Grand Californian Super Thread

[gottalovepluto]

We were there July 30-August 3rd. We stayed on the 5th floor close to the elevator. We loved it. We are checking into DVC now because we are going to have a tough time going back to anything else. I guess the 5th floor was high up enough that the renovations didn't matter. No roaches either. (Thank goodness!!!!) I also left a note for housekeeping asking for extra toiletries and they left tons. Our a/c was also working exceptionally well. The fridge didn't work and we called the morning after we got there when it hadn't cooled anything and they replaced it while we were at the park that day. The only thing that kind of sucked was they turned the water off one morning from 1-5am. They gave us 8 small dasani bottles because of it. The bad thing was I didn't think about how the water wouldn't have time to warm up by my shower at 6ish and it was coooooold. We have young kids and the proximity for naps or resting in the middle of the day was wonderful for us.

What is their problem with water over there?! We stayed a couple years ago and they shut the water of just like that, except no water bottles provided. I thought it was a fluke, there is simply no excuse for that to happen more than once, but once you're in the hotel in the middle of the trip you're stuck and have to make the best of it (there were 5 of us & people did end up needing the bathroom in the middle of the night). Yep, our morning water back that time was ice cold too after all that. Hmm, hadn't realized I was still a little upset about that...

 

[cruise cruise cruise]

I have read a few mentions of renovations in 2015. Cam someone give me more info?
We are considering staying at GC April 2015, but will choose somewhere else if there are major renovations going on.

 

[mikedoyleblogger]

Great tip! Thank you!

You're welcome--and I wonder if it works at DLH and PPH too? Hmm...

 

[natebenma]

We just returned from at stay at the Grand Californian from Saturday July 12 to Wednesday July 16. We loved the resort- the size and location of our room, the hotel amenities and of course the location.

I have done a review in pictures in my trip report and thought I would share the links here for anyone who might be interested:

Welcome to the Hotel California

Grand Californian Hotel
Entrances/Exits to Downtown Disney and California Adventure
Whitewater Snacks
Pool
Room 4427
The View!


.

 

[natebenma]

Is anyone able to confirm the current days/times for Songs from the Hearth and Stories from the Hearth? We always like to catch the songs, especially, when we are there. Thanks!

I don't know if you still need this info, but according to the activities sheet we received on our trip (mid-July), Tales from the Hearth was scheduled for 5:30 pm and 7:30 pm

 

[natebenma]

I'll trip report later, but I just returned this evening from four nights at GCH and it was the worst hotel stay I've ever had in my life. It was a three-day complimentary stay gifted to us by surprise by guest services to make up for our Premier APs not working correctly last year, and we were paying for a fourth night out of pocket. We expected it would be an awesome experience as we had never stayed there before and after all it's GCH.

The lowlights:

• When we arrived, our AC was broken.
• The maintenance supervisor sent by the front desk to fix it gave us an earful about how much he didn't like the hotel or his job and how he didn't understand why anyone would stay there--and he lied about fixing the AC, and left AC condenser gunk in our toilet.
• When we realized the AC didn't work very late after returning from the parks the first night, we had to stay up two extra hours (past midnight) to wait for maintenance to finally fix the AC, which made my partner miss EMH the next morning.
• The next night at midnight, a roach crawled out from under one of our beds. I covered it with a glass, put the glass with the live roach in a ziploc bag, and brought it all down to the front desk. They changed our room, and it took three hours to pack, move (including the eventually freezing cold room service we had ordered), and unpack in the new room. We didn't get to sleep until 3 a.m. and we both missed EMH the next morning.
• The next morning after missing EMH, we realized the refrigerator--which we always use when we visit DLR--was broken. We told the front desk about it and they said they would send someone up, and we asked them to wait because my partner was in the shower. Maintenance came anyway and walked in on my indisposed partner.
• That night, feeling like all we wanted to do was check out--even though the stay was mostly free--and go to the HoJo, we decided to have a drink at HL. After waiting 15 minutes to be served, we decided to leave, which apparently angered one of the wait staff who came over and was very rude to us for daring to leave instead of waiting for him to take our drink order. (I kid you not.) When we complained to the manager, he walked away.
• On our final night, the hotel closed the entire laundry room for maintenance and we had to pack our luggage with dirty clothes (which isn't our practice) to fly home.

The morning of our last day, we told guest services about our experience at GCH and after bursting into tears because she's heard this before from unhappy guests, a VIP services coordinator erased our entire hotel charge and most of our charge-back expenses from our folio. It was the one moment at GCH that did not feel like we were being taken for granted by the staff there.

Because of what VIP services did, we came back home with more money than we left with. That means we were essentially paid to stay at the GCH. And not to be ungrateful, especially since this started off as a free "we're sorry" stay, but the entire experience was so heartbreakingly unmagical, we can honestly say you could not even pay us to stay there again. Not ever again. I can't understand what anyone sees in this place. The mismanagement is stunning and systemic, and Disney can do so much better. You're not supposed to yearn for the Harbor Blvd. HoJo or WDW's Pop Century when you're staying at GCH. Yet we spent four days wishing we were anywhere else.

So sorry to hear about the issues you had during your stay.

Your attitude and sense of humor in your posts since then are refreshing and positive. Also appreciate the helpful information you posted about the air conditioning. If you don't have any objections, I would like to quote your post and add it to my post about the room.

PS- don't read my post about the room until you have given permission.

 

[natebenma]

Does anyone know how to set the time on the room clock? Sorry I don't have a close-up picture of clock showing the buttons.



We noticed that the time was about an hour and twenty minutes off. We could not figure out how to change the time setting on the clock. We even tried googling "Setting clock at Grand Californian Hotel" and we got instructions on setting the time on the Grandfather Clock in the lobby, but not on the one in our room! We intended to stop by the front desk to ask, but we never ended up doing that. I think we also tried leaving a note one morning for the housekeeper to ask to correct the time.

 

[Rainforest_Elf]

Nate, did you ask for a DTD view, or did you just get lucky?

 

[natebenma]

Nate, did you ask for a DTD view, or did you just get lucky?

Just lucky. We had requested a daybed, if available. Not crucial for my family because there are only 4 of us, but convenient since the teens don't want to sleep together. We totally understood that rooms with daybeds are reserved for families that need them. When we asked at checkin if we got a room with a daybed, the CM went out back for a few minutes, came back and said, no, there were not any rooms with a daybed available, but they could give us a room with a DTD view.

 

[Amilo]

The maintenance man who successfully fixed our AC showed us the new method of putting the AC units on bypass, which disables the motion sensor, stops the units from bouncing back to the relatively high pre-set temperature, and keeps the units regulating the temperature at all times (instead of shutting off if you're sitting in one place too long or sleeping--and thus not triggering the motion sensor.)

It all works with the little Fahrenheit/Celsius button on the left side of the electronic thermostat. First make sure the fan is on "Auto". Then, assuming you want to use Fahrenheit, first press the button to change over to Celsius, then long press (i.e. hold down) the button until the display shows "bp". The long press will also switch the unit back to Fahrenheit. Then you can simply use the arrows to select your target temperature. Turning the unit off and on turns off the bypass function.

According to the maintenance man who did this for us, you can specifically request for maintenance to come up and set your unit on bypass. He said because the units are old and in need of renovation (which of course is happening next year), they often just put them on bypass if guests complain that their rooms are too warm. Apparently it's common practice there. It makes your room go from overly warm to ice age pretty darn fast, too.

Thank you! I took a screenshot of your post so I can have quick access to the instructions

 

[XMom]

We were at Ca Adv yesterday and noticed a lot if scaffolding and canvas up around the building. Does anyone know what they are doing?

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

 

[cruise cruise cruise]

We were at Ca Adv yesterday and noticed a lot if scaffolding and canvas up around the building. Does anyone know what they are doing?

Sent from my iPhone using DISBoards

I believe it has to do with the renovations at Napa Rose

 

[Just Peachy]

You're welcome--and I wonder if it works at DLH and PPH too? Hmm...

I was wondering the same thing. We stay most times at the DLH and have wondered how to better regulate the AC.....

 

[BriannaRuth]

The scaffolding has nothing to do with the Napa Rose renovation. It goes all the way up to the 6th floor. Evidently they are renovating the 300 wing.

Sorry to hear others had bad experiences ... we just returned from our stay 8/9 - 8/14 and had no major problems.

We were in room 4442, near the "secret exit" with a GRR view. The renovations did not affect us, other than the fact that we could see them from our room if we looked to the right. Certainly they didn't wake us up, and we did return to the room in the afternoons.

Our frig was warm when we arrived, but the bellman turned it cooler. This made everything on the middle shelf freeze, so we just used that shelf as a freezer as the rest was fine.

We set our thermostat to 68 and it stayed that way our whole stay. It was always cool when we returned to the room.

There are two laundry rooms -- we were told the one closest to us was closed because the dryers were broken. But we washed our two small loads there anyway and just took the clothes to the other laundry to dry.

I will say the "secret exit" was awesome! It made getting to DL _so_ fast!

 

[surfmontana]

We were in room 4442, near the "secret exit" with a GRR view. The renovations did not affect us, other than the fact that we could see them from our room if we looked to the right. Certainly they didn't wake us up, and we did return to the room in the afternoons.

Do you have any pics of the view from your room? Was this a premium room?

 

[BriannaRuth]

I'm doing a trip report and hope to have some to upload when I get a minute. Yes, this was a premium view room. Here's a view someone posted of 5440, which is just one room down from ours and one floor up, so it's very similar.

I would say that this picture looks a little farther away than it looks in person, if that makes any sense. GRR mountain seemed closer in person than it looks in this shot. That's the monorail in the foreground as well. We also could see a little further into Condor Flats than is shown in this photo. This view is straight out and to the left. If you looked more to the right, you could see part of the Wheel of Death and some other parts of Paradise Pier. The view was quite nice at night, although not spectacular. I think the rooms in the villa wing have the best views, but they're less convenient to the park.

What this photo doesn't show is what you see when you look straight down. The area right below the room was rather unsightly because that's where they were storing some construction equipment. I was hoping to stay in the 300 wing, but it was under construction.

http://s444.photobucket.com/user/Pjimmeyer/media/room5440.jpg.html

Thanks to whoever posted this photo originally; sorry I don't have a name!

 

[surfmontana]

I was hoping to stay in the 300 wing, but it was under construction.

http://s444.photobucket.com/user/Pjimmeyer/media/room5440.jpg.html

Thanks to whoever posted this photo originally; sorry I don't have a name!

Thanks for the link. I was hoping for the 300 wing too, but will be happy any where.

Did you request this room or just luck out?

 

[Sandan77]

I have booked and paid for a prem view room and have requested Grizzly Peak view. Can someone please tell me what wing or aprox room number I should be requesting at check in, we will be there in 10 days time!!

 

[BriannaRuth]

We booked a premium view room. We requested a room near the Napa Rose elevators on a high floor with bunk beds a park view. Our room, 4442, had a great view of Grizzly Peak. (We actually weren't all that close to the Napa elevators but those were still the closest elevators to us as most of the 300 wing, which is closer to the Napa elevators, was under renovation.)

We were told at check in that 4th floor rooms (4xxx) are the highest level that has bunk beds.

The rooms have 4 numbers. So for room 4321, for example, you're on the 4th floor on the 300 wing.

Sandan, this request should work for you as well. The only wild card is the renovation. I originally wanted a 300 wing view but was glad I didn't get it as those rooms were being renovated and had scaffolding in front of them (they were empty during our visit). Not sure what the renovations will be when you get there.

I'd request a Grizzly Peak park view in the 300 or 400 wing. Some of the 100 wing (X1XX) may also have Grizzly Peak views but those are further away with the pool in between the room and the park. You don't want those if Grizzly Peak is your main concern.

By the way, request your view ahead of time. Don't wait until check-in. If you're arriving late, call and let them know the day before or the day of and request your view again. I was told they sometimes give rooms away when guests start checking in even if a particular view is pre-assigned if the guest assigned to that room hasn't checked in yet.

Good luck and have fun!

 

[surfmontana]

We booked a premium view room. We requested a room near the Napa Rose elevators on a high floor with bunk beds a park view. Our room, 4442, had a great view of Grizzly Peak. (We actually weren't all that close to the Napa elevators but those were still the closest elevators to us as most of the 300 wing, which is closer to the Napa elevators, was under renovation.)

We were told at check in that 4th floor rooms (4xxx) are the highest level that has bunk beds.

Good luck and have fun!

This is GREAT inside intel!!

We really want bunks and a nice view which is just want you had

Seeing as the x300 wing is down, I think we will ask for either the 4424-4428 area you were in close to the secret door or maybe the 4240-4260 that should see Paradise Pier, although Hydro Guy did warn about obstructed views.

I am sooo excited