Hotel Royal Plaza - bankruptcy - rumor or truth?

[SkylarKD]

We have booked our honeymoon in Disney World in August and will be staying in an executive king suite at the Hotel Royal Plaza. We’re looking forward to it, but I’m a little nervous as I read in a review on Trip Advisor that the Hotel Royal Plaza has filed for bankruptcy.

http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowUser...rt-Orlando_Florida-d144432-g34515.cinkca_html

Does anyone know if this is true, or if it is just a rumor? We haven't been able to find any information on the Internet

If so, we’ll have to make backup plans for a hotel for our honeymoon! We're on a tight budget and want a nice room, not just a standard.

 

[CarolA]

Rule one. Don't believe everything you read on Trip Advisor.

This one smells fishy.

I have stayed there and service was fine. You do want a tower room.

I would think that if they were REALLY in bankruptcy there would have been offical publicity. (By the way, the DTD bus drivers don't work for Disney)

 

[SkylarKD]

In case anyone else is curious... This is a letter I received from Mary at Mousesavers when I asked her about the rumor:


No, Royal Plaza is not bankrupt. For heaven's sake, the place is usually sold out -- even the writer of the review mentioned that the hotel was sold out during his/her stay!

I've come to the conclusion that the reviews on TripAdvisor cannot be trusted. The trouble is that anyone (including a hotel's competitors) can post whatever they want. For that matter, you don't know if the hotel's own management is posting positive reviews! Plus of course anyone who is unhappy with the hotel will definitely post, while those who had a good stay typically won't bother.

If I even use the reviews at all, I usually ignore the extremely positive and the extremely negative ones and look at the middle-of-the-road comments. Even then I don't trust it too much. I've seen wonderful hotels savaged on TripAdvisor, and terrible hotels with rave reviews. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago my husband and I went to New York City. We booked a hotel that was in the top 5 on TripAdvisor. It turned out they didn't honor our reservation and sent us to a different hotel... rated something like #151. Well, the hotel we were sent to was much more expensive, but it was also 1000% nicer. We had a great stay.

I will actually be staying at Royal Plaza myself later this week. Obviously I think it's a terrific hotel. I get no negative feedback from readers about it at all -- quite amazing, when you consider that literally thousands of people book rooms there through the links on my site.

Have a wonderful honeymoon!

 

[kcarp]

Hi SkylarKD,

We stayed in the Executive King Suite, last June an loved it. This hotel is great for couples, no kiddy pool! I tell you one thing about Trip Advisor, I use it, and always post my reviews of where I stayed. I'm really getting tired of people posting on this board that nothing is true on Trip Advisor. Well, I don't Lie, I post it like I see it, also I have family members that post on Trip Advisor too. When I post a trip report on Trip Advisor I always leave my email, I get emails all over the world asking about my reviews. I also emaill people about their reviews asking questions about why they posted what they did. Call them out, if you don't hear from them, well maybe they are fake. You can tell who uses Trip Advisor, and the people that just talk bad about it. Every board has junk on it that is not true. Do you believe everything you read on this board.....LOL

 

[CarolA]

I am with Mary on trusting Trip Advisor.

I am firmly convinced that some people just post over and over again on the same hotel. (There is one in particular that I read and I decided was the same person posting on the same stay every few weeks. There were just too many things in common on the posts, including the SAME spelling errors. LOL!)

It sounds to me like the poster on Trip Advisor did NOT pay for a Tower Room and then when they got there could not get upgraded because it was full. From everything I have ever read, Tower Room is KEY here!

I read a review once on the Ritz Carlton Naples that made it sound worse then a Red Roof Inn. Having been to that hotel I KNOW that it is one of the nicest in the US. Not sure where the guy posting actually stayed.

 

[losthat1]

I am surprised that Mary would say she gets no negative reviews of the HRP. I sent her a negative review after staying there in March following advice from her site. I did not get a response from her. My comments to her were that I felt she way over rated the hotel. It needs updating badly, and the rooms we had were clean but with cigarette burns in the chair and an iron burn in the carpet. Baths were great. Bedspread outdated, etc. This was a tower room. Would I go back? Only if the rate was super good. I would not return for $100./nt or more.

 

[losthat1]

P.S. I posted the same comments on tripadvisor. While some do seem to just be the type that wouldn't be pleased with any hotel, I do read and put some worth in the reviews there. I placed a review of the Dolphin, HRP, and Renaissance Sea World. All were written as an honest appraisal.

 

[Planogirl]

Expanding the logic that people at Trip Advisor could be lying, how do we know if anyone here or at any other website is telling the truth? In many cases, we don't know. This is why I only consider reports about amenities and looks, and follow the same rules for restaurants. Every resort and every restaurant has detractors and there's really no way to know if they're right or if the fans are right.

 

[FoodLover]

Originally posted by losthat1
I am surprised that Mary would say she gets no negative reviews of the HRP. I sent her a negative review after staying there in March following advice from her site. I did not get a response from her.

Sorry, but I did not receive this. If I had, I would have forwarded it to the hotel's management and I am confident that they would have responded to you directly in order to determine what went wrong with your stay.

I stand by my review of Hotel Royal Plaza, and as I mentioned in the e-mail that SkylarkD posted above, I will be staying at Royal Plaza myself this week.

By the way, I don't always inform my "preferred" hotels that I will be staying there, and I sometimes register under the names of friends or family so that the hotel won't give me any special treatment.

I've never seen a room at Royal Plaza in the condition you described -- including rooms in the wings. That said, I'm not discounting your concerns. Hotels update and repair rooms on a rolling basis, so there are always a certain number of rooms at any hotel that are due for renovation and/or maintenance. Guests can be really hard on things. Rooms can get trashed.

That's why -- at any hotel -- it's really important to complain ON THE SPOT if you're not happy with your room. The hotel management may not be aware that there's a problem with a particular room.

(And quite frankly, different people are bothered by different things. As an example, I get complaints once in awhile that the decor at one of my preferred hotels is "outdated" -- but it was just completely renovated with a whole new decor three years ago! How "outdated" can it be? I think some people just don't like the decor of that hotel. But it's not "outdated.")

A good hotel will make every effort to fix any problem you report, but if you don't complain at the time, there's not much the hotel can do.

Mary
MouseSavers.com

 

[SkylarKD]

Wow, I didn't realize Trip Advisor was such a touchy subject! I just thought I'd post Mary's response so that anyone else who's already booked a room at the hotel wouldn't worry.

That being said, they're all interesting opinions, and it's nice to hear that the executive kings at HRP are nice! It's in our budget - we got a good deal, and it will be nicer than just staying in a standard two double bed room in a Disney value resort. As fun as a Disney hotel would be, it'll be nice to have a suite and a few extras for our honeymoon!