disneyfor3
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Aug 8, 2003
- Messages
- 393
We did a split stay between the Wilderness Lodge and the Contemporary. We shouldn't have split the stay - we hated to leave the Wilderness Lodge. We have stayed at Grand Floridian RPC, Poly 2x, Boardwalk Inn, and I'll have to say our absolute favorite is now the Wilderness Lodge. We booked our stay here based solely on the many rave reviews we have read here on these boards expecting to not really like it when we arrived. Boy, were we wrong! We were celebrating our husband's 40th birthday and they made our experience magical. I had booked an AP rate of $139.00 woodsview. I asked at check-in how much to upgrade to concierge if anything available. I was quoted $60.00 upsell charge per night which we grabbed. We were then escorted up to room 7058 where we looked out on the balcony and saw the castle! We love the decor here. The thing that really impressed us so much about this hotel was the service. When we checked in I requested a bed rail for my son - it made it to the room before us. When I asked Carmelo in the lounge (what a nice guy!) if he had any caffeine free diet coke he brought me back two icy cans and said he didn't have any more but that he would order it special for us and place it in our fridge (wow, what service - at GF RPC we were begrudingly given a soda in a cup and told they definitely had nothing caffeine free).
Now, on to the part of the story that could have put a damper on our trip but turned out magical:
The morning after we checked in I noticed a couple of small damp spots on the carpet when I woke up; my husband and I assumed they had steamcleaned the carpet and it was drying so off to the parks we went. We came back that afternoon to rest with our 3 year old and when we walked into the room our feet went squish, squish, squish across the carpet. I decided to head to the concierge desk and ask them whom I should call to check it out. When I got to the lounge area the concierge manager was speaking to one of the CM's putting out food. I asked them whom I should contact. The concierge manager said he would contact maintenance and mousekeeping and have them right over to check it out. He wasn't kidding. Within minutes we had a host of people in our room, including the concierge manager checking it out. It was decided that they needed to move us to a new room, to my dismay because I didn't want to give up our castle view. The concierge manager (I need to find out his name so I can send a thank you so if anyone knows please pm me.) said we could go look at Room 7044 and if it was agreeable they would help us move. He also kept apologizing for the inconvenience. We went down the hall and looked - it still had a view of the castle and a great view of the monorail going into the Contemporary. Back to the room to pack. The concierge manager then told us that due to the inconvenience he was comping us one night's stay (wow, we didn't expect that!). He also personally helped carry our luggage to our new room. Our 3 year old son was admiring his lanyard with pins and he kneeled down and told me son to pick whichever one he liked. I nearly cried. FYI: It was a broken elbow under the sink behind the wall that caused the flood and was fixed pretty quickly from what we understand. All of this happened on my husband's birthday which could have put a damper on the day (haha) but turned it into a magical one. We also found a signed autographed picture of Mickey and Minnie with 3 balloons attached in our room the evening we checked in.
We absolutely loved this resort from the bellmen, to the checkin staff, to the concierge staff. The mousekeeping staff was also excellent - we had a fan for our toothbrushes our first morning and would come back to find my son's Dumbo on a mountain of pillows or playing the TV with his paw on the remote. Mousekeeping also had turndown service done each evening before we returned from the parks.
We rented a car so never tried bus transportation, found parking convenient, and loved the boat ride to the Magic Kingdom.
The Contemporary I won't say much about except that the view from the balcony of the castle was very nice, but found the whole experience a big disappointment after the Wildnerness Lodge. The front checkin experience was disappointing, handed an envelope with all info (nothing explained about the resort like at the WL), told our request for a higher floor could not be met, and when we got to our room, we found peeling paint on the balcony, and the room to have an overall dirty feel to it (it was never vacuumed our entire stay). I think we found this a huge letdown after the WL.
Now, on to the part of the story that could have put a damper on our trip but turned out magical:
The morning after we checked in I noticed a couple of small damp spots on the carpet when I woke up; my husband and I assumed they had steamcleaned the carpet and it was drying so off to the parks we went. We came back that afternoon to rest with our 3 year old and when we walked into the room our feet went squish, squish, squish across the carpet. I decided to head to the concierge desk and ask them whom I should call to check it out. When I got to the lounge area the concierge manager was speaking to one of the CM's putting out food. I asked them whom I should contact. The concierge manager said he would contact maintenance and mousekeeping and have them right over to check it out. He wasn't kidding. Within minutes we had a host of people in our room, including the concierge manager checking it out. It was decided that they needed to move us to a new room, to my dismay because I didn't want to give up our castle view. The concierge manager (I need to find out his name so I can send a thank you so if anyone knows please pm me.) said we could go look at Room 7044 and if it was agreeable they would help us move. He also kept apologizing for the inconvenience. We went down the hall and looked - it still had a view of the castle and a great view of the monorail going into the Contemporary. Back to the room to pack. The concierge manager then told us that due to the inconvenience he was comping us one night's stay (wow, we didn't expect that!). He also personally helped carry our luggage to our new room. Our 3 year old son was admiring his lanyard with pins and he kneeled down and told me son to pick whichever one he liked. I nearly cried. FYI: It was a broken elbow under the sink behind the wall that caused the flood and was fixed pretty quickly from what we understand. All of this happened on my husband's birthday which could have put a damper on the day (haha) but turned it into a magical one. We also found a signed autographed picture of Mickey and Minnie with 3 balloons attached in our room the evening we checked in.
We absolutely loved this resort from the bellmen, to the checkin staff, to the concierge staff. The mousekeeping staff was also excellent - we had a fan for our toothbrushes our first morning and would come back to find my son's Dumbo on a mountain of pillows or playing the TV with his paw on the remote. Mousekeeping also had turndown service done each evening before we returned from the parks.
We rented a car so never tried bus transportation, found parking convenient, and loved the boat ride to the Magic Kingdom.
The Contemporary I won't say much about except that the view from the balcony of the castle was very nice, but found the whole experience a big disappointment after the Wildnerness Lodge. The front checkin experience was disappointing, handed an envelope with all info (nothing explained about the resort like at the WL), told our request for a higher floor could not be met, and when we got to our room, we found peeling paint on the balcony, and the room to have an overall dirty feel to it (it was never vacuumed our entire stay). I think we found this a huge letdown after the WL.
