Hotel Royal Plaza closed

[7thdwarf/dopey]

I just read that the Hotel Royal Plaza will be closed thru to Feb 28, 2005.
They must have received alot of water damage from Frances.

 

[Phrank40]

If it's water damage that would be sad, we stayed a couple nights there a few months ago and it appeared the hotel had recently had extensive remodeling/updating, at least the main building don't know about the wings.

Phrank

 

[coach4448]

From another website:

Unfortunately Hotel Royal Plaza sustained quite a bit of water damage from Hurricane Charley and Hurricane Frances to its guest rooms. The management has made a tough decision to close the hotel temporarily for renovations. It is anticipated that Hotel Royal Plaza will reopen in January 2005.

If you have a reservation for a date prior to January, don't panic! The hotel will be in contact with you and will assist by rebooking you into an alternate hotel. I have personally checked the alternate hotels out for quality and I sincerely believe you won't be disappointed.

The renovations are already underway at Royal Plaza and I'm confident that when they are completed, the hotel will be even better than it was before the hurricane. I will post updates as the work on the hotel continues and a timeline for completion is better established.

 

[Sonny Eclipse]

We were supposed to check-in on Sept. 22 and I have no idea what to do now. I called the hotel and I'm waiting for someone to call back to see what's going to be done. Does anyone know what the alternate reservations are? Will there be added costs if the new hotel's normal rates are higher than the deal I got at HRP? We stayed at HRP last year and really enjoyed it so this really is a bummer.

 

[coach4448]

Originally posted by Sonny Eclipse
We were supposed to check-in on Sept. 22 and I have no idea what to do now. I called the hotel and I'm waiting for someone to call back to see what's going to be done. Does anyone know what the alternate reservations are? Will there be added costs if the new hotel's normal rates are higher than the deal I got at HRP? We stayed at HRP last year and really enjoyed it so this really is a bummer.

From what I've read, they are putting folks up in other DTD hotels at no additional charge. I think the one case I heard about they were moved to the Hilton for the same money.
Hopefully that will be the case for you and hopefully they will get back to you soon.

 

[Sonny Eclipse]

Originally posted by coach4448
From what I've read, they are putting folks up in other DTD hotels at no additional charge. I think the one case I heard about they were moved to the Hilton for the same money.
Hopefully that will be the case for you and hopefully they will get back to you soon.

Thank you for the quick response. I'm a little nervous being so close to the trip but it sounds like they are handling this pretty well given the circumstances. Hopefully those whose trips are much closer get through this with no problems.

 

[coach4448]

Just be sure that they get back to you in the next day or so. The couple that I was reading about showed up for their honeymoon, only to find there was not a room for them!
I read this on TripAdvisor.com
According to the other website they were to be contacting guests to make other arrangements. I think it's a good thing you called and I would be sure to follow up if you don't hear back soon.

 

[jpeppers]

I called about my October trip and was told I could be rebooked in a DTD hotel or anything ranging from the Sheraton Safari to the Radisson. The reservation lady said they would be trying the nearby hotels and would go with the one that honored my current rate. I really didn't want to leave my trip up in the air so I rebooked on-site at CBR. I was lucky they still had rooms with the BAT code. When I called back to cancel the lady on the phone seemed relieved I rebooked on my own. I asked about the damage and she said every room took water damage.

 

[Alaska Catdog]

I was wondering if anyone knew of a hotel with Jacuzzi suites in DTD. We had ressies at HRP in Nov. and we need to find a new room. I was looking forward to the Jacuzzi.

 

[FoodLover]

The Best Western Lake Buena Vista has suites with a jacuzzi tub. No idea what the price would be -- significantly more than a standard room, I would guess.

As far as I know, they are the only hotel in Downtown Disney with jacuzzi tubs, other than Royal Plaza, which is obviously not an option at the moment.

Mary
MouseSavers.com

 

[SkylarKD]

Don't bet on them calling you.

I'm the one who posted the review on Trip Advisor. Here's the review I posted:

---
My husband and I had booked (and paid for) an executive king suite for our week-long Orlando honeymoon about 6 months ago, and were really looking forward to our stay. After a day of traveling, we arrived at the Hotel Royal Plaza at about 1am on the night of August 25th / early morning of August 26th. After a few minutes of searching, the young man at the front desk told us he could not find our reservation, and then he told us that his computer showed that we had cancelled. We told him we most certainly had NOT cancelled, as this was our honeymoon. Finally, the night manager told us that they had cancelled our reservation because all of their executive king suites had been damaged in Hurricane Charlie. (all?) We would have been much more understanding about the damage if they had bothered to call and let us know before we arrived on their doorstep at 12:30 at night. (this was also 2 weeks after the hurricane - they had plenty of time to contact us) The night manager offered to send us across the street to the Best Western instead. We protested - this was our honeymoon! - and were finally offered an equivalent suite at the Hilton for the same price we had paid the Royal Plaza. We did not see the rooms at the Royal Plaza, and can not comment on them. The service, however, was not good. They were not concerned about our honeymoon plans, and did not sincerely apologize for cancelling our reservations without contacting us to let us know. We were made to feel as if we were an inconvenience to them.
Our suite at the Hilton turned out to be fantastic, with great service.
We would not trust the Royal Plaza again with a vacation - We would be afraid our reservation would be mysteriously 'cancelled' without our knowledge.
---

 

[CarolA]

Well, I wouldn't complain too loud. It sounds like you wound up with a great deal!

Did you book directly or thru a TA or website. I know that what happens in a lot of cases with airlines is that the airline calls Expedia who people book thru and that's the end! Some TAs are great about tracking down thier clients and others just plain don't try!

 

[SkylarKD]

Oh, we're quite happy with the Hilton suite we ended up with but we were definitely not happy with the way we were treated by the Hotel Royal Plaza staff.

We didn't use a travel agent or Expedia, we booked our hotel directly on the Hotel Royal Plaza website, so everything was done through them. We got a 6 nights-7th night free deal, so we paid the full amount when we booked, about 6 months before we were to arrive. We called to confirm several months before, and then again a month before. My husband had also emailed the hotel about 2 weeks in advance with some special honeymoon requests, and we received a confirmation email from the hotel about a week before we were to arrive (this was after Hurricane Charlie). No phone call to let us know they didn't have a room for us, though.

The fact that they didn't even seem concerned when we arrived on their doorstep at 12:30 or 1 in the morning, on our honeymoon, was part that ticked us off the most. They tried to convince us that WE had cancelled, and after 5 minutes of saying that we didn't, they finally admitted that it was their cancellation, because of damage to some of their rooms, and they couldn't explain why they didn't call to inform us. Thay just shrugged their shoulders and said they'd get us a room at the Best Western. We really had to argue for a suite equivalent to what we'd paid for, and that's when they said they'd get us a suite at the Hilton.

I would hope that by now, after the second hurricane, they have their system worked out and are informing their guests, and booking them in alternate hotels. For those of you who have booked with them though, my advice is not to wait for them to call you. Take the initiative to contact them, or to make your own alternate arrangements.