Just back from POR... very disappointed

zakatak

<font color=deeppink>Cinderella looked at me like
Joined
Jan 18, 2001
Messages
1,872
First of all, let me preface this post by saying that I have stayed at AKL, ASMu, and POR before. The POR stay was last Thanksgiving. I was excited about bringing my husband to that resort.

We arrived on Thursday, July 3rd at 11am and our room was ready. They did give me a room based on my requests, so that was GREAT! We were there for 7 nights and these are the things that were not "good"...

1) Housekeeping. Whoa, what housekeeping? Our room was never done before 4pm, unless we specifically called and requested it. This might not be a problem for some, but with three small children, that is our nap time. Which meant that most days, the room wasn't done at all. :( One afternoon we awoke to a message on the phone that we were sleeping so the maid left a bag of towels and shampoos/things on the door. NOPE! No bag! Either she didn't leave them or someone took them. We constantly had to call for more towels. Just bothersome, is all. The day before we checked out, I walked into the room at 1pm and immediately noticed that we had a new housekeeper. The beds were actually made up TIGHT, the stuffed toys and dolls were arranged on the bed, the towels were displayed nicely, etc... Exactly what I expected for the entire trip, not the last day. Very disappointing.

2) Bus service was very slow. All the depots were open, however, some mornings we waiting 30-45 minutes for a bus. On July 4th, Friday, AK had EMH. We were at the bus stop at 7:15am. We arrived at AK at 8:30am! Meanwhile 3 MK busses pulled up and away EMPTY! Oye!

3) The main bus stop was disgusting! There was so much garbage around that didn't get picked up. Beer bottles, water bottles with pop in them, etc... left for days at a time! Wrappers, and pop cans strewn about. It was so bad that my ds(7) started picking up the garbage and throwing it out himself! (Yes, I know people can be pigs, BUT I've never seen Disney not pick it up for days!!!)

4) The garbage wasn't just at the bus stop. I walked by the same wrappers and cigarette boxes on other paths for days. One day, the housekeeper or guest?? left a very large clear plastic garbage bag FULL of garbage outside our door and it sat there for over 24 hours! Hello? Gross.

Basically, I was very disappointed between this trip and last November. There is obviously not enough help at POR to maintain their own grounds. My dh will never return there. I, myself, was embarrased that I recommended it. I really liked it in November.

FYI... all food court areas were open, the boat is running, and all bus stops are open.

Karen
 
Hi Karen..

How were the crowds at the parks and did you enjoy the parks?

Did you have any great meals you can share? I am still looking for ideas :)

Sorry about the housekeeping issues ~ do you feel that couples travelling without small children (who need naps) would be happy with the service?

Thanx

>>^..^<<
 
The Grand Floridian is very nice. Clean. Spotless actually! There were CM's dusting the outside railings all day! I was a little disappointed in no towel animals :( but the room was very beautiful. We were in room 9218 (Big Pine Key)... don't get that room. It is right over the doorway and we heard the darn electric door all the time. lol... In and out, in and out... all night long. lol

The pools were awesome! We rented some watermice. I actually almost sank one! Oops... huge wave from the ferry boat. Swamped us and the boat.

GF is a beautiful resort. Saturdays are fun watching all the brides!

Karen
 

Hi Karen! What a shame your stay was not a good one. I hope you write or email someone at POR and let them know about your problems. What building were you in? We were there last August in AB Bldg. 26, and had a lovely stay. Everyday the towel animals were in a defferent place. Going down the porch it was really fun to look in other people's windows to see what had been made from the towels.!!! It really seems shocking that there was trash and garbage around. It is something you usually don't see!

The bus situation seems really bad too! I hope the bus schedules are in good shape in January!

Deb
 
<<^..^>> The parks were very crowded and hot. We got MUCH less accomplished this trip than other times. We were roasted and toasted by noon! There is NO LACK of people at WDW. For instance, EMHs were crazy! MGM emh... my son and I rushed to TOT, rode it at 8:10am (we were at rope drop!), ran over to RnRC right after and it had a 50 minute wait at 8:30am! EMH at MK on Thursday had a 20 minute wait for Peter Pan at 8:30am. Crazy crowds.

My best meals... boy, did I eat! Breakfastosaurus was great, Liberty Tree for lunch or dinner, Boma as always, and JIKO was great too! 1900 Park Fair for breakfast was also great. I think Prime Time 50's gave me food poisoning this trip (although it was good lol). Everyone who had the green beans was sick that night (me the worse). Weird.

I always expect my room to be done by 1pm. Anything after that is not convienent. There were no towel animals for the entire 10 days! Either at POR or GF... darn it all! Even with tips!

We won't be returning for a while...at least 4 years. We are officially disney'd out.
 
There were no towel animals for the entire 10 days!

Just to let you know we've stayed at the WDW resorts on all levels, many times over the years and I've NEVER seen a towel animal. So, I don't think they're really all that common and therefore shouldn't technically be something one should expect to have done.
 
I didn't "expect" them, I hoped for them. We did receive them at AKL when we stayed there. Oh well. Maybe next time.

Karen
 
That sounds like an unreasonable amount of trash, especially since you say it was all over the resort. Did you report it to guest services? Disney prices are too expensive to see those kind of conditions.
 
So sorry to hear of your disappointments!

I wonder if the "messes" were due to the maintanance layoffs that have been recently taking place.... it's just too bad that cutbacks would include such important health and safety resources such as maintanance....

I would definitely write a letter expressing your disappointment.

Sue
 
I agree and hope this is not a result of the maintenance staff reductions happening at WDW. Those are very important jobs to maintain the high standards at Disney. I would definitely write a complaint letter to the hotel management.
 
Considering it was our resort room that had the 2 giant bags of garbage (not put there by us) sitting outside of it for 2 days, I'd have to agree with the complaints for POR. Our rooms were done late everyday and not done very well (with the exception of 1 day). I didn't specifically note the garbage until it was pointed out but I'm usually a little busy keeping my 3 kids in sight. The garbage was definately there though. The bus service was HORRIBLE!!! What a relief to switch over to a monorail resort mid trip.

Grand Floridian, for the second time, was outstanding. We did have to wait too long for a return bus from AK but that would be my only complaint. We tried the 1900 Cinderella dinner and I would recommend it strongly..

I am posting this from Beach Club...so far, so good. We still prefer Grand Floridian (personal tastes) but we have no complaints. We haven't taken a bus from here yet so I'll have to wait to give an opinion about transportation. The pool is fantastic. The kids loved the sand today. As great as the pool is I wouldn't want to swim here for a full week until the kids were old enough to wander alone. My kids will probably want to stay in the sand area and I cannot see doing that for a full week. It's wonderful and relaxing for a few days though. Plus my DH and I had a fairy Godmother scheduled for tonight so we were able to spend about 90 minutes floating around the lazy river...

Jess
 
Bummer. If you saw the trash at the Bus Stops that means several other guests saw the same thing. Unacceptable on Disney property. Definitely something I would express my disappointment with. It doesn't sound like you're the type that would complain to get something for free. I really feel that a heartfelt letter expressing your dissatisfaction would be much appreciated feedback.

Other than some issues with the resort, it sounds like you had a good time. Hopefully, you will decide to go back sooner than later.
 
Sorry to hear this. I only made it one night at POR. Very disappointed as well. Moved to a different resort the second day.
 
Hi Jess.. enjoy the beach club!

I am looking forward to more of your comments when you have a chance... I am staying at BC in about a month.

Have fun,

>>^..^<<
 
:eek: I'm so sorry to hear about yur experience at POR. I have not been to Disney since February of 1992 and have 3 rooms booked at POR July 17 - 25. I will try to keep a positive outlook and hope that this was just an isolated incident. But I'm glad we're driving down and if the busses are that crummy, I can at least drive to the different parks.
 
I am really disappointed to hear about the mess, we will be at POR in August. I have always liked going to Disney because it is always spotlessly clean.
 
I hope this is an isolated incident and not what we have to look forward to! I'll be at POR next week. Has anyone else had any experiences like this?
 
hi

i was just curious as to if you complained to guest service while you were at the POR?? we arrive at POR 7/16 and this type of service and garbage would have been unacceptable to me.

i would have complained to guest services as i feel we pay a good price to stay at these resorts and expect a certain level of service and cleaniness- whether you stay at a deluxe, moderate or value resort you shouldn't have these problems daily

sure, you could write a letter now to complain about your experiences during your stay but i firmly believe it would have been more effective and to your benifit if you had complained while you were at the POR

i am sorry you didn't have the level of service you deserved!!

just my two cents

lisa

:p
 
No, we didn't complain while we were there about the garbage. We did, however, complain about the bus situation. My friend got this response, "POR went back to 100% last week and we weren't ready.". That was from the bus driver himself. My husband asked about it also and his response was, "We are 200 bus drivers short". So... yes, we got an answer but nothing that fixed the situation.

I guess we never thought about complaining about the garbage. It isn't me to make a fuss.

Bratray, let me know if the situation has improved at all. There was a post a week before we left stating the same thing and I thought it was exagerated... but it wasn't. I'll see if I can find the post and link to it.

Karen
 














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