- Joined
- Apr 10, 2001
- Messages
- 1,829
we just got back from WDW a few days ago. in general the trip was kind of disappointing. 
i was gonna go into all the details... but never mind about that.
i'll just keep the report to BWV.
we checked in around 7pm Sat night. amazingly the room met our room requests (located over Big River Grille, high floor + non-HA). i had prepared myself and expected to not have any room requests met since we were checking in so late. but it was a pleasant surprise. it was unclear if the room was preassigned, or if the CM checking me in happened to find a room that met the requests.
we had dedicated non-smoking studio 5031 overlooking the basketball + ring toss games.
we'd wanted to try this specific location because it has a wide open view of Crescent Lake + Spaceship Earth without being really far from the elevators.
the recent report about the incessant loud ringing of the boardwalk games had me worried, but it actually wasn't that bad because we go to bed late, so the ringing stopped by the time we wanted to sleep.
anyway, i forgot to bring the checklist of things that are supposed to be a studio, so didn't get a chance to do that inspection.
things did appear to be pretty clean at first, no crumbs on the ground or anything like what has been reported in the past. later we found (as usual) very dirty cups, one of them with soda pull tabs in them, and a dirty kitchenette sink.
late at night, we noticed a few minor maintenance issues: the vanity sink was kind of clogged so drained too slowly, and the bathtub faucet leaked a little.
we decided we didn't feel like having maintenance in the room, so we chose to deal with it since we're only there for 2 nights and report the issues to the front desk later when we checked out.
the next morning while getting ready to go to the parks, both dbf and i noticed we had 5 or 6 red marks each on our hands that looked like bug bites. they burned, but did not start itching until later that day. when we stopped by our room that afternoon to pickup some new water bottles, we decided we should look around for bedbugs or any other insects in the room.
so that afternoon, we checked the bed... there were no bugs on the bed. then we looked behind the bed and noticed a few very small light-reddish-brown ants crawling. we looked around the other side of the bed (under the mirror) and there was another ant there. dbf immediately went to the side of the room with the balcony and looked in the bottom corner there, and there had to be about 20 or 30 ants crawling around in a line along the walls of the room, and up the wall into the high corner of the room. it looked like there might've been a crack in the corner between the wall and the floor. it's also possible that there was a crack in the high corner along the white ledge, because the ants were clearly crawling to/from 2 locations.
we immediately called the front desk to report the ant infestation, and ask if we could change rooms. the CM apologized and allowed us to change to a different room. they also sent Pest Control up to spray, and explained that sometimes they might spray the rooms around us that have ants, and the ants just go into a different room (our room for example), and that "normally" BWV guests don't have any ants in their room. i suggested that they need to work on getting rid of all the ants because this is not acceptable, but she again claimed that BWV does not really have an ant problem, and our case was "unusual".
in any case, after wasting park-time dealing with our situation, we packed up everything, and moved over to room 2015, a smoking-optional lockoff studio also over Big River Grill.
dbf of course checked all over to make sure there were no ants.
btw, later that night we found that the bathtub faucet also leaked in our new room, plus the tub was really clogged, and the tub floor was blackened with dirt. since it was our last night, we just decided that at check-out we would tell the front desk about all the maintenance problems in both rooms. we were really bummed out and just wanted to go to sleep and come home the next day. *sigh*
that is the the first trip to WDW where, on the last night, i was happy to be leaving WDW the next day. i guess it was just a case of too much Disney in one year, and a string of annoying events... one of which was the BWV ants problem.
i'm drafting a letter regarding the ants (which after researching, i believe they were fire ants, i have a picture of one of the ants in case anyone is curious). i am still unsure of who i should be sending the letter to, so if anyone has a suggestion, that would be helpful.
from what i recall, fire ants are a huge problem in Florida, and i really hope that they can stop the problem from spreading in WDW. i remember some much more unpleasant reports about BCV ant problems this year, so it looks like it has spread over to BWV now.
anyway, i'm happy to be home, but the itching, burning, painful bites on my hands are a constant reminder of the BWV ants.
(oh btw, this is long enough, but i'd wanted to mention that when we asked to be changed to a different room, they told me that the rooms overlooking the Boardwalk Green above Wyland Galleries, those rooms are definitely NOT Boardwalk View rooms. they are Pool/Garden View. just FYI)
i was gonna go into all the details... but never mind about that.
i'll just keep the report to BWV.
we checked in around 7pm Sat night. amazingly the room met our room requests (located over Big River Grille, high floor + non-HA). i had prepared myself and expected to not have any room requests met since we were checking in so late. but it was a pleasant surprise. it was unclear if the room was preassigned, or if the CM checking me in happened to find a room that met the requests.
we had dedicated non-smoking studio 5031 overlooking the basketball + ring toss games.
we'd wanted to try this specific location because it has a wide open view of Crescent Lake + Spaceship Earth without being really far from the elevators.
the recent report about the incessant loud ringing of the boardwalk games had me worried, but it actually wasn't that bad because we go to bed late, so the ringing stopped by the time we wanted to sleep.
anyway, i forgot to bring the checklist of things that are supposed to be a studio, so didn't get a chance to do that inspection.
things did appear to be pretty clean at first, no crumbs on the ground or anything like what has been reported in the past. later we found (as usual) very dirty cups, one of them with soda pull tabs in them, and a dirty kitchenette sink.
late at night, we noticed a few minor maintenance issues: the vanity sink was kind of clogged so drained too slowly, and the bathtub faucet leaked a little.
we decided we didn't feel like having maintenance in the room, so we chose to deal with it since we're only there for 2 nights and report the issues to the front desk later when we checked out.
the next morning while getting ready to go to the parks, both dbf and i noticed we had 5 or 6 red marks each on our hands that looked like bug bites. they burned, but did not start itching until later that day. when we stopped by our room that afternoon to pickup some new water bottles, we decided we should look around for bedbugs or any other insects in the room.
so that afternoon, we checked the bed... there were no bugs on the bed. then we looked behind the bed and noticed a few very small light-reddish-brown ants crawling. we looked around the other side of the bed (under the mirror) and there was another ant there. dbf immediately went to the side of the room with the balcony and looked in the bottom corner there, and there had to be about 20 or 30 ants crawling around in a line along the walls of the room, and up the wall into the high corner of the room. it looked like there might've been a crack in the corner between the wall and the floor. it's also possible that there was a crack in the high corner along the white ledge, because the ants were clearly crawling to/from 2 locations.
we immediately called the front desk to report the ant infestation, and ask if we could change rooms. the CM apologized and allowed us to change to a different room. they also sent Pest Control up to spray, and explained that sometimes they might spray the rooms around us that have ants, and the ants just go into a different room (our room for example), and that "normally" BWV guests don't have any ants in their room. i suggested that they need to work on getting rid of all the ants because this is not acceptable, but she again claimed that BWV does not really have an ant problem, and our case was "unusual".
in any case, after wasting park-time dealing with our situation, we packed up everything, and moved over to room 2015, a smoking-optional lockoff studio also over Big River Grill.
dbf of course checked all over to make sure there were no ants.
btw, later that night we found that the bathtub faucet also leaked in our new room, plus the tub was really clogged, and the tub floor was blackened with dirt. since it was our last night, we just decided that at check-out we would tell the front desk about all the maintenance problems in both rooms. we were really bummed out and just wanted to go to sleep and come home the next day. *sigh*
that is the the first trip to WDW where, on the last night, i was happy to be leaving WDW the next day. i guess it was just a case of too much Disney in one year, and a string of annoying events... one of which was the BWV ants problem.
i'm drafting a letter regarding the ants (which after researching, i believe they were fire ants, i have a picture of one of the ants in case anyone is curious). i am still unsure of who i should be sending the letter to, so if anyone has a suggestion, that would be helpful.
from what i recall, fire ants are a huge problem in Florida, and i really hope that they can stop the problem from spreading in WDW. i remember some much more unpleasant reports about BCV ant problems this year, so it looks like it has spread over to BWV now.
anyway, i'm happy to be home, but the itching, burning, painful bites on my hands are a constant reminder of the BWV ants.
(oh btw, this is long enough, but i'd wanted to mention that when we asked to be changed to a different room, they told me that the rooms overlooking the Boardwalk Green above Wyland Galleries, those rooms are definitely NOT Boardwalk View rooms. they are Pool/Garden View. just FYI)
