July 9 - 13 Day Five: Ending on a high note

Belle1962

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Aug 18, 1999
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Day five: Ending on a high note

I’m up before DH so I leave him a note and let him know I’ll be going to the Cracker barrel to get the car. And breakfast while I’m there. When I get back DH is up at the Fridays for his breakfast. After breakfast we go back to the room to gather our belongings and then check out.

As I approached the desk to check out I noticed three lines. One was Priority Club and two regular lines. I am a PC member so I get into the PC line.

The employee behind the desk smiled and said “May I help you?”. I looked at his name tag, and I can’t remember his name but he had TRAINEE under it. I simply replied “No, I’m going to need your manager”. At this point DH left as he knew I had A LIST to go over with the manager. The manager was actually working the line next to the TRAINEE so they swapped places.

The manager made the very FATAL mistake of asking how our stay was. I very politely started:

When we came to check in yesterday I came to the priority club line. The two employees working the desk made eye contact with me several times but neither of them said a word to me. I finally had to interrupt to ask if anyone was working the PC line and they said NO I would have to get into the regular line. After leaving me standing there for over ten minutes they finally tell me this. The manager apologized and told me that they do not always have the staffing available to man the PC line also.

Okay, secondly, when we went up to our room, I found that it had not really been cleaned. There was hair on one of the pillows, hair on the bathroom floor and hair in the folded towels. He said I should have called down to the desk because they keep someone on call 24 hours to handle situations like those. I informed him that a) if the maids had cleaned the room right the first time there would be no “situations” like this and b) I was tired after a day at the parks and just wanted to rest not wait probably an hour or more for someone to come to my room.

He apologizes yet again and tries to give me my bill. But I’m not done yet.

My husband didn’t get back from the parks until after 10:00 and there was no parking at all at the hotel. He had to park down the road at the Cracker Barrel. The manager apologized and explained that the hotel had been sold out. I replied, so you design your hotels so that there isn’t enough parking if you’re full? He said no, but there is only one spot per room and if people bring more than two cars or have friends come visit for a few minutes it takes up parking. He also mentioned that they do not have guards in the parking lot and he has seen people park there and walk across the street to Universal.

At this point the lady behind me jumps in with “we’ve been here ten nights and had to park away from the hotel for nine of them”. She also mentioned when you’re paying over a thousand dollars for a hotel you at least expect a parking spot. The manager told her, you heard what I was explaining to this lady and she said yes but it still doesn’t make it right.

By this time the trainee is looking on, as are most of the people in the other two lines. I also said to the woman, and the elevators here are possessed!!!!! She agreed.

I turned back to the manager and said, your website said this hotel was recently renovated. The elevators would open, close and then open to let you out on your floor. Once, I watched all three of them come down to the first floor (where I had pushed the button to go up) and then without even opening shoot all the way back up to the tenth floor.

The woman behind me then mentioned that the police had been there are least three times during their stay and I replied…well the Sheriff and the crime scene unit are here again—they’re parked out front.

At this point the manager is REALLY trying to get me to take my bill and leave.

I told him, I know I got a decent deal on this room—I only paid $55.00 using the internet rate but that doesn’t mean I wanted a substandard property. The lady behind me then starts in “You paid how much? OH MY G*D we paid twice that”

The manager REALLY REALLY wants me to leave. He pushes my bill towards me and lowers his voice and says I’m really sorry for your troubles, here. He has taken $20.00 off the bill. I said thank you but this was the last day of our vacation and we are really leaving on a sour note. I took my bill and then told him: "And when I checked in I didn’t get my customer comment card……I need one."

Anyway, back in the car with DH we agree that we don’t want to let the experience at the Holiday Inn ruin the weekend for us. So we decide to head to Disney and do the Studios. We went to the Studios and did RNR Coaster, tower of terror, Star Tours and the Great Movie ride. Went through the stores a bit and I got a Pal Mickey. We had a great time and left about 3:00 pm. We really feel that the decision to go to a park was the right one…we definitely ended on a high note. The drive home was just as smooth…7 hours.
 
Just finished reading all your reports. They were great! I felt as if I was right there with you.
 
I just read all of your trip report and it was wonderful!!! Thank you sooo much for the information on the Holiday Inn. We originally had reservations there, however, cancelled them and booked RPR after learning about FOTL from the people here on these boards!!! Sounds like we definitely made the right decision!

Again, thank you so much for sharing your experience with us!
 
Thanks for sharing ~ Wonderful reviews!!!!
 















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