Just back from BC, OKW and SSR

cocowum

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Mar 3, 2004
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We had a fantastic trip.:love: Hate to be back.

First, the Beach Club...We were moved to the BC from AKL. I can't even express how AWESOME it was. We loved, loved, loved it. We had the best view...
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Service was good. There was a problem at check in but it was resolved. Mousekeeping was fine. Our room was cleaned by noon each day.:thumbsup2

We swam at SAB everyday. It was Awesome!
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Lilo and Stitch were in the lobby everyday (at least it seemed like everyday) playing games with kids.:goodvibes They also had mousekeepers making towel animals in the lobby.:dance3: We walked to Epcot almost every night. The absolute best part of BC for us was location!!! It was amazing just to stroll on over.:love: I think it spoiled me for life.:rotfl:

We ate at the Yachtsman, Yacht Club Galley and Beaches and Cream. We had great meals at all 3.:goodvibes We had lunch our first day at Hurricane Hannah's and gave it 2 big thumbs down. The food wasn't that great and service was slooow. There were birds everywhere and people were feeding them like crazy. :sad2: After that we made sure we had lunch before returning to BC. Anywho, to sum it up BC was amazing!!!! We had an absolute blast!!!

After 5 nights at BC we checked out and headed over to OKW. We were really excited as we had received the free upgrade from POP to OKW. :woohoo: :woohoo:

Well, I checked in at 8:30 am. Unfortunately for me, I didn't have the friendliest CM. :confused3 First she said I had a $1200 balance (DP) I said no I paid off the trip in June and I had the free dining plan. She said "No, it says right here you owe us $1200" tapping her screen. I pull out my passported and hand her my paperwork showing a zero balance. She takes my paperwork and heads in the back. I stood there for about 20 mins finally another CM walks over and asks if I'm being helped. I explain and the CM heads to the back. 5 mins later they emerge. My CM silently hands me my paperwork. Punches a few buttons, prints out my key and parking pass. Has me sign and says you room is not ready. :confused3 I ask if everything is ok. She nods. I look at my key and and it does not say Disney Dining Plan A03 like my BC cards did. I mention this to the CM and she sighs and walks to the back room again. I gotta tell you by this time I'm pretty ticked off. She comes out with a supervisor who spends about 10 mins figuring out the problem. Finally, I have my keys and I'm ready to go when I realize I don't have one of those welcome packets with resort activities. So I turn around and ask for one and the CM huffs and hands it to me. It's now 9:30. I'm pretty ticked off so I take a deep breath, relax you're on vacation. I head out to the car were DH and DD have been waiting for an hour. We decide to leave our bags with bell services rather than keep them in the car with us. Big Mistake. Today is a free day for us we went to Winter Summerland and TL. At 3:55 we call to see if our room is ready. Nope. I asked any idea how much longer and she says Check in is not until 4. Okay, we head to OKW we get there about 4:15. I go to the front desk and ask if our room is ready. Nope. Normally, we just head out to a park or something but we had dinner reservations at Narcoosee's and I wanted to clean up. The CM told me my room should be ready in 15 minutes. It was clean but just waiting on final check. Our room was finally ready at 5:25. Deep breath relax you're at Disney. We head over to bell services to pick up our luggage. They said it's been delivered to your room already.:dance3: sweet! We get to our room, you guessed it, no luggage. So I call Bell Services and he says it must be on the way. We wait 30 mins. Nothing. an hour. Nothing. I call again. Bell services says sorry were really busy it should only be a few more minutes. I say " I'll be right there to pick it up myself." I head over to Bell Services and park right out front to load my luggage. I go to the desk and the bellman goes to get my bags from the luggage room. They can't find them. I ask "was it sent to the room?" "No, if it was there should be a note here." While I'm waiting someone tells me I need to go park my car. I reply " I'm waiting for my luggage, I'm just going to be a sec" His response "You need to move it now!" I move my car to the parking lot and go back to the bell services podium. Still no luck. I call DH in the room and he says they just delivered it. :headache: it is 7:00. Deep breath happy thoughts you're at WDW.:goodvibes We have a great rest of the night and go to bed around 11:00. Next morning we get up and DH makes a pot of coffee. Water begins pouring out of the back of the coffee maker. DD goes to make toast. Toaster doesn't work. I call housekeeping and ask for another Coffee maker and toaster because ours are not working. She asked well did you try plugging them in? What? of course.:confused: Anyway we have cereal and get dressed. The bathroom door doesn't latch. Uggh. I call maintenance again. We head out to the park come back at 2pm for a nap and a swim. Our room is not clean but the new toaster and coffee maker are sitting on the counter right next to the broken ones.:rolleyes: DH and I head out for a swim and DD13 takes a nap. we head back to the room at 3:45 and the door is open. :confused3 We walked in and there's the maid having DD sign some form. What's going on I ask "Well, she (DD) asked me to comeback but we leave at 4, we can't comeback. we clean now or you waive housekeeping. So she signed this" Her exact words. :mad: Fine. whatever. Guess what? bathroom door still doesn't latch.:sad2: This trip we planned on spending alot of time relaxing at the resort. We are not very impressed with OKW. Our room although spacious was very run down. There is cracked moldy tile in the bathroom. The carpet in the livingroom is stained. The couch is stained. We decide overall OKW isn't for us. I head over to the front desk, explain the situation to a manager and asked to be moved back to POP. She apologizes for our problems and offers me SSR. So, I said sure. We'll try it. We spent that night at OKW and then first thing in the morning we headed over to SSR.

Now, on to SSR. We ended up really liking this resort. We tend to be park commandos and enjoy over the top theming. I don't know if we're getting older or what but this trip was alot more low key. We had visited SSR before and really weren't too excited about it. Our room was in Congress Park rm 2703
This was our view :love:
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We were a short walk from the main pool and right next a lovely quiet pool. We ended up really enjoying this resort. We ate at AP and the Turf Club. We loved them both. Service was top notch at SSR. Check in, Mousekeeping CM's all were great. We never had a problem. We played pool games and took a towel animal class. We had alot of fun!!! We didn't use the kitchen very much but I can't tell you how nice it was to have the washer and dryer in the room!!!

This was our best trip yet! Any questions, feel free to ask.:thumbsup2
 
wow so sorry you had such a crumpy stay at OKW. please write to Disney and tell them.

OKW has had some problems lately and as an owner it really, really bothers me.

Disney and DVC really needs to retrain just about EVERYONE here. and yes I am owner. the service has been going down.

very,very tire of not getting my studio until 5:00pm or even later. they are not living up to their agreement with us.
 
wow so sorry you had such a crumpy stay at OKW. please write to Disney and tell them.

OKW has had some problems lately and as an owner it really, really bothers me.

Disney and DVC really needs to retrain just about EVERYONE here. and yes I am owner. the service has been going down.

very,very tire of not getting my studio until 5:00pm or even later. they are not living up to their agreement with us.

Thanks for posting and thanks for not flaming me. I definitely didn't want to offend OKW owners. But I did want to post my experiences.:goodvibes
 
Glad to hear you had a great trip!! I recall first reading when you got your upgrade and had to move from AKL:)

We jsut got back from the YC....we loved SAB too, esp the kiddie area...I do agree the birds are an issue trying to enjoy lunch poolside at HH....there are signs..dont feed the birds!!! We loved the convenience of the YC/BC!
Sorry abt your experience at OKW...your probably wondered if you would have been better off at POP...lol...I loved my stay at POP...would like to stay at OKW someday.

LOVED your comments abt SSR...we bought there this trip! Happy to hear you had a great time...and were able to experience 3 resorts! WOW!!
On another note...in no way your comments could offend OKW owners...you were just very nicely sharing your experience there:)

So when is your nest trip??? :)
 

Hi Cocowum!

Our stay @ OKW had some problems too. Check-in was a breeze and we received a great room location but we had an incident involving wet paint on my DH's clothes and our room was left unlocked all day because housekeeping didn't make sure the door latched completely. Also, we had our luggage transferred between POFQ and OKW -- when we came back to our room in the late afternoon, the luggage was not there. We walked over to bell services and saw all of it just sitting on a luggage cart over by the desk. We pointed it out and asked for someone to bring it to the room and were told our bellhop would be right with us. No one came and after about 20 minutes we just started pushing the cart ourselves. I couldn't believe that not a single person even questioned who we were and why we were casually walking off with a luggage cart full of suitcases. I decided then and there that I would never let Disney transfer my bags again.

Other than that, our stay was great and we really enjoyed the spaciousness of the 1bdrm villa.
 
Oh yeah, I forgot to ask -- did you book the bounceback for next year while you were there? We ended up not using our laptop and there were never in of the flyers in our room...so I didn't even know about it until we got home on the 2nd, by that time it was too late!
 
Oh yeah, I forgot to ask -- did you book the bounceback for next year while you were there? We ended up not using our laptop and there were never in of the flyers in our room...so I didn't even know about it until we got home on the 2nd, by that time it was too late!
No we didn't book the bounceback promo. We saw it on channel 19 and we overheard a manager mentioning it to another guest when we where checking in. We are buying AKV in 2008. DH will not finance it so we need to use our 2008 vacation fund to go towards the purchase. We are also unsure of our dates. last year we did free dining mid Sept. Crowds were so light and it was hot, but not too hot. This year DD did not want to miss school so we went 8/21-9/5 and up until 9/4 it was pretty crowded. Also it was HOT!!! Africa HOT!!! or as Bawb would say "It's hotter than asphalt":rotfl: ;) Anyway, we have to figure out when we are going to visit from now on.:confused:

Oh and I read your post about them not closing your door. Unbelievable!!!:sad2:
DisneyBride'03 said:
So when is your nest trip???
We are taking next year off. So 2009.:scared1:
 
The heat and the crowds were a big turn-off for us as well. We've decided to do Disneyland in 2008...so we won't be back until 2009 either (so it's probably a good thing I didn't find out about the promo on time).

Summer @ WDW is like childbirth...it is pure pain and misery while you are there, but you soon forget just how bad it was and get ready to do it again!!! :teeth:
 
:lmao: You are so right!!!!

it was amazing to see how deserted YC/BC was the day after Labor Day..a ghost town, we practically had SAB to ourselves!!!

Well we did the BIG bounce back promo..DVC, lol Our TV didnt work well so we never had it on when in our room!
We managed by doing the parks early am til abt noon, back to hotel and out later. I did enjoy March's weather much better!!

coco..oops..meant neXt.lol
Hey...AKV:) its worth a trip off to have many many more!!!!
 
Summer @ WDW is like childbirth...it is pure pain and misery while you are there, but you soon forget just how bad it was and get ready to do it again!!! :teeth:

So true!!!:lmao: :lmao: :lmao:

We managed by doing the parks early am til abt noon, back to hotel and out later.

That's exactly what we did. :goodvibes As for post labor day crowds tuesday we rode EE at AK 5 times in a row walk on at 9:30! Dh finally couldn't take it anymore :scared: :lmao:
 
so sorry to hear your stay at okw was filled with so many problems. We own at BW & BC but love OKW. We had a similar problem last thanksgiving with our BW stay, one problem after another but sometimes things just happen and unfortunately sometimes they keep happening to the same person in one stay.

We were at at Beach Club from 8/19 to 24th then over to the BW until the 27th of August and our stay/villa was fantastic.

The heat is always there in August the problem we found this August were the Crowds - were did all those people come from, we've been going every August since 2001 (minus 2006) and never experienced 70 minute waits before, usually tops was 30 minutes. We felt it was much more crowded than Thanksgiving was. We were at Disneyland last august and it was hot and crowded there - also we didn't think the CM's were as friendly - imho

I love the heat - but hate the crowds so we are trying September next year.
 
Ooh I hope our stay at OKW is better than what happened to you:scared1: ! I hate to hear that the CM was so rude. If that would have happened to me, I would have thought about it all day :sad2: and it would have ruined my first day at Disney.

We stayed in OKW last year for the 1st time and absolutely love it and decided that was the only place for us:thumbsup2 . We had stayed at POR in '05 and thought the beds were a tad small and trying to eat breakfast in the food court was just a little too crowded and hectic for us. Did not seem like a vacation when you had to fight your way thru the lines or to get a table.:confused3 We thought OKW had superb service and accomodations although I think our bathroom door didn't lock either...:confused3

We are going back 12/16 thru 12/23 to OKW and hope we don't encounter any of the problems you did. Again, sorry to hear that but glad everything turned out okay in the end.:thumbsup2
 
I'm glad to hear you liked the BC! The location really is a spoiler! I'm sorry to hear about the problems at OKW. We just booked there for February. I hope your report is not a premonition of bad things to come for us!
 
Hey Cocowum, we were in SSR Congress Park 2710. Sorry we missed ya.
Did you love that location as much as we did?:love:



Ooh I hope our stay at OKW is better than what happened to you:scared1: ! I hate to hear that the CM was so rude. If that would have happened to me, I would have thought about it all day :sad2: and it would have ruined my first day at Disney.

We stayed in OKW last year for the 1st time and absolutely love it and decided that was the only place for us:thumbsup2 . We had stayed at POR in '05 and thought the beds were a tad small and trying to eat breakfast in the food court was just a little too crowded and hectic for us. Did not seem like a vacation when you had to fight your way thru the lines or to get a table.:confused3 We thought OKW had superb service and accomodations although I think our bathroom door didn't lock either...:confused3

We are going back 12/16 thru 12/23 to OKW and hope we don't encounter any of the problems you did. Again, sorry to hear that but glad everything turned out okay in the end.:thumbsup2
I'm sure your stay will be fine. I think we were alittle unlucky. As for the bathroom door it wasn't the lock, it was the actual door it would not latch and would swing open.:confused3


I'm glad to hear you liked the BC! The location really is a spoiler! I'm sorry to hear about the problems at OKW. We just booked there for February. I hope your report is not a premonition of bad things to come for us!
Yes, the BC's location is definitely a spoiler!
 
I can't believe so many bad things happened at one time! We are booked into OKW as it was the only villas available - I hope that's not a premonition! We have always stayed at BCV and loved, loved, loved it there.
 
I'm sorry you had a bad experience at OKW, but glad to hear you enjoyed the rest of your trip at BC and SSR.

Please, please, please, send a letter (not email) to DVC with a copy to WDW Guest Communications sharing your experience at OKW. As a DVC member ourselves, you will be doing all of us a favor, particularly as a cash paying guest, by reporting all of the problems you experienced.

Feel free to PM me if you need to know where to send it.
 
I can't believe so many bad things happened at one time! We are booked into OKW as it was the only villas available - I hope that's not a premonition! We have always stayed at BCV and loved, loved, loved it there.


Bad things happen at all of the resorts. We too just returned from our late August stay at OKW and BCV. Both resorts we had to wait until after 4:00PM for our rooms. We had no problems at either. Our room at OKW was perfect and everything worked. We did a luggage transfer when changing from OKW to BCV and arranged a pickup time for 9:30AM and the bell service folks were at our door promptly at that time. Transferred our luggage and it was at the BCV waiting for us. We had no issues with the DDP or the CMs. My 13 year old grandson loved the community center and basketball court at OKW and when asked which one he liked the best between OKW and BCV, he choose OKW (to my surprise). SAB has never wowed him and since he has a pool at home, pools are not biggies to him. I personally liked BCV better, but did enjoy our first time stay at OKW too. It's too bad that the OP had such a series of unfortunate issues with OKW, but glad to see she resolved them and made the best of it by getting moved to SSR.
 
Bad things happen at all of the resorts. We too just returned from our late August stay at OKW and BCV. Both resorts we had to wait until after 4:00PM for our rooms. We had no problems at either. Our room at OKW was perfect and everything worked. We did a luggage transfer when changing from OKW to BCV and arranged a pickup time for 9:30AM and the bell service folks were at our door promptly at that time. Transferred our luggage and it was at the BCV waiting for us. We had no issues with the DDP or the CMs. My 13 year old grandson loved the community center and basketball court at OKW and when asked which one he liked the best between OKW and BCV, he choose OKW (to my surprise). SAB has never wowed him and since he has a pool at home, pools are not biggies to him. I personally liked BCV better, but did enjoy our first time stay at OKW too. It's too bad that the OP had such a series of unfortunate issues with OKW, but glad to see she resolved them and made the best of it by getting moved to SSR.

Glad to hear you had such a nice time at BCV and OKW!!

Just FYI, check-in time at DVC resorts is after 4:00 PM. They changed their policy a while back. :)
 


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