For those at a WDW resort during Hurricane Matthew, how well did the resort deal with the situation?

[vinotinto]

I've read a few comments that POR and Coronado had issues with lack of food availability and long lines after the parks were closed on Friday night and guests were getting ready for the closure that evening and the next day. How did the different WDW hotels deal with the closures? I would like to know because we usually go in the Fall (Sept - mid- Oct), which is peak storm/hurricane season and would like to understand how well each resort dealt with the difficult situation.

This was my understanding of the situation:

We were at MK on Thurs. Oct 6. We had been tracking the storm and updates on NOAA and Wunderground, and it did not look like there was going to be a direct hit. The highest wind gusts they had predicted for Orlando were 50 MPH for Friday morning, which is only a storm level, although they were much higher for the Florida coasts. However, the local counties instituted curfews on Thursday from Thursday evening through Saturday morning (curfew was fortunately lifted so WDW could open at 8 am on Saturday). It seems this caught WDW somewhat off-guard. With the curfew in place, employees can't get to/from work. Announcement on the website indicated closing of all WDW at 5 pm, cancellation of MNSSHP on Oct 6 and 7, and closure on Oct 7. It also meant that WDW had to scramble to figure out how to feed all the guests that were back at the hotels and try to accommodate CMs to stay at the hotels to help serve guests. And guests would not be allowed on the outside areas of hotels while the storm was taking place.

This was my experience:
We were at AKL, which was probably the loveliest hotel to be stuck Thursday night was on the chaotic side. I was surprised that no information about meal hours and options was posted at the lobby, or copied and distributed to the rooms, or emailed. The only information was fairly general and you had to call your room voice mail to get (the light on our phone didn't work, so we didn't know there was a message there). All dining reservations were cancelled, but all AKL guests were accommodated at the buffet at Boma (TS) and sat at Jiko or Boma. Waits for dinner were 1- 2 hours. Mara (QS) was open until, I believe, 7 pm because you had to go outside to the pool area to get to it. There were a lot of people in line, looked like much less than an hour.

Food at Boma was surprisingly pretty good! Seafood soup was delicious. They sat us at Jiko and the service there was atrocious. It was clear the servers there are not used to the buffet set-up. No spoons on the table. Never received any drinks. Had to flag someone to get a glass of water. Server seemed to not have been informed about prices. First, charged us full price for a 9-year old. Then, when we told him, came back with a price that was $5 less. Umm, no, that's not the child price for the buffet that is posted at the entrance. He said to ask a manager. I did, and got the price corrected.

Lack of info also continued into Friday. Boma was open. After we sat down, we noticed guests with boxes. Apparently, you could buy a QS box and bring it into Boma and get eggs, bacon, etc., there since Mara was not yet open. But, this info wasn't posted or shared anywhere. Apparently, you had to make a long Concierge line to be told.

The one area that Disney truly shined was Entertainment. They really did an awesome job. Entertainment team and lifeguards spent the night at AKL. They provided games for the kids. Games continued on Friday. They also had trivia. They also brought characters: Mickey and Minnie and Daisy in safari outfits and even Rafiki made an appearance. Friday, there was a dance party from 3:00 - 5:00 pm. Very festive. Pool was opened on Friday.

Overall, given the circumstances, I think passing the "hurricane" at AKL was not so bad. The food at Boma was good and plentiful. Animals were out on the savanna. Entertainment was better than even a regular day. Just wondering how it was at the other hotels?

 

[vinotinto]

No one else was at WDW during Hurricane Matthew? Given that we travel in the early September - mid-October time frame, I really want to know more about how well other hotels dealt with the storm situation, as storms are likely in that time frame. TIA

 

[Jillpie]

We were there, at BCV's. I think Disney did a phenomenal job. Entertainment for kids and families was excellent, in all the lobbies all day long. It was just my husband and I this trip, so we spent a lot of time just watching the local news, especially the day before the "hurricane" hit. I was shocked when I woke up that morning that nothing kept me awake! Turned out it was just a tropical storm. The only thing I wished Disney did, was give us more notifications of their plans. There was really just one voicemail, but it covered everything. They had boxed lunches and dinners in Ariel function room, for those that wanted that, but we were lucky to get last minute reservations at Cape May and Beaches and Cream for both nights that we were "stuck" there. It was a pleasant place to be there to ride out any storm, and I felt very safe.

 

[sibesx2]

We were at Port Orleans French Quarter. Communication was totally done through your room's voicemail. I think either text or email also would have ensured more people got the messages in a timely manor. We stopped by the front desk before heading to the park Thursday morning and were told that everything was operating on a normal schedule and nothing would close. Thursday evening was beyond chaotic! They were selling box lunches for 12.99. This consisted of 2 pieces of white bread with 1 piece of meat, chips and fruit. I talked to many guests who waited up to 5 hours to get these overpriced lunches. We went down to the lobby at 10pm to fill our mugs and there was still about 100 people in line to order and almost as many waiting for their food to be delivered. They were announcing that they were out of some of the sandwiches.

Friday morning we received a message on our voicemail that the food and beverage court was closed that morning. We decided to walk down anyway and were greeted by a CM with a menu of what hot food was available!

The arcade was free and there was characters in the lobby. I saw a coloring station for the kids. And there was music. I did not notice that the pool was open. The resort CM's did the best they could in the circumstances. But Disney really needs to work on their communication.

 

[ellie05]

We end up coming home early. We had a split stay between BWI/BLT the first part of our trip at BWI we were constantly getting messages about the situation. Then we moved to BLT we didn't received a single message or anything about it. When I went to the front desk to ask if we needed to can we stay in our room? The manager was less than helpful he didn't even bother checking he said we don't have anything available. Then we decided to call universal which we were moving to next. They were great extremely accommodating. It was seriously disappointing how BLT dealt with the situation what were we supposed to do if curfew was in placed and we couldn't move hotels ? Anyway we end deciding to come home early because it didn't make sense to use up our 3 day ticket on one day and pay 3 nights of hotel but only being able to go to the park one day. We also were concerned that if the storm did move we wouldn't be able to make it home on time and the pet sitter couldn't stay any longer.

I will say after that front desk experience my DH went down to the front desk and they were able to offer him a room . The front desk agents were more than accommodating can say the same for the manager.

 

[georgejr]

We were at Saratoga Springs during Matthew. Received multiple voicemails from front desk keeping us updated as the information was coming out. We were in Animal Kingdom on Thursday morning and heard announcement that parks would be closing at 5pm. We changed our afternoon plans and headed to grocery and picked up extras just in case. When we got back to room voice mail let us know about curfew, the need to stay in rooms, and grabbing essentials like food before storm arrived. Housekeeping was going from room to room leaving extra towels, soap shampoo, and a flashlight in case of power loss. I thought communication at resort and park was very good. Next day resort had characters and cast members in lobby entertaining, and arcade games were set to free allowing everyone to play. Most amazing was the way the kids would let the next in line play after finishing their game and move on to a different game or wait to play that game over again. By 330 or so cast members and voicemail were letting us know Disney Springs would be opening at 5 and the quiet pool at Congress Park would be opening.

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

CSR here and we just go back last Friday. Our total trip was just under 20 days and it was phenomenal. The staff at CSR was beyond amazing, food was delicious and still the same price as normal (not jacked up), lines were fine as the convention people had their own lines (which were insane) and the activities they had for the kids were so cool that we almost didn't stay in our room the whole time and we had a huge suite with a kitchen! LOL!

We had such a great time and fun with the staff and excellent managers on duty that I wrote a glowing letter not only to their manager but to the WDW guest services as a whole. IT was a night and day difference between them and DCL when our cruise was cancelled.

 

[katepass72]

I am late to posting this but also wondered the same. We stayed at the Poly from 10/5-10/10. Watched the weather like a hawk as we had MNSSHP tickets for Thursday. Totally don't fault WDW for cancelling it (and closing the park Friday); not sure what else they could do with a hurricane warning as well as curfew. The Poly staff did a great job entertaining the kids on Friday (left the room at around 10AM when the storm didn't appear to be getting bad/worse). Pluto, Goofy, Captain Hook and Smee entertained. Captain Hook, in particular, was AMAZING. Seriously, the dance moves this guy was breaking out were incredible. Front desk also had some trick or treat bags for the kids.
Food-wise, it was kind of a free for all. On Thursday night, we were able to purchase box lunches at Captain Cooks with not too bad of a wait. The Moana Mercantile (sp??) was totally nuts though - people buying armloads of every kind of snack food (and liquor). You'd think we were going to be stuck for a week . Ended up going to Ohana on Thursday night - felt terrible for the staff. Food was actually great - they had everything buffet style and honestly, it was great. The wait staff and bartenders all looked like they had been up for 24 hours (probably not too far off the mark) and were having a hard time keeping up. The bar and restaurant area was a bit of a disaster but I'm sure they were just SO short-staffed. Most guests seems to be going with the flow with a few notable (and cranky) exceptions. Note to hotels: next time (hopefully MANY many years from now) a hurricane rolls in, might want to set up a temporary bar in another section of the lobby .
All in all, the worst part was the cancelling of the Halloween parties, but I'd consider that a first world problem. I never asked about our park tickets (i.e. having a day that you couldn't use them) but at this point, it's kind of water under the bridge. Not too bad of a place to be stuck during a natural disaster.

 

[DisneyMommyMichelle]

I agree with you on that, it was the people that went crazy and that's what made other people go crazy. We had been through this many times before so no worries for us and we were smart and thought ahead before the craziness started. One lady had arms full of donuts and chips and cookies and anything packaged in the store AND SHE USED COUNTER SERVICE CREDITS FOR IT ALL!!!! I was soooo tempted to buy her stuff if I could find a way to get her counter service credits! LOL!!! She was out of snack credits so she was using that...I can only imagine she was kicking herself when nothing happened and we were back to business as usual the next day!! LOL

I agree the dance party cast members were soooo cool and so good and the full sized bags of Kettle Corn were perfect for all the different movies they played and the trick or treat bags full of full sized candies were the talk of the vacation, even now that we have been home for a few days! LOL

 

[vinotinto]

@katepass72 - Sounds like we had a very similar trip and experience - exactly the same dates, MNSSHP tickets for the same night, great experience with entertainment, well-fed but a little disorganized. We also were most bummed about the cancelled party, but agree that we cannot fault Disney. First world problems indeed!

 

[missnic]

We stayed at Pop and weren't super pleased about how they handled it. We were told that the food court would be closed from 10pm Thursday to 8pm Friday. Okay, that's fine.. we had snacks, but headed down to get a piece of pizza or something around 8pm on Thursday. It was a freaking mad house. No one could form an orderly line, no one had any idea where to go, it was just mass chaos with no one directing anyone. I saw several people get VERY upset because they ended up in the whole pizza pick up line. The line for boxed lunches was completely to the other end of the lobby. We finally gave up. Then on Friday, the voicemail came around 9 or 9:30 that the curfew was still in effect, and the food court was still closed until 8pm. Of course, I'm on here and I'm reading that stuff is starting to open.. including one post that Pop food court was open. So we head down and find an open food court that was pretty much empty. They had opened for breakfast at 8:30, yet sent out a voicemail an hour later stating it was still closed. I was not happy with the lack of communication and the lack of organization.

 

[Sleepy425]

We were at Poly. There were multiple messages left on our room phone keeping us updated, and a memo was put under our door to remind us to check messages. Front desk staff that were stuck there for 24+ hours were fantastic - I had to go up there multiple times for things and they were so pleasant and helpful. Around 5pm Thursday I waited about 30 minutes to get food for that night and Friday at Captain Cook's. My sister had about a 15 minute wait to get beer/wine/chips/etc upstairs.
We were very pleased with how Poly handled it.
Friday we transferred to OKW. By 3pm they had trucks going through the resort full of debris they had already collected. They had the place looking perfect in no time (although there wasn't a lot of damage that we saw, there were leaves and small branches that came down and they cleaned them all up very quickly).

 

[LMO429]

We were there for Hurricane Matthew. The front desk staff was excellent in extending our stay until the monday afterwards just in case our flight was cancelled. Fortunately our flight that was originally scheduled did take off on saturday october 8th

Thursday night only 1900 park fare was open for meals people were in good spirits walking around the lobby drinking i guess they got drinks from mizners lounge.

Friday 1900 park fare was open as was gasparillas grill. they had characters in the lobby and games movies etc. we walked over to the poly and got a dole whip there they had activities for the kids outside and inside the line for traders sam was ridiculously long but we had no interest to go in there anyway.

the resort and the staff handled everything wonderfully

when i went home i wrote guests communications a letter due to the fact that the hotel we paid for was only running at 50 percent capacity i was happy with the outcome bravo to disney for keeping us safe

 

[AngiTN]

We were at a mixture of Swan and Boardwalk on Thursday/Friday (day Matthew blew through). Originally due in on Friday but moved it up due to storm. We didn't wait to get any info from the hotel, we sought it out ourselves. I had no problems getting answers, from the moment we walked on the boat to Epcot on Thursday, about 11:00, and were told they were closing at 5:00, till we checked in at Boardwalk and asked them about food choices for the day, it was not hard to get any info. No idea what would have happened we we just sat and waited. I never felt like it was up to Disney to tell me what was up, it was up to me to find out.
We brought our own food back to Swan from Epcot so we didn't have to deal with their food choices on Thursday night.
We checked out of Swan and in to Boardwalk on Friday right about 11:00, it was rather nuts in the lobby but as we in line we realized all counter spots were being utilized and the line moved really fast. We have stood in line longer on a normal day since there are never that many CM available to do check in normally. We got our room as soon as we checked in too, which was quite unexpected.
There were games and characters in the lobby.
They had food buffets set up in 2 restaurants, identical all you could eat. Food was excellent
Then the Abracadabra Bar was open all day so that's where we hung out till evening when we heard DS was going to open.

 

[otten]

We were at AoA and other than some other guests who seemed to think Disney should control the weather, it was fine.

The line for food was long yes but honestly all of the problems around that were the fault of guests, not the resort. The resort managed the situation as efficiently as they possibly could imo.

 

[AngiTN]

We were at AoA and other than some other guests who seemed to think Disney should control the weather, it was fine.

The line for food was long yes but honestly all of the problems around that were the fault of guests, not the resort. The resort managed the situation as efficiently as they possibly could imo.

Good points. There isn't a resort on property that is ready to handle all their guests at the resort at once. It would be great if they could but honestly, how many days has WDW closed since it opened 45 years ago? 5? I think what they did do was just fine and I don't expect more. It is not up to them to take care of me, it's up to me using my common sense. Which is why DH and I brought food to our room from the park. We handled it ourselves.

And for the record, we don't have hurricanes in TN so it's not like I had hurricane experience. But it wasn't necessary either. Just common sense.

 

[mickey1968]

I was there too at the end of a conference stay at the Contemporary. I originally had tix for MNSSHP on Thursday but realized that wasn't going to happen so was able to change to the Tuesday night party at the last minute. I was originally scheduled to go home on Friday, but tried to proactively reschedule to Saturday. The Contemp extended my conference rate for another night. Then, SWA cancelled my Saturday flight and I wasn't able to leave until Monday (1st world problem!). Contemp extended my rate one more night, but then I moved for the last 2 nights at Pop, my normal home resort. The dining situation at Contemp wasn't too bad. Longer than usual waits at the counter service but not bad. I took my food back to the room to eat though because seating was limited and a bit chaotic for my tastes. I bought extra soda, crackers, cheese sticks and a package of bologna at the resort shop on Thursday evening "just in case." On Friday, they made food from Chef Mickey's available from the CS for $15.95 per plate for one trip only and you had to come back to the Contempo Cafe to eat it. CM were great all the way through with all-day movie marathons, games and characters out to entertain everyone. I thought they did a great job. I spent Thursday afternoon at Epcot and got soaked with the on and off downpours, but for the most part Friday just became a nice resort day and I slept for most of it! I turned the TV off on Thursday night at 3:30am and slept until nearly noon. Never heard a thing! I was very glad of two things: one I was traveling solo and didn't have to worry about keeping anyone else occupied or calm; and two, that I was at the Contemporary where it is both well built and has multiple dining and shopping options available without having to walk outside.