How much do i HATE the Grand Flordian? Let me dount the ways !

[jw50]

The guy ahead of me was from Scotland had 3 rooms and they had not informed him of the pool being closed and had sold them the wrong tickets so the guy and his kids had gone to a park and they refused to let them in...I don't know if they maybe didn't buy park hoppers or if it was something else but they were not helping him AT ALL.

Who is "they"? When you make your reservations does the TA or CRO tell you about all the refurbs that may or may not happen while you are going to be there? When they made their reservations the pool may not have been officially scheduled for closure. How do you get sold the "wrong" tickets? And how is that any fault of the GF front desk?

You also said that you are used to be told "Welcome home" whenever you return to the hotel. To the best of my knowledge that is only done at DVC properties. I know that they have never said that to me at the Poly, or any other resort that we have entered at WDW.

It really seems to me that most of your complaints are related to not getting the specific location that you wanted, although the GF most likely would have been able to get you closer to that location had you been willing to wait for it. At the time you were more concerned about immediate access to a room so you accepted what was available at that time (well earlier than the posted check-in time). So even though you got the exact room category you paid for (and $8K is pretty good for 6 people at the GF) some of your unrealistic expectations were not met therefore everything is the GFs fault.

My wife and I routinely walk from the Poly over to the GF so I don't think any of the rooms at the GF are really that far from any point at the GF. Yeah, some are closer than others but if location was that critical you could have booked the main building rather than one of the out buildings.

The best advice I can offer you is to not post here on the DIS when you are tired and upset, next time wait until you have calmed down and then decide if you really want to post.

 

[blondietink]

Had a similar issue with phone/text when the room was ready last year at BC. We knew we had arrived early, but when 5 pm came and went, we finally went to the front desk. They insisted they had sent us a text on our cell phone. Told us the phone number and everything. Well, after arriving home 2 weeks later, we had a message on our home answering machine that our room was ready.

 

[DVCMikey]

Good grammar is a form of politeness.

No it's not.

 

[maxiesmom]

I am sorry you are disappointed, but all of this seems to me to be very minor and not something that would upset me, let alone make me hate a hotel. We all know room requests ate only requests and in no way a gurantee. frankly, everything else is truly VERY minor. I honestly think you probably started out this stay wishing you were at the Contemporary and waiting for GF to disappoint you so it is a self fulfilling prophecy and that all of your complaints stem from not getting your room request, which was just that, a request.

I agree. Having a text get lost, and still getting your room early? Not worth being upset over. Not getting requests? Worth being disappointed over, not worth being upset over.

I also hope that if the OP is as unhappy at the Grand Floridian as they seem to be, they ask to be switched to another resort. No need to spend a trip at WDW at a resort you dislike.

 

[bumbershoot]

I totally understand hating the resort where you are, even if no one else understands. I feel the same about Animal Kingdom, both Jambo and Kidani. Though actually Kidani wasn't as bad, but I still won't be choosing to stay there any time soon.

Their reply was sorry it was the only building that had 2 rooms near each other

At that point, if being near each other wasn't important, you say "that's not important, let's move us around".

And why would you not believe it? If you think about how complicated room assignments must be (and since it was at the heart of my initial problem at Jambo, I've given it a LOT of thought), there's no reason to disbelieve it. You had two rooms booked, apparently connected to each other. Why would they not assume you wanted them together? And during a busy busy time, it's going to be HARD to get rooms right next to each other.

I was not upset at getting into the room at 1:30, I was upset at the front desk arguing with me about texting me. Why would I lie about something like that? Yes, they very well COULD have sent it to a wrong number, though I confirmed the number with them twice AND I received and confirmed the message about allowing text messaging to be able to get the text message when the room was ready.

Focus on that with a manager. That the CM shouldn't have *argued* with you about the text. The CMs should know by now that not all texts get through. They should know, WE should know, that not all texts are received; I have had many texts, that I know were sent, never get to me, and I've sent texts that never got through, or got through days later. Yesterday at noon I got a text sent to me by DH the previous day at 3:38pm, and it was even timestamped as that! Phones are funny and systems are funny.

No one should have been arguing about it at all.

Maybe you could get a scooter or other vehicle for the aunt to help with the walk? Hope things improve for you!!

Yes, absolutely.

Wow, I'm surprised at some responses to the OP regarding grammar and no paragraphs. That's not very helpful and I believe meant to embarrass someone.

Most people do not intend for embarrassment. They intend to help the OP in the future. Often, an original poster will come back later, when more calm, and separate it out into paragraphs. Soon after they get MANY more people reading it and responding, better able to understand the situation.

When we're on a message board, we're trying to communicate. If a person is doing so in such a way that she's NOT communicating, and is actually keeping people from reading what she's writing, then what's the point of putting it on a message board?

The woman came here for help and to talk about her problems, and people find the need to complain about grammar?

Is the lack of paragraphs actually considered grammar?

But if this is how the OP is presenting her case on the boards, I can't imagine that she's doing a better job of presenting it to the CMs at the GF. I do disagree with the suggestion that she not post her issues here; especially if other posters can help her do a better job of organizing her thoughts and focusing on the customer service issues that can be addressed vs. the things that she is upset about that aren't really problems per se.

Yes, exactly. If she cannot organize thoughts while typing, is she organizing thoughts while talking? I know that for me, they go together. If the "slow down, take a breath, make some bullet-points" suggestions help her communicate it to the managers, she will do a LOT better than just blasting them like the initial post did.

9. No one said "Welcome Home" when you got off the bus and no one in the store welcomed your DDs arrival there. Just not servile enough...
Richard is the Greeter there he is 91 years old and always on his post and greeting people. We saw him every day and he greeted us eacht time we saw him.

[/IMG]

FWIW we've done tea at the GF three times and I've never seen that man.

But then I don't really care about being greeted when we arrive; makes me feel uncomfortable. It's the one downside to DVC for me. Of course, GF isn't DVC quite yet, so "welcome home" wouldn't be appropriate IMO anyway.

Who is "they"? When you make your reservations does the TA or CRO tell you about all the refurbs that may or may not happen while you are going to be there? When they made their reservations the pool may not have been officially scheduled for closure. How do you get sold the "wrong" tickets?

I agree with the ticket question.

But when we've been at a resort during a refurbishment time, they have sent a letter letting us know.

 

[disd55]

During busy seasons, busses are always packed at park closing no matter what resort your at. why we love the BC/YC, we can walk to 2 parks. Even when we go in low seasons, Jan & August busses at park closing are packed.

This is very true. Stayed at BC during the slow season of late August/early September and morning and afternoon buses were still crowded, especially since BC and YC are shared. Sometimes to DD they are even shared with Swalphin and BWI.

 

[Ofinn]

OP sorry for the bad service. There have been times when I have been disappointed in Disney. There customer service doesn't always meet my expectations. I would never post it here. You see what happens when you do.

 

[Rhongepooh]

Well I am the original poster and I am sorry the post was so hard to read. I have an iPad here instead of my regular computer and it sometimes corrects my spelling to words I don't mean AND I totally forgot to hit the return for new paragraphs. It DID look like a post from a crazy lady. Here are the complaints I had....

1). I totally TOTALLY understand check in is officially at 4:00 pm and anything before is pure luck. That wasn't the problem. The problem was when I ASKED politely if the room was ready they told me, "Yes. It's been ready since 11:40 and we sent you a message." To which I said, again politely, " oh really? We didn't get it." To which the CM said a little under her breath, "We'll we SENT it." You know I wasn't arguing with her or complaining at this point because it was 1:30 or 1:45, my grandson needed a nap and I was THANKFUL we were getting in the room early.

2) the room situation..... Yes, I have been to Disney close to 20 times and am the family planner for my extended family as well as plan some close friends vacations since I enjoy Disney so much. So, I DO realize you don't always get your request met. That is left to the Disney gods. However I asked to be placed on an upper floor in Sago Cay and instead was placed in Big Pine Key on a lower floor. For those who are not familiar with the resort, as I was not before planning this visit, if you drew a diagonal line from one end of the resort to the other end of the resort you would have one point on Sago Cay and the other point on Big Pine Key. So we were talking about being put in the exact opposite direction...as FAR opposite as you could possibly be asked to be.

3). I have stayed at all levels of resorts and hotels from staying totally off site, to staying at Downtown Disney hotels, to staying at a camping site at Fort Wilderness, values, moderates and deluxe hotels. I am by NO means a hotel snob. One of my favorite experiences was staying at a camping site at Fort Wilderness. However, we paid to OUR standards a LOT of money for this vacation. I understand it is just a drop in the bucket for Disney and in fact to many visiting Disney, it is a mere drop in the bucket but I am a teacher so it's quite a lot of money for me and my family.

I guess in a way I HAVE been spoiled by the Contemporary with its convenience of hopping on the elevator to get our mugs refilled, or hopping on the elevator to get to the monorail or even hopping on the monorail to go get something to eat. I believe though that The Grand Floridian being Disney's "Flagship Hotel"(their words not mine) the distance between where we can refill our mugs, the distance to the main building and the distance to transportation should be addressed better.

4) The rooms' location (or distance from everything) was compounded by realizing our view, for the week, would be of the DVC construction. Now I know there are people who would say this wouldn't bother them. However I am an obsessive planner. I want the vacation to be as great for everyone as it can possible be. The view, as I am currently looking out the window, is of the DVC building, a small part of the lake that is partitioned off in front of the DVC building, and the middle of trees, because we are on the 2nd floor. We usually love sitting out on the balcony but there is not much to see.

5) the reason I mentioned the other guests that were having problems was simply to point out it wasn't just me being unrealistic but there were others having problems. I did not stand around trying to listen in to their problems I heard the conversation while I was waiting to talk to someone. While I was headed back to my room, I heard the other problem. I was by NO means sitting around looking for people with problems.

6) We did not realize they had DVD players in the room. I simply went down to get the rooms switched our rooms
because one room had one and one didn't. I knew my grandson could get to sleep easier if he could watch his movies.

7) I mentioned BY NAME the bellhop that really went out of his way to make us feel welcome. When we checked in we were shown where the building was and where the monorail was. This man took the time to tell us about the boat to the magic kingdom, the Electric Water Parade, the hidden characters and where the counter service location was. None of these things were explained to us during check in as they should have been.

We

 

[mousefan73]

I have to admit when I type a post from my iphone, I at times probably sound like a crazy lady or at least some one who is ESL ( english as a second language).

 

[gogo]

I guess I'm in the minority, but just because someone forgot to insert paragraphs certainly didn't make it unintelligible. Are using paragraphs helpful, sure, but I think I can read well enough without seeing them. It wasn't like I was reading a book that way

The comments didn't offend the OP, so that's nice!

 

[maxiesmom]

7) I mentioned BY NAME the bellhop that really went out of his way to make us feel welcome. When we checked in we were shown where the building was and where the monorail was. This man took the time to tell us about the boat to the magic kingdom, the Electric Water Parade, the hidden characters and where the counter service location was. None of these things were explained to us during check in as they should have been.

We

I didn't see if you did on line check in or not, but if you did, they pretty much hand you your stuff and send you on your way. I do like hearing the whole spiel, so I haven't used on line check in for a while. If you did standard check in then yes, they should have gave you what is basic info--how to get around, where to get food, and so on.

 

[Rhongepooh]

Now about the Welcome home.....it's just one of hose small things that makes the Contemporary the right place for us. I'm not saying ANYTHING against the 90 year old man that works as. A greeter at the Grand. He apparently not there when we checked in and we don't go through the front door as often so maybe we just missed him.

The location of the rooms, the attitude of SOME of the cast members, the lack of wifi a lot of the time, the distance from our room to EVERYTHING, as well as other things made me dislike the resort. I am not saying that I hate ANYONE just a resort. For heavens sake I hate mayo but that doesn't mean I hate anyone who uses mayo! I have seen many others who actually said they hate the Contemporary because they don't like the hustle and bustle of the resort or the retro feel of it. You know to each his own. Will I ever stay here again? NO....has it ruined my vacation? No....we are having a blast.


Now in regards to my aunt. She doesn't need an ECV but is very tired when we return in the evenings. Yes staying closer would have been MUCH better for her but we are all managing it.


There is no need to call the CIA to have me deported for crimes of terror for saying I hated, or even HATE, HATE, HATE the Grand. I still love disney and will return. I just won't be returning to the grand.

mOST of all a HUGE, HUGE, HUGE thank you all who took up for me! That was very much appreciated!!!!

 

[Marionnette]

Well I am the original poster and I am sorry the post was so hard to read. I have an iPad here instead of my regular computer and it sometimes corrects my spelling to words I don't mean AND I totally forgot to hit the return for new paragraphs. It DID look like a post from a crazy lady. Here are the complaints I had....

1). I totally TOTALLY understand check in is officially at 4:00 pm and anything before is pure luck. That wasn't the problem. The problem was when I ASKED politely if the room was ready they told me, "Yes. It's been ready since 11:40 and we sent you a message." To which I said, again politely, " oh really? We didn't get it." To which the CM said a little under her breath, "We'll we SENT it." You know I wasn't arguing with her or complaining at this point because it was 1:30 or 1:45, my grandson needed a nap and I was THANKFUL we were getting in the room early.

2) the room situation..... Yes, I have been to Disney close to 20 times and am the family planner for my extended family as well as plan some close friends vacations since I enjoy Disney so much. So, I DO realize you don't always get your request met. That is left to the Disney gods. However I asked to be placed on an upper floor in Sago Cay and instead was placed in Big Pine Key on a lower floor. For those who are not familiar with the resort, as I was not before planning this visit, if you drew a diagonal line from one end of the resort to the other end of the resort you would have one point on Sago Cay and the other point on Big Pine Key. So we were talking about being put in the exact opposite direction...as FAR opposite as you could possibly be asked to be.

3). I have stayed at all levels of resorts and hotels from staying totally off site, to staying at Downtown Disney hotels, to staying at a camping site at Fort Wilderness, values, moderates and deluxe hotels. I am by NO means a hotel snob. One of my favorite experiences was staying at a camping site at Fort Wilderness. However, we paid to OUR standards a LOT of money for this vacation. I understand it is just a drop in the bucket for Disney and in fact to many visiting Disney, it is a mere drop in the bucket but I am a teacher so it's quite a lot of money for me and my family.

I guess in a way I HAVE been spoiled by the Contemporary with its convenience of hopping on the elevator to get our mugs refilled, or hopping on the elevator to get to the monorail or even hopping on the monorail to go get something to eat. I believe though that The Grand Floridian being Disney's "Flagship Hotel"(their words not mine) the distance between where we can refill our mugs, the distance to the main building and the distance to transportation should be addressed better.

4) The rooms' location (or distance from everything) was compounded by realizing our view, for the week, would be of the DVC construction. Now I know there are people who would say this wouldn't bother them. However I am an obsessive planner. I want the vacation to be as great for everyone as it can possible be. The view, as I am currently looking out the window, is of the DVC building, a small part of the lake that is partitioned off in front of the DVC building, and the middle of trees, because we are on the 2nd floor. We usually love sitting out on the balcony but there is not much to see.

5) the reason I mentioned the other guests that were having problems was simply to point out it wasn't just me being unrealistic but there were others having problems. I did not stand around trying to listen in to their problems I heard the conversation while I was waiting to talk to someone. While I was headed back to my room, I heard the other problem. I was by NO means sitting around looking for people with problems.

6) We did not realize they had DVD players in the room. I simply went down to get the rooms switched our rooms
because one room had one and one didn't. I knew my grandson could get to sleep easier if he could watch his movies.

7) I mentioned BY NAME the bellhop that really went out of his way to make us feel welcome. When we checked in we were shown where the building was and where the monorail was. This man took the time to tell us about the boat to the magic kingdom, the Electric Water Parade, the hidden characters and where the counter service location was. None of these things were explained to us during check in as they should have been.

We

OP, I totally understand how iPads and smartphones can mess up the formatting of a post. I think that most posters get that. It was just too difficult to read through in order to understand all of your points clearly.

I also understand that there are some things about the GF that are not to your liking and even if everything went perfectly at check in and you had gotten exact rooms that you requested, it still might not be as wonderful to you as it is to others. That's okay. Everyone has different tastes.

I don't think that all of your complaints are valid. But they seem to be important to you. If you feel strongly about these things, then by all means let the resort management know that they are dropping the ball when it comes to customer service and the amenities that you expect from their flagship resort. A follow up email or letter may also be in order if you do not get satisfaction while you are there.

 

[bumbershoot]

I know that you, or maybe it's coming from your aunt, feel that exhaustion at the end of the day doesn't mean a scooter is needed, but on the other hand, it surely would HELP.

My own aunt continues to refuse a scooter (she and her family are highly prejudiced against scooter users and don't want to be one of "them") even though she absolutely would be helped by it. If I were so exhausted by the end of the day that the location of my room was causing problems, I would think it was scooter-worthy. But then maybe having watched so many people hurt themselves by refusing them has made my threshold of scooter-worthy far lower than others?



DH was able to hear other peoples' problems while standing in line at Jambo to get us a new room, so I definitely understand that. And the next day we got into a discussion with a mother and daughter who were having almost the opposite problem that we had had, while we waited around for our new room. It was a fairly common theme for problems during that stay at Jambo, and the attitude of the CMs there didn't make anything even a little bit better.

But that's why I sent DH up to take care of it. I was NOT in a good mood about the problem, and DH was able to be calmer about it all. I would have either managed to get us the biggest suite they have...OR have us arrested and thrown in jail for the week. One or the other. That's why it wasn't me at the counter. (and I know that when I've posted about it, there are plenty who don't feel that my problem was A problem)



You might want to contact someone about that missing DVD player, by the way.

 

[ToyStory3]

op sorry for the bad service. There have been times when i have been disappointed in disney. There customer service doesn't always meet my expectations. I would never post it here. You see what happens when you do.

lol!!!

 

[sndral]

1). I totally TOTALLY understand check in is officially at 4:00 pm
I thought it was 3 pm?

I guess in a way I HAVE been spoiled by the Contemporary with its convenience of hopping on the elevator to get our mugs refilled, or hopping on the elevator to get to the monorail or even hopping on the monorail to go get something to eat. I believe though that The Grand Floridian being Disney's "Flagship Hotel"(their words not mine) the distance between where we can refill our mugs, the distance to the main building and the distance to transportation should be addressed better.
Been there, done that, last time at the YC our room was so far out it was closer to the Swalphon - talk about a hike and a half to refill the mugs at the BC marketplace.

4) The rooms' location (or distance from everything) was compounded by realizing our view, for the week, would be of the DVC construction. Now I know there are people who would say this wouldn't bother them. However I am an obsessive planner. I want the vacation to be as great for everyone as it can possible be. The view, as I am currently looking out the window, is of the DVC building, a small part of the lake that is partitioned off in front of the DVC building, and the middle of trees, because we are on the 2nd floor. We usually love sitting out on the balcony but there is not much to see.
I have this issue w/ Disney, I really wish their view catagories were better, some savanna views @ AKL are less than prime, some garden views at the Poly look onto parking lots or air conditioning units, some water views @ YC/BC look onto the pool v. the lagoon, some garden view rooms @ BC look out on a jungle of shrubs, I don't want to look at or pay for a prime TP view, but just wish they had a way for you to pay a bit more and guarentee that you're not looking at parking lots, construction, whatever - you know, a way for those who don't care to pay a little less and be assigned those views and those of us who do care but don't need theme park/fireworks over the top views to enjoy pleasant views. Even when you pay more for a certain view it may be a disappointment, so I hesitate to do so, since it really irritates me when I've paid extra for a better view and was disappointed w/ it.

My observations in blue. As I mentioned in my first response, sounds like GF isn't a good fit for you, now you know.

 

[Dis703]

We stayed at BC last week and we got the Welcome Home from quite a few CMs so its definitely not just DVC resorts. But I wouldn't miss it if it wasn't done as I just thought it seemed kind of silly.

 

[sndral]

We stayed at BC last week and we got the Welcome Home from quite a few CMs so its definitely not just DVC resorts. But I wouldn't miss it if it wasn't done as I just thought it seemed kind of silly.

Um, BC is a DVC resort - the villas are the kind of turqouise looking buildings to the left (Epcot side) as you face the front of the resort.

 

[ncc1701]

Actually we gotten "welcome home" at POFQ from several of the staff coming back from the parks

 

[Elinor Dashwood]

OP, it sounds like the GF just wasn't a good fit for you. I understand the expectations are high when you plan a Disney vacation AND spend a lot of money at one of the most expensive resorts.

We ran into a really snarky CM at Epcot last week on a day when it was literally 93 degrees outside. It was an older lady working the drink carts with all the bottled water and ice. I was seriously feeling overheated so I took an ice cube and this lady flipped. She told me they're not safe for human consumption, that we could get sick. I politely told her I wasn't going to eat it, I was going to rub it on the back of my neck to cool down. She then said "do not take it" so I said "sorry, but it's 93 out and my skin is melting lol".

I think it's rare to have a snarky CM but not unheard of. I hope you continue to enjoy your trip with your family and grandson!