and let's just say, we wouldn't stay there again. Very bummed as this was our first visit and I was so looking forward to the atmosphere. The atmosphere and transporation convenience were fine. The room itself and some unsatisfactory service were not.
We got in early Thursday morning, about 9 AM...room wasn't ready but that wasn't a big deal as we weren't expecting it to be ready. I was super excited to learn that I got both my room requests...first floor of the Tokelau building. We checked our bags with valet and away to Epcot we went. I got a text about 3:30 with our room # and the rest of the afternoon at Epcot was spent wondering what room 1940 would be like after ALL the months of dreaming about it. LOL Perhaps that was my mistake...
When we finally got back and went to the Tokelau building, the first thing we noticed was that the outside automatic door was stuck open (and remained that way for the rest of our stay). Not a big deal but I had hoped it would be fixed. We opened the door to our room and there was a musty odor. Again, not a huge deal as I had read reviews and packed some Febreze. The room seemed well worn, the bedspreads showed signs of frequent washing (a good thing!). The location of the room was awesome...first floor with a patio with a direct view of the quiet pool. That was nice.
We had 3 lights out in the room and we told ourselves it was no big deal, we aren't the type to make a big stink about much. The first thing that really bothered me was the bathroom. There was paint peeling everywhere and paint chips could even be found on the floor upon check in and although I cleaned them up myself - had to because they were sticking to our feet/shoes and getting tracked into the room they kept coming off the door and Mousekeeping overlooked it. The wall and ceiling tiles had stains. And there were bugs, several different varieties...ones that appeared to be centipede like in nature. Fortunatly, no bed bugs or love bugs but yucky enough. We debated on whether we should call and complain or just leave it alone since we weren't planning on being in the room too much. We were running behind for an ADR at GF so we decided to leave it alone and we stayed there for another few nights before the final straw happened.
One more annoyance before the final straw...I had placed a Garden Grocer order that was delivered on time and the front desk was holding it until we had access to our room. Once we were in our room, we had Bell Services bring it to us and they only brought one of 5 bags...they had misplaced the rest and it took them until the next morning to find them.
The final straw was that the internet jack was broken. We returned to the room late Saturday night and needed access to do our fantasy football for the week and imagine our surprise to learn that the cable connection was actually broken off in the jack, so bad that my DH (who is an IT Support Specialist) couldn't fix it. He must have spent an hour working on it and got aggrevated and then we stepped back and looked at the big picture...all of the little things wrong with the room, while little, added up to be big aggrevation. So my DH went down to the front desk to see what could be done. He came back about 20 minutes later to say that we were being moved to Fiji (I was bummed...I loved our location, just wanted a room that was clean and had everything in working order) and that bell services was on their way to assist. It being 11:30 and having three children sleeping peacefully, I knew that if we woke them and told them we were moving tonight and they got to ride on a golf cart that they would NEVER go back to sleep. I called the front desk and nicely asked that they wait until the morning and got some resistance but once I explained the dilemma, they were agreeable but let me know that bell services can't be guaranteed in the morning. I said that was fine. So my DH and I spent the rest of the night packing up our room so that we could move prior to our 7:35 AM ADR for breakfast.
We moved early the next morning and while I preferred our Tokelau location, the Fiji building had nice views of the marina and was closer to the volcano pool which excited the kids. The room was okay, no paint in the bathroom but the room was similar to Tokelau's in that it needed TLC.
To sum it up, the two longhouses I was in at the Poly certainly need renovation! We were disappointed, considering the money spent to stay at a deluxe resort. The grounds and location/convenience of the Poly are certainly what make people come back again and again...it's what brought us there in the first place. But there are two other monorail resorts and after spending some time at the GF for meals and the movies on the beach, we decided we will spend a little extra and stay there next time. In fact, we got a bounce back offer and I'd like to try to book there.
I guess as long as you know what to expect, you will be fine at the Poly, barring any unforeseen room problems like we ran into. It being our first trip, we just weren't prepared for the sad state of the rooms.
Just our two cents, from our experience...
This report from the OP has made me appreciate WL even more. Don't pay as much for it, but a great resort. Although I'd like to continue to try other resorts I wonder about pushing the envelope and why mess with a good thing. Maybe we should just stick with a good thing. Now I think all other stays will be compared to the high bar that WL has set. I think too, I better not look back.
