DON'T DO IT...split ressie nightmare...long story

[trasor]

I just returned from the MOST FRUSTRATING 7 night stay at BWV. I had my ressie split into 4 segments. 2 nights with DDP, 2 nights with nothing, 1 night with DXP and 2 nights with nothing. Now, I went there knowing from previous reports that there are problems with the system, even though it has been in place for months now. I went there knowing I might have to check in 4 times. I was prepared for that. What I was not prepared for was 12 visits to the front desk totalling over 3 hours of my time and 8 sets of room keys. I was traveling with my family of 4 and my in-laws in a 2 bedroom. I did online check in except for adding a credit card because I was going to need split charging privileges. Check-in resulted in my first 1/2 visit to the front desk. When DVC split my ressie into segments, they put my FIL as primary when he is not even the member. For some reason, they could not use 2 credit cards but I was told they could use my FIL's card and upon check out we could split the charges based on what card was used and pay accordingly. No problem, I just want to get to my room.

Dinner that first night, cards don't work. I charge it to the room and go to the front desk. They apply the dinner to my dining plan and I spend more time as they try to straighten out primary member and split charging privileges. Nope, can't do it. Next day, I go to charge something to my room and I have no charging privileges at all. Back to the front desk. They have no idea what's wrong. They re-book that segment of the ressie and I should be good to go. Nope. Cards work good at dinner that night but I go to use snack credits and my card uses 3 and says I have 0 left when I should have 5and my MIL uses 3 and her card says she has 3 left when she should have
1. I try to use 1 of her 3 and it still won't work. Back to the front desk I go for the 4th time in 24 hrs. This time I get a manager who has no idea why this has happened and applies the snack credits.

The next morning as I'm leaving my room, someone comes along to give me new keys (4th set) for my ressie with no dining. I go down to get charging privileges and still no go, with again no idea why. I give up. Now starts my ressie with DXP. I get my new room keys (still can't figure out the charging problem) and go out to breakfast. All meals are on my MIL's card and mine are no good, which wouldn't be a problem if we weren't going to be split up at times. Back to the front desk I go. Manager Brian has no idea why but he'll redo the ressie and deliver keys to me. Great but I than have to go to the front desk to get charging privileges which he assures me will work this time cause they've sorted it all out. Dinner that night is fine but when I go to put the tip on my card, yep, you guessed it, its no good. Back to the front desk I go.

Now, the CM's at the front desk and concierge know me by now from the steam coming out my ears. I have met and talked to them all over the last couple of days and they really don't want to deal with me any more. I am always polite and preface my complaint with "please excuse my frustrated tone of voice but this is my ? trip down here". Now everyone I have talked to is nice but I keep getting the same answer of "I don't know why this happened". By now I am also pissed that not once in my previous 7 visits has anyone asked how they can make my trip better. Enter manager Josh and visit #8. After my rundown of problems he immediately said that my experience was unacceptable and he was going to do whatever he could to turn it around. He took me shopping on the boardwalk because he said he saw in the computer no reason why my card shouldn't work. I picked out 2 things for my kids and he told me to pick out more and he picked out a few items to add and we went to check out. Thank God my card still didn't work cause I would have felt awful if it had. Apparently, when the CM gave me charging privileges, a credit limit wasn't added so the card wouldn't work. Josh was above and beyond generous in shopping with me. But beyond that he offered customer service with his words and actions which helped soothe my very frayed nerves.

Because of so many problems, I check my Visa to make sure I got credit for my meals and snacks. I have a $200+ charge I don't recognize. After 2 more visits to the front desk that night (it's now 11:30 pm) we find that they charged me for a day of DXP that I didn't have. I'm told she'll credit me, no problem. Go back the next day to double check and manager Brian can't find where I was overcharged so I have to go back to my room and get him the paperwork that was printed out for me last night. He says he'll credit me, no problem. Today, 5 days later, I call Disney and am told I was never credited, but they'll take care of it, no problem. I really hope that was my last call because I am more than ready to put this visit behind me.

I plan on telling my story to DVC member satisfaction letting them know how unacceptable I think it is for them to offer something when they cannot properly implement it. I think it is a great perk to offer members but not if you have to go through what I went through. I also plan on praising manager Josh. Because of him the very pissed off and scathing letter I was going to write will now only be a very frustrated letter.

 

[CarolAnnC]

Good Lord! That is just awful!

One question though on the DDP credits - don't all of the credits get lumped together for everyone in the room? Why would your MIL have a different balance, shouldn't you both show the same balance?

 

[trasor]

Yes, they should show the same balance. Why they were different on the snacks, I don't know. And why my MIL's showed 3 but I couldn't use them, I don't know. When I showed the 2 receipts to the manager, he had no idea. I think I was just the person Murphy's Law rained down on last week. If anything could go wrong, it did...all to me. Even after all that, I'm still ready to go back and can't wait for my next trip. Even Murphy's Law wouldn't do that to me twice...would it?

 

[kimberh]

My Goodness alive! This is a nightmare! I will not do this. I don't think it is worth it at all! Sorry it happened!!!

 

[disneynutz]

You should have called MS and got Member Satisfaction involved while you were there. DVC says the DDP segmented reservation process doesn't have any problems and they are our advocates with the Disney Resorts. When we have a major problem like this, I dump it on the Satisfaction Team and tell them to get back to me when it's fixed.

Bill

 

[gkrykewy]

I think the DDP on its own is enough of a hassle (for minimal savings) that I'd never touch it.

Four DDP variations in one trip! I have no idea why you'd do that to yourself.

 

[mopee3]

I agree, just don't do it!! We just came back from a 4 resort trip and when making the ressie/DDPs a CM asked if we wanted to segmet the thing, but when they remind you that every time the DDP changes you need to go to the desk for new cards. Well I believe we are asking too much from the computers, CMs and especially yourself. If it was just the computers it would be easy but then there is the checking in and out and making sure the correct cards are used, not to mention if you have someone who wants to do their own thing with the cards.

Trouble etc. We have always stayed in mutliple resorts, but never tried to segment the resort/DDP...way too much stress and work.

Moe

 

[Tamar]

What a terrible experience. I'm not sure I would trust humans or computers to handle that type of reservation flawlessly, though. Seems like a lot of variables. Kudos to you for being calm through the mess!

 

[daisyduck123]

Four DDP variations in one trip! I have no idea why you'd do that to yourself.

I would never expect that to go thru without many glitches. Seems like way too much of a hassle.

That's too bad it was such a mess. Hopefully, you're next trip will go much smoother.

 

[Kidanifan08]

Sorry you had such a bad experience. We have not done a segmented reservation for the dining plan yet, and now I am less interested. Once they get your letter, we will probably see a new restriction: minimum 2 segments per 7 nights. At least that way, they would only have to deal with angry DVC members twice over a week! Hopefully they will make it up to you somehow.

 

[Corinne]

I would never expect that to go thru without many glitches. Seems like way too much of a hassle.

That's too bad it was such a mess. Hopefully, you're next trip will go much smoother.

I have never used the DDP and have no interest to do so, therefore, I am completely ignorant on this subject. I don't understand the concept of all the split stays, yet staying at the same resort?

 

[vicki_c]

Corrine- To get different dining plans on different nights, they have to split up your reservation into segments.

OP - that sounds like a total messy nightmare and sorry you had to go through all that.

In general, I have been waiting for someone to report that their segmented reservation was a problem (but not gloating that it actually happened, OP) because it all sounded just so darn complicated. I really couldn't understand all the interest in doing it from so many DVCers - like it was the greatest thing ever. I've seen so many complicated posts - 1 day on, 2 days off, 3 days on, 1 day deluxe - it just seemed like a mess waiting to happen given the problems people have with DDP credits on their cards sometimes when they are only doing 1 plan.

But we don't do the dining plan at all but use TiW, so I probably just will never get the appeal. I thought it was enough of a pain to go get new keys twice on my trip just because we had a waitlist that came through, which caused our reservation to be segmented.

 

[Scraper]

Sorry you had such a hard time. We were just there in May at OKW. We split the reservation for one night of deluxe dining which was three set down meals and two snacks. We had no issues and only had to get a new room key on the day the dinning plan started. The CM did call the manager over to make sure she had done things right. I had them check my key at the counter service before we headed out with it to make sure all the dinners and snacks were there. We did the Spirit of aloha the first night and then cape may on the seacond night because even though we had it for one night you can use it till midnight the following day. I would do it again and hope that all the clitches will be worked out soon. Once again sorry it did not go well for you.

 

[MinnieGi]

WOW, that was a huge mess!! Sorry you had to deal with it.

If we do ddp I won't segment too many horror stories!

 

[Tiger926]

Sorry the OP went through this. Hubby wants to do this in the summer, so we'll see.

Just to make you feel better, BWV did this to us during one of our split stays last year - but of course, it had nothing to do with segmented dining plan, as that didn't exist.

We have done a million split stays - just check out my signature, but that time, BWV just plain lost their minds! Do to a reservation/front desk error, we had to switch rooms within the resort. They lost us in the system, messed up points, came to evict us from our room, and told my mom when she called that we weren't there! It was a nightmare. Front desk was horrid, and did absolutely nothing - very rude and unfriendly. They messed up big time, but did not attempt to fix anything.

Contacted MS, while still there, and they fixed up our points, and apologized.

I love the location of BWV and the atmosphere, but I do not like much of the staff that we have dealt with, as they are in serious need of sensitivity and kindness lessons!

Tiger

 

[photobob]

I plan on telling my story to DVC member satisfaction letting them know how unacceptable I think it is for them to offer something when they cannot properly implement it.

You hit the nail on the head with this, it was exactly what I was thinking as I read your woes. I've read others stories with very similar problems.

 

[disneychic]

I had a similar experience at BWV on my trip May 7-13 split stay first 4 nights at BWV and then switched to AKV -- I was TRIPLE charged for our meal plan! And let me clarify this... all guests in the room had the same dining plan for the entire length of stay. So, it wasn't that some were on, some were off. And we only had 1 credit card on file. So, it wasn't like it was a big complicated mess. 6 nights, 2 guests, same dining plan for all 6 nights, 1 credit card on file with a resort switch on the 11th.

Our reservation crashed as well - we found this out on day2 when we went for lunch and were told by the cashier that we were not registered guests at the boardwalk and the account was void! This happened at the Boardwalk Bakery so I ran right up stairs to the front desk to find out what was going on because we didn't have any problems the night before or that morning??? So after standing around for 20 minutes while the CM ran back in forth from the back office we were told that the system crashed on our reservation and that our reservation needed to be completely rebooked. They had to call MS and everything. Apparantly, this is when they double charged me for my meal plan (although I didn't find this out until check out day when I looked at my statement). So, I don't see this until the 11th when checking out and I am told that they would reverse the charges but that it could take up to 2 weeks to show on my account

Then when we checked into the AKV on the 11th and I thought everything was fine...until check out morning of the 13th when I look at my statement from the stay at AKV from the 11th - 13th and I noticed they charged me a THIRD time for the Dining Plan! I was NOT HAPPY! Then they tell me it will take up to 14 days for the credit to hit my account. And by the way, when they charged me for the meal plan for the 3rd time, it was for the total amount again, not just for the days I was staying at the AKV. So, this system seriously needs to be looked at. What's the point of paying for the meal plan prior to check in when they're apparantly going to charge me 2 more times during my stay! I will NEVER use my debit card again for charging privledges at check in. They are just really lucky that I had enough in there to cover the 2 extra charges for the stupid meal plan becuase if I was hit with overdraft fees I would have really lost it!

 

[Mtnman44]

Now that my oldest is an adult (by disney standards) , I think we are done with the dining plan. It does not save any money unless you have children under 10, and then only barely.

For this small benefit, I give up some choice and take on a bunch of risk, including problems with the card, room bill, and paying in advance to boot. Although my wife loves it (cause it makes her feel like we aren't paying for meals), I'm going to have to convince her it is stupid and way too much food anyway. Who eats two desserts and a snack every single day?

For our next trip, we will be three adults and two kids. The dining plan would be approx $150 plus tips per day. I guarantee you we can eat well and meet or beat that cost per day simply paying cash and esp using available discounts. Will we have a dessert at every lunch and buy five ice creams a day? No. But we never finished all that anyway with the DDP.

 

[lugnut33]

Not to shift the onus off Disney, but why the heck would anyone do split stays and other stuff like that. You are only asking for trouble, especially once you throw in splitting the stay due to changes in the dining plan. Have we forgot out KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. By making the reservations as you did you were only setting yourself up for failure (of course, the inverse of that is Disney was setting itself up for failure by allowing people to do this).

 

[BeesKnees]

The question that comes to mind is how much money did you save vs the cost of how much time you lost.

I personally never try to save money at the expense of losing vacation time. It is one of my highest vacation commandments. It costs too much to be there and every moment wasted has a value to it and not just in hard numbers. I see people here speculate about different things like whether to order groceries from one of the services vs getting a taxi and the first thing I wonder is how much time will be lost using a taxi? Obviously if something is considerably more expensive unless you invest the time you have to weigh it out but it has to be a pretty big margin.

You knew going in that there could be problems. With that information if my budget were tight I would rather eat a ham sammich in the room with a smile on my face than try to afford a dinner plan that had the potential of causing so much heartburn (pun intended).

Hopefully as time goes by the bad parts of the trip will fade away and all you will remember is a nice vacation with family.