Just back from contemporary

[cassie714]

Well we just got back from the contemporary and I am glad i stayed there but wouldn't do it again. Our room was very nice. We were on the 10th floor on the magic kingdom side. We were not bothered at all by the construction. Our room overlooked chef mickeys and the kids liked to look down at all the characters. They moved the front desk in the middle of our stay which really confused me early in the morning. We had a few problems with maid service. The front desk ended up sending a chocolate monorail up to our room the last day to say sorry. The transportation was absolutely horrible. We were sharing buses with the GF, Poly and wilderness lodge. I felt this was absolutely ridiculous. The transportation manager ended up giving our entire party priority passes for the parks one day, so they did make an effort. I felt like asking for a fast pass for the bus though. It took us almost 2 hours one day to get to mgm between waiting for the bus and the route it took.
The grab and go had very little selection and I was disappointed we could not get refillable mugs.
I am glad we stayed because i have wanted to stay there for a while but I just did not find it to be worth the extra money. We really just don't spend enough time in the hotel. But now my children will always be able to remember the time we stayed at disney and watched fireworks from our balcony.
FYI- I had made all my AdR in advance but we really wanted to have breakfast at chef mickey's which I didn't reserve. We were able to get in at the last minute for our party of 9. So it is always worth it to ask even after you arrive.

 

[MinnieFan4ever]

I wonder if they day you went to MGM was during the time they had some roads closed? I remember reading something about that.

 

[ciera321]

What time of day did you have the problems getting to MGM --- That's our DS favorite park and I certainly don't want to wait THAT long for a bus!!!

 

[Endeavour105]

Well we just got back from the contemporary and I am glad i stayed there but wouldn't do it again. Our room was very nice. We were on the 10th floor on the magic kingdom side. We were not bothered at all by the construction. Our room overlooked chef mickeys and the kids liked to look down at all the characters. They moved the front desk in the middle of our stay which really confused me early in the morning. We had a few problems with maid service. The front desk ended up sending a chocolate monorail up to our room the last day to say sorry. The transportation was absolutely horrible. We were sharing buses with the GF, Poly and wilderness lodge. I felt this was absolutely ridiculous. The transportation manager ended up giving our entire party priority passes for the parks one day, so they did make an effort. I felt like asking for a fast pass for the bus though. It took us almost 2 hours one day to get to mgm between waiting for the bus and the route it took. The grab and go had very little selection and I was disappointed we could not get refillable mugs.
I am glad we stayed because i have wanted to stay there for a while but I just did not find it to be worth the extra money. We really just don't spend enough time in the hotel. But now my children will always be able to remember the time we stayed at disney and watched fireworks from our balcony.
FYI- I had made all my AdR in advance but we really wanted to have breakfast at chef mickey's which I didn't reserve. We were able to get in at the last minute for our party of 9. So it is always worth it to ask even after you arrive.

You could have taken the resort monorail to the TTC and then the MGM bus directly to that park.

 

[cassie714]

True we could have taken the monorail to TTC and then caught a bus. But we didn't think of it at the time and frankly if i am staying on site I expect to have transportation that is at least equal to those who are not.

 

[triplefigs]

Can you elaborate on the problems with Mousekeeping? How was the bus to AK?

 

[cassie714]

The problems with mousekeeping were little things the first couple of days. They didn't give us new shampoos or soap the first couple of days or replenish our coffee. When we called housekeeping they said they would send someone up later but never did. They took our dirty towels but didn't give us new ones. One day our room was skipped all together. We had been at the parks all day and returned to our room around 5 and it was not done.
I finally spoke to a night manager at the front desk and things where great after that.

The bus to the animal kingdom was long also but that is the first time I took the bus there from any hotel so I don't know what is usual. We usually drive there. We were vacationing with my brother who didn't have a car so we had to rely on the buses. My main complaint with the buses was that we were sharing with all the other hotels and the lack of buses even then. Coming back from MGM we watched every other stop have 2 and 3 buses come in before ours finally did.

I am aware that sometimes the buses are a hit or miss but trust me I was not the only one complaining.

 

[Buzz2001]

Sorry about your stay. I agree with you regarding the buses. Wasn't worth it to me to spend the extra money and not get better service than a mod. Shared transportation is the pits.

 

[Mickeyluver37]

Interesting!!! We just got back from ASMu today, and I thought the bus situation was really, really, *REALLY* bad. I didn't realize it was all over property! We stayed at YC last time and never had a problem. I think we'll go back to renting a car and ditching DME for future trips no matter where we stay.

 

[dijid]

We were at the CR from 8/29 - 9/5 and share your mousekeeping woes. We joked that our wash cloths were allotted once for the whole stay. We were constantly "stealing" things from their carts to replenish the items that never made it back to our room!

Do you think the buses were a problem because it's value season? We were there only a few weeks before you, yet bus service was better than we expected. (Regular buses, DME was awful) We shared with Poly to AK and Wilderness Lodge to MGM - but never with more than one resort. They ran at least every 20 minutes, going and returning. Hmmmmm...

 

[SharonLowe]

The problems with mousekeeping were little things the first couple of days. They didn't give us new shampoos or soap the first couple of days or replenish our coffee. When we called housekeeping they said they would send someone up later but never did. They took our dirty towels but didn't give us new ones. One day our room was skipped all together. We had been at the parks all day and returned to our room around 5 and it was not done.
I finally spoke to a night manager at the front desk and things where great after that.

The bus to the animal kingdom was long also but that is the first time I took the bus there from any hotel so I don't know what is usual. We usually drive there. We were vacationing with my brother who didn't have a car so we had to rely on the buses. My main complaint with the buses was that we were sharing with all the other hotels and the lack of buses even then. Coming back from MGM we watched every other stop have 2 and 3 buses come in before ours finally did.

I am aware that sometimes the buses are a hit or miss but trust me I was not the only one complaining.

We had problems with the bus transportation too when we were at CR in June. They seemed to be coming no more frequent than every 30 minutes, and yes, we shared so it took forever to get to DTD. Someone who had waited even longer than us found a manager to complain to and finally a bus came. Looked like it had been diverted from MK. We also weren't thrilled with monorail service to Epcot. Fortunately, we were doing a split stay and moved to AKL where the bus service is much better.

 

[Alicnwondrln]

thats to bad about the buses. We have stayed at the monorail resorts and its great to MK but the dwitching to Epcot is a pain in the butt and I feel like it takes forever. I dont know why they would combine all those resorts it makes no sense.

 

[boomhauer]

Been reading alot of complaints about the buses lately. Surprises me. Disney's best bet at keeping people on property and away from competition is to have stellar on-site bus service. If it's not any good, more people are going to start renting cars and naturally leave Disney property to spend money elsewhere.

 

[CR Resort Fan 4 Life]

I am sorry you're stay at the Contemporary was not that magical. There is no excuse for bad service at any WDW Resort, however when my parents and I were there from 8/7-8/17 we had no problems with housekeeping, the renovations to the 4th floor started a few days before we left but we did still hear all the noise, the only time we used the bus was to MGM and both times going there and coming back we waited 5 minutes for each location and I guess we were lucky that the Food & Fun Center was still open when I expected it to be closed.

 

[SandrainNC]

I'm sorry you had problems! This trip coming up will be our first stay there and I am so excited!!!!

We always take our car to the parks (ok, we will be walking to Magic Kingdom this time - yeah!), but I do not like to have to rely on others to get me where I need to go. So we drive. If we decide to stay for Illuminations we will also drive. If we are not going to stay, then we will take the monorail.

Sandra

 

[Lilolvr]

Sorry about your recent visit.

 

[LilGMom]

At least you can say that you did stay at CR which is about all I will say about it. I too was less than thrilled with our one and only stay at CR and have no plans to ever stay there again. If you get a room on the north side of WL (primarily overlooking the service entrance) you can watch the fireworks from your balcony too! Sorry you had such a bad experience.

 

[thptrek]

It does seem that bus service is highly variable from person to person and from resort to resort. You can see trip reports during the same time period and people have vastly different experiences.

 

[mom22boys]

We have stayed at the monorail resorts and its great to MK but the dwitching to Epcot is a pain in the butt and I feel like it takes forever.

We also weren't thrilled with monorail service to Epcot.

Uh,oh. We were thinking about spending the big $$$ for a monorail resort, probably the Poly, but it doesn't sound like either of you were too impressed with the EP monorail. Could you share a little more? Does the monorail just not come frequently enough or is the ride itself long?

I have also wondered about the shared transportation between GF, Poly, CR, and WL. We stayed at Pop in 2006 and loved how it had its own bus. Everyone always comments about AKL being so far away, but I think its transporation has got to be better than some of these other deluxes who share buses.

 

[cassie714]

I assume the shared buses was due to the value season. ( we were there last week) But it was busy, not crazy but busy. We usually go in october or July, so i really am used to both.

As far as epcot that was fine. If we went from the magic kingdom to epcot we just loaded the express monorail and then could walk right on the epcot monorail. If you are coming directly from the resorts you have to walk around which can be annoying if it is raining. But the wait was very minimal, most times it was there.