The arrival and first 4 days of our five-day trip were great, but things went south the last afternoon/evening/departure morning ...
We spent Thursday morning--til around 12:30 or so--at Animal Kingdom...returned to BCV to nap/swim, rest up for an evening of dinner at Boma and then "closing down" MK...we had 8 table service credits left...enough for dinner and brunch before the last 2 of us left for home Friday morning...we decided on the brunch buffet at the Yacht Club...all was good...we were so happy, having so much fun.
I went back to the Dolphin to our "spill over space" for a nap prior to a swim; the kids went back to our villa...
Half an hour later, my DS called...
DVC had canceled our reservation for Thursday night! Oh, no...we'd double-checked that all our reservations (which were for 3/15-3/16; 3/17, 3/18 and 3/19) were linked when we checked in...they were...our room keys said we check out 3/20...I don't understand at all how it happened, but it did...
Called MS--they told me it was my fault because I'd made so many changes to the reservation (I'd pieced the five-day stay together, using the wait list, starting in about mid-January)...this did not make me happy...but they said they'd call the Beach Club front desk--their records showed that I did indeed have a reservation for Thursday night...
In the middle of this, DS called, from the BC front desk...they decided to simply "start over"...they canceled the 3/19 reservation that MS had called to tell them did indeed exist, and issued a new one...in the process, they charged me an extra 30 points and put 30 points in holding...
And, somehow (no clue how), the points charge for 3/18 went from the 30 it was supposed to be to 55...
I called MS back...they said I must not have the "most recent" view on my dvcmember.com/view vacation details site...and again pointed out that the problem occurred because I had made so many changes to get this reservation ... anyway, they said they'd take my points out of holding ... at that point, DS was calling again w/a new problem...
The door lock on our villa was broken...the new keys didn't work... 2 1/2 hours, 3 managers, and two engineers (with 3 master keys that didn't work, each requiring a separate trip to & from the Yacht Club) later, they finally got our door open...
Here's a funny piece to this tale: the CMs (including all 3 managers) were very nice and very apologetic about the broken door lock...one said that housekeeping had noticed it the day before and they'd put in an order to fix it...only it failed completely before anyone got around to fixing it)...anyway, the CM/manager who waited out the 2 hours it took from his arrival to getting into the villa kept apologizing and offered us a free cleaning as a way to make it up to us. I guess you had to be there to realize just how funny that was...five college kids in a villa--it DID need cleaning!!! But we were leaving in less than 12 hours...I declined the offer, but did think it was very nice of the manager to make the offer and it did tickle my funny bone...
I asked if they'd transferred our DP to the new keys and they said yes...by this time it was w/in 15 minutes of when we had to leave for AKL (for our Boma reservation--it was awesome, as it always is)...so we scrambled a bit to clean up some and off we went...
Just before we left, 2 of the kids "disappeared"...turns out they went to talk to the BC managers to see if they could give us something to "console their distraught mother/hostess"...very sweet of them...of course, they had no clue that my upset was over the messed up reservation/points, not the broken door lock (that sort of stuff happens and Disney/BC sure did all they could to fix it)...the BC managers gave my kids 5 "premium fast passes" to make me feel better...that was also very nice of them...the kids used them on Space Mountain after Wishes (MK closed at 10) and that was nice...
At Boma we discovered they had not transferred our DP; instead they just canceled out our old plan and gave us a new one-day plan...bye-bye brunch yesterday morning and I had to pay out of pocket for one of our dinners at Boma...we did get 5 extra CS meals (we'd used up all our CS's on our old plan) and we "evened-out" on the snacks...we'd had five left...I still don't know if they charged me for that extra day...we never got a bill before leaving yesterday morning, and I ran out of time to go to the front desk to get one (see below)...
By this point I was so tired (and still had to face wrangling w/MS over being charged an extra 25 points for one night and the 30 nights still in holding (I'd checked on my laptop and they were still in holding at that point), I just said "who cares" about the DP and let it go. We wound up using the 5 extra CS's yesterday morning (sandwiches for the trip back plus Marketplace b'fast sandwiches) so the financial value was about even...all we really lost was the brunch we'd anticipated over at the Yacht Club.
Then, ME check-in to the airport didn't work...not Disney's fault...a problem w/the connection to our airline...and they did try hard! But it took a couple of hours to get that sorted out and ultimately we had to lug our big heavy suitcase...not the end of the world--but it "went with" the "go south" nature of our last 12 hours! Then, after ME determined they simply couldn't check us in for our flights they took our checked bag back to bell services (where we'd already left our carry-on's while we went to Epcot for a last hour)...when I went back to find out that check-in had failed, I had two Bell Services stubs (one for the checked bag that couldn't be checked; and the other for our carry-on)...it took them almost a half hour to find and bring us our stuff...
Once we got the airport things started going smoothly again...easy "fix" of the bollixed up ME attempt to check us in (we couldn't use the kiosk at the airport as the airline computer showed that we had already checked in...but there was no line to talk to an airline person, who was really nice and efficient (but boy did she grumble about Disney...said they are a disaster to deal with (from the airlines' point of view)...an interesting viewpoint to hear, to be sure)...flight home left on time; arrived on time; luggage came w/us...we're home...
Got home to an email from MS saying everything is now fixed...only it isn't...they've still charged me either 25 or 55 extra points (hard to tell as they continue to show 3/19 twice (separately) at BCV...but they did remove my 30 points from holding...a good first step! And of course nothing on the DP...I don't really expect anything on that...
So, I will never ever again do online check-in! It was fantastic at the beginning, but a nightmare at the end!
It was a "memory-maker" of a trip...as a college graduation celebration it was perfect...lots of fun...really wonderful...now, if only MS will fix my points, I might even be able to laugh about the rotten end to the trip!
Now, back to the real world...
