. NOT worth it.

 

[cantwaitvaca09]

We just returned from 9 nights at BC CL, it was a mixed bag for me too. Some to the CM were awesome, some acted like they could not be bothered. The texting services did not help us at all. When I would text and ask for a 4th fast pass, I was told to go to the kiosk. I did call our CL desk and they were able to give me an additional FP before I had used my 3rd one in full.
I did like the breakfast, but the desserts could have been changed a bit. They were the same each night.

 

[Dispro1]

Our Disney trip was full of glitches - from not having charging privileges at CBR to not being able to access our dining plan at BC CL! We had a triple split-stay (AofA, CBR, then BC CL) and I know that contributed to the problems. We tried to avoid any issues by physically checking in at CBR so we could be sure everything was set up correctly and we were properly checked OUT of AofA and checked IN to CBR. Unfortunately, we couldn't charge snacks to our room a couple hours later at Starring Rolls and then, even after getting help from our TA and me making a trip to guest services at Hollywood Studios, we STILL had problems when we went to charge the gratuity at Sci-Fi. It was SO irritating. Sci-Fi put in a call to CBR and got our charging privileges going at that point so from then on we were fine, but GRRR...

Then, when we were ready to check in at BC, our reservation was completely messed up. At first they told me they'd have to "rebuild" it, later they said they were able to fix it instead. Unfortunately, the problems didn't end there. We had two rooms (family of 6) but somehow the dining credits weren't pooled and I only had access to half the credits. My husband seemed to have access to all the credits. However, NEITHER of us had access to one set of snack credits! What a nightmare! They did comp us some money (one amount on the initial check-in and another amount the day we checked out because of all the trouble we continued to have), but wow! I hope to avoid split stays in the future. It was WAY harder than people made it out to be, at least for us. NOT worth it.

I'm really sorry to hear about your experience We've only done a split stay once, and it was due to my husband booking the wrong dates at our original hotel, but we didn't have any problems (although we didn't do the dining plan). I have recently been trying to talk my DH into doing an Epcot resort/ MK resort split, but maybe I should reconsider that?? My DH doesn't like moving hotels anyway. I'm glad to hear they at least tried to compensate you for your troubles!

 

[Dispro1]

We just returned from 9 nights at BC CL, it was a mixed bag for me too. Some to the CM were awesome, some acted like they could not be bothered. The texting services did not help us at all. When I would text and ask for a 4th fast pass, I was told to go to the kiosk. I did call our CL desk and they were able to give me an additional FP before I had used my 3rd one in full.
I did like the breakfast, but the desserts could have been changed a bit. They were the same each night.

The desserts were always the same when we were there in June too! The CMs are always "hit or miss" everywhere we've stayed, so we always try to deal with our favorites whenever possible. I'm really sorry your experience wasn't amazing, as it should be!

 

[Iowamomof4]

I'm really sorry to hear about your experience We've only done a split stay once, and it was due to my husband booking the wrong dates at our original hotel, but we didn't have any problems (although we didn't do the dining plan). I have recently been trying to talk my DH into doing an Epcot resort/ MK resort split, but maybe I should reconsider that?? My DH doesn't like moving hotels anyway. I'm glad to hear they at least tried to compensate you for your troubles!

The problems we had at BC, every single cm who worked on it said, "I've NEVER seen this problem before!" I don't know what it was, but we certainly got the feeling we had helped them discover a "bug". I guess I'd say you shouldn't base your decision on our experience because it sounds like we found a unique problem. Like I said before, many other people have had great success with split stays. We were the (un)lucky ones.

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Possibly the fastpass test is now over? It seems BC CL isn't offering the service anymore?

 

[mickeynut1]

We definitely experienced a mixed bag of service at the CL at the Beach Club during our August stay.

I think what broke me and actually left me in tears, was that you tell them multiple times what time you expect to arrive. They ask during all the interactions you have with them leading up to your stay.

I don't expect my room to be ready. But I do expect them to have someone ready to take me up when I arrive. I do expect that when the "welcome drink" is offered for them to return with it, not to have a shrug and an "oops, we are out of stock." Urgh... Still makes me mad! I also don't think I should encounter a charging problem literally 90 seconds after finishing the check in because the CL CM didn't listen when I told him how to set up the charging privileges on the bands.

Still, the food was lovely. The texting service was amazing.

Not sure when/if we can afford to this again. That also made the glitches all the harder to bear.

I'm sorry your BC CL stay wasn't the best experience, but I hope you had a great time at the parks and a nice trip overall .

Can someone give some reccomendation for club level room requests at YC? I need to put them in soon and we have never stayed. I think the level up from standard!

I can't help with recommendations as we've never stayed at the YC, but hopefully someone else will be able to give some input .

Our Disney trip was full of glitches - from not having charging privileges at CBR to not being able to access our dining plan at BC CL! We had a triple split-stay (AofA, CBR, then BC CL) and I know that contributed to the problems. We tried to avoid any issues by physically checking in at CBR so we could be sure everything was set up correctly and we were properly checked OUT of AofA and checked IN to CBR. Unfortunately, we couldn't charge snacks to our room a couple hours later at Starring Rolls and then, even after getting help from our TA and me making a trip to guest services at Hollywood Studios, we STILL had problems when we went to charge the gratuity at Sci-Fi. It was SO irritating. Sci-Fi put in a call to CBR and got our charging privileges going at that point so from then on we were fine, but GRRR...

Then, when we were ready to check in at BC, our reservation was completely messed up. At first they told me they'd have to "rebuild" it, later they said they were able to fix it instead. Unfortunately, the problems didn't end there. We had two rooms (family of 6) but somehow the dining credits weren't pooled and I only had access to half the credits. My husband seemed to have access to all the credits. However, NEITHER of us had access to one set of snack credits! What a nightmare! They did comp us some money (one amount on the initial check-in and another amount the day we checked out because of all the trouble we continued to have), but wow! I hope to avoid split stays in the future. It was WAY harder than people made it out to be, at least for us. NOT worth it.

I'm sorry about all of the glitches you experienced, it shouldn't be that hard whether it's one reservation or several! Disney doesn't recognize split stays as such, but rather separate reservations, so there's really no excuse for all of the problems you had .

We just returned from 9 nights at BC CL, it was a mixed bag for me too. Some to the CM were awesome, some acted like they could not be bothered. The texting services did not help us at all. When I would text and ask for a 4th fast pass, I was told to go to the kiosk. I did call our CL desk and they were able to give me an additional FP before I had used my 3rd one in full.
I did like the breakfast, but the desserts could have been changed a bit. They were the same each night.

I'm sorry that your BC CL stay wasn't the greatest, but hope you were still able to have a nice trip overall .

 

[AngiTN]

Urgh, some of these last few posts have me second guessing my choices.
DH and I are currently booked for F&W next month.
We have a split stay between BWI (Water View) and BC (Garden View)
A Standard CL room opened up and I was thinking we'd really enjoy it. The BC portion of the trip is over the weekend and we'll be at Epcot less and the Resort more.
But so many poor experiences make me question now should I just leave things alone.
We really loved our CL stays at AKL and WL. DH has missed the experience our last few trips so I wanted to surprise him.
What would you do? Leave things alone and stay with our garden view or switch? Money is not a huge factor, we can swing the cost but I don't want a sour taste from poor CL experience.
And while I'm asking, are they still serving (vs. self service) the adult beverages at BC? Even beer?

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Urgh, some of these last few posts have me second guessing my choices.
DH and I are currently booked for F&W next month.
We have a split stay between BWI (Water View) and BC (Garden View)
A Standard CL room opened up and I was thinking we'd really enjoy it. The BC portion of the trip is over the weekend and we'll be at Epcot less and the Resort more.
But so many poor experiences make me question now should I just leave things alone.
We really loved our CL stays at AKL and WL. DH has missed the experience our last few trips so I wanted to surprise him.
What would you do? Leave things alone and stay with our garden view or switch? Money is not a huge factor, we can swing the cost but I don't want a sour taste from poor CL experience.
And while I'm asking, are they still serving (vs. self service) the adult beverages at BC? Even beer?

I had a good experience at BC CL last month, it was just the issue with the check-in process. I enjoyed the lounge and the food. Yes all the beer and wine is being served by a castmember. I'm not sure what the deal is with texting for fastpasses, we had no problems with the system but it seems it might be over?? I'm not sure.

 

[DisneyDmbNut]

Urgh, some of these last few posts have me second guessing my choices.
DH and I are currently booked for F&W next month.
We have a split stay between BWI (Water View) and BC (Garden View)
A Standard CL room opened up and I was thinking we'd really enjoy it. The BC portion of the trip is over the weekend and we'll be at Epcot less and the Resort more.
But so many poor experiences make me question now should I just leave things alone.
We really loved our CL stays at AKL and WL. DH has missed the experience our last few trips so I wanted to surprise him.
What would you do? Leave things alone and stay with our garden view or switch? Money is not a huge factor, we can swing the cost but I don't want a sour taste from poor CL experience.
And while I'm asking, are they still serving (vs. self service) the adult beverages at BC? Even beer?

My daughter LOVED BCCL in May..New rooms, nice lounge and she loved the food. We stayed at the Poly in July and she commented she missed BC