DVC negative issues?

[MickeyMamma]

What kind of problems that you have had with DVC?

Any bad experiences?

Booking problems?

Accomodation problems?

Service?

Thanks!

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Hmmm.... This may be a lonely thread.

I will kick it off with one recurring complaint that I see here: Housekeeping.
Don't get me wrong, housekeeping is generally very good; however there have been complaints of less than 'consistently immaculate' rooms at check-in.
Again, most of the time things are great, but the percentage of housekeeping malfunctions seems a tad high for Disney.

That being said, I am a very happy DVC member...

 

[antnee]

my complaint about DVC is that they need more merchandise with the DVC logo and maybe a catalog to go with it

 

[Granny]

We haven't experience problems but others might indicate that they don't like the room assignment policies, which have changed a few times. The current policy is "room ready", which means you can get whatever room you like that is ready when you check in. This replaces the old process that gave preference in the order that room requests were made when reserving the room.

We also have absolutely no regrets about purchasing DVC.

 

[RobDoc]

Originally posted by Maistre Gracey
Again, most of the time things are great, but the percentage of housekeeping malfunctions seems a tad high for Disney.

What's the percentage of these "malfunctions" and what would be a normal percentage for housekeeping malfunctions?

 

[Buzzro]

We have been extremely happy with DVC since purchasing in 99.
I'm not saying that there has never been a time when I would not have wanted a different room or something else but these same issues would happen even when paying cash. Overall the rooms are great, the people are great, and DVC is great!

 

[MiaSRN62]

I have two complaints over the past 2 years (not bad). First one is, we booked a Wonder cruise on points and specifically & adamantly stated we needed a "sleep 4" cat 6 statroom and a "sleep 2 or 3" cat 11. Booked 11 months out. I assumed we had the "sleep 4" and a "sleep 2 or 3" until I started reading the DIS cruise boards. Alot of people were telling me that they didn't think my assigned stateroom was a sleep 4, but rather a sleep 3. I called DVC and they assured me it was a sleep 4. About a month after that, another poster on the cruise boards encouraged me to double check again--which I did. DVC, once again, swore I had a sleep 4. I got my hands on an older Disney cruise TA cataloge that showed it was indeed a sleep 3. This was 45 days prior to our cruise. I called DVC for a third time and told them my findings. This time, they put me on hold with the Disney cruise people, and it was confirmed we had a sleep 3 ! Panic struck.
I was pretty upset with DVC and let them know it because I had called to confirm 3X. Anyway....in their defense, we got an upgrade about 3 weeks prior to sailing and all was well, but I felt it was stress that could have been avoided.
I didn't feel DVC knew the correct information about the cabins. I thanked all the DIS posters for helping me----it would have been an awful mess had I gotten to the stateroom and discovered I didn't get what I had booked 11 months out. But, DVC rectified the situation adequately in my eyes.
My only other complaint (and I posted about it during Aug on these boards) was my dissatisfaction with what I considered a standard view, that was booked with preferred view points at the BWV. My view was of the valet parking lot and maintenance area driveway primarily. I called to complain that I was charged preferred points for what essentially was an 80% view of the parking lot. I got no where with the DVC. I've put it behind me now as a lesson learned, but it left me with a not-so warm & fuzzy feeling about DVC/BWV. Would I stay at BWV again ? Yes, but I'll be much more specific with requesting particular views now that I know what I know
But overall, I've been very satisfied with DVC.

 

[dianeschlicht]

Never anything very serious. In fact, I have found them to be very accomodating. In August when we got down and needed a room that was accessible to a power scooter, they got me one of the elevator buildings even though I had not requested that on my ressie. I have always had great service when things have been missing or wrong with housekeeping. Never a problem, and the ressie process has always been great.

 

[Simba's Mom]

Unfortunately, our only negative experience with DVC happened within the first few minutes of our first trip "home". When checking in, we weren't told we were given a handicapped room (no tub). When we got to our room and saw what we had, we called immediately to be moved only to be told "Well, of course, you'll have to pay the $25 fee to move". And a complaint to DVC during that trip gave us no satisfaction (just justifying why what they had done was correct!). Fortunately, communication with Jackie Leuders after we got home was better, but unfortunately although we were told they'd see that it didn't happen again, I've seen posts on this board have indicated that it has. But other than our first experience, we've been very happy with DVC.

 

[Maistre Gracey]

Originally posted by WebmasterDoc
What's the percentage of these "malfunctions" and what would be a normal percentage for housekeeping malfunctions?

Hi, Doc. I am not sure of the exact figures, as I was just recalling some earlier poll numbers from this forum. In my opinion, even a 10% dissatisfaction rate is much too high for housekeeping.

 

[sgtpet]

My compliants are with the first 2 posts on this thread. The BCV room looked like it was 7 years old not 3 months when I went last year and the DVC merchandise is very limited and not desirable.

That being said I hate when I check in and the CM first says are you staying on points or cash, when you booked the trip with points many months ago with MS.

Overall I am satisfied with DVC. Nothing in this world is perfect except for our children. And I bet that changes as they get older.

 

[DisneyKidds]

We've been EXTREMELY happy with our DVC ownership. The accomodations, the flexibility, the resorts...........all wonderful.

The only "complaint" I'd throw out would be with some views as well. While there aren't many VWL rooms with a bad view (hence no standard/preferred view setup), when you are one of the guests who gets stuck in a room overlooking the garbage dumpster you really question why it should have cost you preferred view points . We learned quickly to know the layout of the resorts and to refuse a room we know will not be to our liking, and do it before we get to the room so we avoid that whole $25 transfer fiasco. While we haven't stayed at BWV yet (where we own one of our contracts) I will most likely only book preferred view if we get the Boardwalk view. Otherwise, it seems some of the preferred views there are somewhat less than preferrable.

All in all, if a few view issues are the worst I can come up with, that says a lot for DVC .

 

[RobDoc]

Originally posted by Maistre Gracey
Hi, Doc. I am not sure of the exact figures, as I was just recalling some earlier poll numbers from this forum. In my opinion, even a 10% dissatisfaction rate is much too high for housekeeping.

I don't recall seeing anything that suggested a 10% dissatisfaction rate. One concern I have with most polls here is that there is no time frame used as a reference. Thus, someone may respond with something that occurred 8 years ago, another person with something from 5 years ago and another from last month. While all may have been valid concerns, these are isolated instances all reported in one poll suggesting a pattern of ongoing problems with no resolution. I don't find that to be a productive suggestion and very inaccurate picture of the situation.

If 10% if those at VWL last week were dissatisfied, that is a significant finding and something that needs to be addressed immediately. (Hopefully it would have been corrected while those guests were there.) If the 10% figure you are quoting is based on 10 responses out of 100 responses, but was based on trip experiences over the past 12 years, the actual number of dissatisfied members is probably more likely to be .01%, since many of those who indicated a dissatisfaction have also had many other trips without any problem and the 90% who reported no problems have collectively had hundreds of such trips. We generally have a very small sampling in the polls on this board and, depending on the wording of the poll itself, generally aren't able to reflect accurate pictures of the entire membership- IMO.

Room reports are often the same way. A room that had worn carpets and stained walls today may well be on the rehab schedule for tomorrow. The room that was perfect 2 months ago may now show some wear and tear and be in need of replacing the bedspreads this week. Unless we look at valid time frames for these comparisons, the dynamics of the maintenance schedule is such to render any report inaccurate within a short while. As long as we report our concerns to the resort at the time, we give the resort an opportunity to correct things immediately.

I'd agree that a 10% dissatisfaction rate would be way too high, but am 100% positive that any actual disatisfaction rate is miniscule- all based on the positive reports we see here every day.

Are there oversights by the housekeeping staff at any resort? -- of course there are. Should our room be perfect every time we check in at the resort?-- of course it should be. Do we each different expectations of what constitutes perection? -- I believe we do. Does the resort respond quickly when concerns are reported? -- In our experience, that has always been the case.

My .02

 

[rondakay]

It seems like no mater what we ask for or when we go our room is never ready. Not that it is a big deal but we hate to wait untill 3:00 to get a room. My complant is check in at BWV.

 

[zurgswife]

Totally Happy BWV Camper here...

 

[tjkraz]

Originally posted by rondakay
It seems like no mater what we ask for or when we go our room is never ready. Not that it is a big deal but we hate to wait untill 3:00 to get a room. My complant is check in at BWV.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't check-in time 4pm?!?! If someone else is staying in your room the night before, the resort needs time to clean and replenish the room before you get it.

For what it's worth, in our two stays at OKW, we were able to immediately use our room when checking-in at 12pm and 10am!!!

 

[dvcgirl]

Yes, check-in for all Disney Resorts is 4pm. I'd say that our villa has been available before 4pm at least half of the time, but we do tend to visit the DVC resorts in the off-season.

 

[timC]

- Need on-line reservation, dues payment, and points inquiry. It's 2003. They should have this capability by now.

- Limited variety in room configurations. Motel 6 up to Marriott all offer a variety of room configurations. Why not WDW? Ok. Maybe timeshares need to be more restrictive to conform to timeshare expectations..

- There is a limited number of II properties available to DVC. Maybe they are only giving us the best to pick from, but there are places/resorts I want to go that are not included on the list.

- Trading into WDW resorts should be more competative. It should not be cheaper to pay cash. It should be equal or slightly better.

- Boy, I'd really like to be able to pool hop into SAB.

 

[RLAlden]

As is the case with everything with Disney, you get the "Disney Difference". They are always better than the place down the street in everything they do. With that said, here would be my suggestions to them:

- Come up with some creative referral ideas. Many states do not allow cash compensation and I know we have personally have convinced multiple people to become DVCers.

- I too would like to see them more competitive on the other Disney properties. Just for change, I would not mind staying in a couple of studio rooms at the other resorts once in a while, but to have to use more points than I would to stay in a 2 bedroom suite doesn't make sense.

- DVC Club Member only merchandise would be nice.

- Internet point management / reservations would be nice.

Other than that, you can not beat it. I have several friends that own other timeshares (Marriott, Fairfield, II, ...) and am still convinced that DVC is by far the best.

 

[RAD]

Overall happy with DVC.

I wish on the shared resorts that they had dedicated DVC desk staff. A couple of times I've had CM's that really didn't understand DVC 'stuff'

On the mousekeeping front I understand that from time to time they'll miss things. However, when I call to get it corrected it shouldn't take many hours and follow up phone calls to fix it.

ALL busses that are on the OKW route should have brakes that don't squeek. Since the routes are soooo close to the rooms, compared to other resorts they need to be a bit more quiet.

When will DVC stop cutting the 'little things' that made the trip more enjoyable for going home. I'm talking about things like having salt and pepper in the kitchen, the loss of placemats at OKW and even the coasters (which they really need in humid FL).