Just back from SSR - not the best experience

[disneynutz]

Well, we were at SSR from the 15th to the 22nd and I have to agree about the crowds. They were awful. We knew they would be higher than when we normally go in May, but it was a bit ridiculous when we arrived one day at Disney Studios soon after opening and the FP for RNR was already up to 3:15pm. In 6 hours we saw one show and rode three rides. Yikes! We had 10-day passes and decided not to go into the parks but one day. Unfortunately, we had no choice on the dates since we were tacking on a few days with a conference for DH.

Concerning SSR, I have to agree again with the OP. Our rooms were lovely. We stayed in a 1-bedroom on points the first 3 nights and then moved to a studio for the conference. Darn that company! They weren't willing to pay for the 1-bedroom. Both rooms were in great shape and we were able to get a good taste of the resort by staying in Congress Park and then the Grandstand. The 1-bedroom had a fabulous view of DD.

Now after saying that, I don't think that DH and I will stay at SSR again. While the rooms are great, we are not fond of the resort itself. The people at the front desk, the Turf Club, and some at AP were not very friendly. I think the DD has created some pretty crabby CM's at this resort. You should see those poor people at the AP trying to explain the program to nearly every person in line. You sure can see the frustration in their eyes. I have to say that the head chef at AP was awesome. He saw me waiting and waiting to get service and took it upon himself to come up front to help me. AP was pretty much a disaster. Very long waits over 20 minutes in line every time. And since we didn't go in the parks much, we ate there a number of times. Breakfast was plain ridiculous. They need to increase the size of the facility to serve that many people. One time we finally walked all the way over to DD for lunch with our bathing suits under our clothes just to get something to eat. The bathrooms by AP were always trashed with paper, pool towels, and garbage all over. The place just seemed over crowded all the time.

I know that I may get flamed for this. But staying at SSR made me feel like I was staying at a moderate resort with better rooms. I guess it is just a feeling that we got staying there. I'm sure that others love it as much as we do OKW and BCV. As a matter of fact, we took the boat over to OKW for a day just to decompress. What a relief it was to pool hop there and sit at the gurgling suitcase for a great BBC. SSR just didn't seem relaxing to us. One bright light, the few days that we used the bus system, we had no problems at all. We never waited over 15 minutes for a bus. Not sure what we did right there.

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[BWV Dreamin]

I just wing it, when we stayed at VWL, we were on the WL for BCV or VWL and the VWL villa came open first. I bought VB sight unseen and I was worried we wouldn't like it, but we loved it(might skip KT and add-on there ). Personally I would give AKV a shot, just to try Jiko and Boma. At VWL you could take the boat and hit Cali Grill, Narcooses(sp?) or Citricos also. I'm being so helpful aren't I!

The DDP, you can't escape it, even if you don't do it yourself. We got behind a woman at Peco Bill's last May, who decide she had to check her meal count with the cashier. Then what I think causes the headaches in the CS lines at the resorts, people who don't make up their minds what they want by the time it's there turn to order or have no idea what 2 sides the kids want.

Then of course the whole ADR thing and trying to decide where you want to eat 6 months!

While our rooms and the resort was just perfect (I'm talkin BWV)as well as fantastic weather, my DH is so ready for Vero Beach. It was just way too many people all around everywhere, but I knew traveling at this time of year would be this way. Ok, gonna go for AKV SV studio, hopefully if I call right at 7 mos. for next May, Kidani will be open. Race is at 2p, right? Wonder if its the Aflac car or Office Depot?

 

[Starr W.]

While our rooms and the resort was just perfect (I'm talkin BWV)as well as fantastic weather, my DH is so ready for Vero Beach. It was just way too many people all around everywhere, but I knew traveling at this time of year would be this way. Ok, gonna go for AKV SV studio, hopefully if I call right at 7 mos. for next May, Kidani will be open. Race is at 2p, right? Wonder if its the Aflac car or Office Depot?

Green flag is about 2:21, if you care to miss the pre-race(only can take so much of the Fox guys). The Carl is in the Office Depot car this weekend. He looked pretty racy in practice on Friday, but it's 'Dega so who knows?

Sounds like a good plan!

 

[eva]

Please forward your comments to DVC Member Satisfaction Team.

dvcmembersatisfactionteam@disneyvacationclub.com

We can discuss or experiences on the DIS, but that doesn't change things. Discussing the issues with the Satisfaction Team does.

I have done that about the CM's and the over taxed services already. The rest is just my personal opinion. It has nothing to do with location or theme, which seem to be the main reasons people dislike SSR. I thought the resort was pretty and the rooms very nice. But there was just something in the atmosphere or feel of the place that made me feel like I was staying at the CBR again. Maybe it was the crowded food court or jammed packed pool. I would blame it on the time of year, but DVC resorts are usually near 100% capacity year round anyway. Not really sure why I never really felt relaxed at SSR.

 

[eva]

You know, we were at AKV in a value studio a week prior to you (we were told every single resort DVC and non were at 100%) and it was a great trip but now I don't want to stay in a value studio again. A number of non-DVC issues made the trip not as great as other trips.

1. DH had to work - so he was not with us.
2. The crowds were so bad that it just made the parks less fun to be in.
3. The crowds were so bad that it made dining less relaxing and enjoyable.

A kid pooped in the pool one day and AKV does not have any quiet pools, so the whole thing was shut down. Overall - it just felt like a more stressful vacation - more like we had to "work" to do things (even simple things like walk through the parks and eat). I also HATED the changes to the dining plan. Tried DDxP one day and hated it - found DDE better but still less relaxing than the old prepaid DDP w/gratuity included. I miss the emotional convenience of a 100% pre-paid plan where you don't have to think about money during vacation.

Now, knowing I LOVED AKV last summer - my emotional reaction is to say "maybe if we'd have had a savanna view room it would have felt more like other vacations". But honestly, I think it was just a bunch of factors with the biggest one being unusually large crowds. A value studio with DH relaxed and vacationing with and normal crowds would have probably been fine.

My most negative DVC experience involved a trip where DS got motion sickness and it was cold, crowded, and rainy. None of that was the resort's "fault" - but I still emotionally rank the resort we stayed in at the bottom of my list and I just don't feel like I want to go back there.

I've stayed everywhere but BCV and, so far, I've never had a bad experience that I felt was due to any inherent short-comings of DVC in general or a specific resort.

Totally agree on the studio! DH's conference didn't really interfere with our trip. I was only there two days of the conference. The other days were ones we tacked on. The crowds were a bother. We hadn't planned on going into the parks at first. But since the RNR was closed in October on our last trip, I talked DH into buying tickets. Dining was one place that we did fairly good with. We either ate at less popular places or at off times. We had one of the best meals ever at the Flying Fish. Man those lamb chops and the waiter were both quite memorable. And the White Russians on the verandah of Belle Vue Room afterwards were great. Made it even better that our DVC guide arranged to have one of the vans take us over to the BW for dinner. We were there to visit with her and ran late. All in all, the trip itself was pretty good. We ate at some really good restaurants for dinner and walked our legs off during the day discovering all kinds trails at the resort, to DD and OKW.

 

[brack]

We were at WDW the week before and it was crowded to excess. The wait for everything was greatly increased and yet I had a wonderful time.

If I can really take time to plan and can take the time off that I wish then I would probably not choose April again but having said that .... if it is available and I can do it; then I will .... crowds or not. In doing so I will give WDW as much leaway as I can in my expectations.

 

[barlitz]

We were there also the 16th through the 24th, the busses were fine and there were 11 of us, never had to wait longer than 10-15 minutes for any bus, we also feel the cs at ap is one of the best, we didn't do the dining plan this time, we don't like to be on a schedule, we do have the dde which gives you 20% off at a lot of places including the ap and turf club. The worst part of our trip was we decided to go to the boardwalk to watch the Bruins in game 7 after a visit to mgm, couldn't walk the boardwalk to many people, over an hour for a pizza at the takeout window, forget about getting into espn for the game, we decided to take the boardwalk bus to dtd and walk back to our room at congress park, that wait was a long one plus to many stops on the bus. We love SSR and are already panning a trip again next April in the meantime we have a week planned at akl in Oct.

 

[BroganMc]

After thinking about it, maybe one of our problems on this trip to SSR was that we were without a car. Most trips we drive and stay a couple weeks. Since we had no car and DH's company was paying, we thought we would just eat out all our meals. Normally we eat breakfast in the room and lunch in the parks or around the pool. But since SSR was so crowded, we couldn't find seats at the main pool most days and ended up at the Grandstand quiet pool. Their selection of lunch items there is pretty slim. Either a ham and chees sandwich or a tuna sandwich. And guess what? They were out of the tuna every day. So we had to head over to AP to bring something back to the pool each day. I guess we just aren't used to that at OKW and BCV. I really do think that the size of SSR and number of people staying there are taxing the services and amenities.

Your experience just frustrates a SSR lover like me. I've mapped all those pathways and take them frequently when I'm there. I also do the hikes through the other resorts. I find BCV to be the absolute worst for pool crowd and distances. Of course, I use a powerchair so I can't take any of the bridge shortcuts. It left a very bad taste in my mouth having to walk out to the main walkway outside SAB to get from one side to the other (and finding the other side gate chained shut).

If there's one thing I'd see improved at SSR it's adding breakfast to the Turf Club. Even with the new queuing system they set up at AP, it's clear the services are getting taxed between 9-10am. Even the managers were talking about it this week. But it takes talking to DVC Member Satisfaction to get anything done on that score.

I also find that if I travel without my van, I feel less patient with the busses. Several times this week I was running late so opted to just use the van instead of wait on a bus. I'm sure if I waited for the bus I woulda been hopping mad. Just waiting in the lines to enter the parks was enough to frustrate me. Tack on another 10-15 for the bus driver to go through all the wheelchair tie-down procedures and I'm biting my tongue.

But then using my van I also felt like I was out of the magic. There's something special about watching the time click by on the overhead, driving ride through the toll gates and hearing the Disney tour speeches.

 

[KevGuy]

I just got back from SSR (Apr. 17-25) and it was swamped with people all week. We had a great time though and stayed at Congress Park, DTD view and it was awesome!! The bus services was actually very good all week considering the amount of people, I think we waited about 40 mins one day about 10am for an EPCOT bus. Other than that it was excellent. I must say though that Artist Pallette was aweful at busy times, and there seemed to be no order as well as clueless castmembers. I don't lik ethe setup of it and the food offering were too sparse, one can only eat so much flatbread....I stayed at All Star Movies last year and the foodcourt there was excellent and puts this AP place to shame imo. It is way too small for the amount of people there. I think they must have thought more people will just eat in the rooms because it is DVC and everyone with a one bedroom has a full kitchen when they made it or something. Turf Club was excellent the one night we had dinner there after a day at Typhoon Lagoon. We used the DDP and it was also great and saved us some money too, I guess one just has to know how to use it and make ressies apparently to benefit from it. We had a 7:30 ressie one night at Cape may and wanted to go early about 6:30 instead as PP&P was at 7pm one night, I tried the day we arrived to change it and had no luck, fully booked. But the day we went we showed up early and told the host we wanted to see if we could get in early, and before 7pm they sat us, so despite being fully booked we got in a good 45 minutes early which was very nice. The pools were just fantastic at SSR too, although I thought closing the pool slide at 8pm considering the amount of people that week and the excellent weather was a little too early myself. The quiet pool at Congress Park was like bath water and had sparse people after 10pm so it was like our own private pool. I must say that the views at Congress Park of DTD are just unbelievablly great and the breeze from across the water perfect. Overall it was another magical experience and we look forward to going back again soon to SSR, perhaps Oct or Dec if we can get in as we would be getting a late start at this point for Food and Wine festival etc, but our stay was so nice we really want to do it now. Needless to say we are also probably gonna be buying more points lol, we are addicted heavily at this point.

 

[kam0202]

Thank you for your comments on the DDP. This is our first trip as DVC owners and we always hesitated at the thought of the DDP because of the scheduling/encouragement to eat more food. We appreciate fine dining, but also eat very light - like salad/appetizers only, and never have dessert (DDH, 2 kids and I don't have sweet tooths). We have 4 ADRs for our trip down there this May, but are now very glad we are not signing up for the DDP. Thanks again for your report.

Sure hope this was an abberation, but we just returned from SSR (4/11 - 4/20). AKV is our home resort, but we couldn't get the accomodations we needed there so our frsit trip as DVC Members was to SSR.

Now I will premise all this by saying I've NEVER seen the parks as crowded as they were last week. Not sure what was going on, but lets face it - when the line for Dumbo exceeds 70 minutes - you know it's a busy park!

The Good - SSR is a beautiful property, and the accomodations were great. Pool and slide were wonderful, if only the weather had been better. Staff was overall very friendly, though the Artists Pallet Staff could be a little better trained and friendlier

The Bad -

Bus Service was a nightmare! We were late for a dinner reservation becasue we waited well over 45 minutes for a Magic Kingdom Bus. At one point I called DVC on the "hot line" phone in the bus shelter and was basically told (politely) - "not our problem." This was not an isolated incident. The "norm" was over an hour of waiting and riding to get between SSR and the MK "Monorail Loop". We were not alone in noticing this, as it became a standard topic of discussion (complaint) with other guests. And since we were hauling around a 2 and 5 year old, transport time was a big deal.

Food Service / Store - Artist's Pallet seemed to us to be a) limtied in menu items and b) a total nightmare of disorganization. Once again, maybe it was becasue of the small kids and the need to take care of them right away, but we never got to Artist Pallet, got our food, paid and were sitting down eating in under 20 minutes. On some days it took that long just to get to order! The staging was a disaster having to cris-cross back and forth for ordering, paying, pick-up, napkins, beverages, etc etc.

Not DVC related, but WDW related - the DDP is just plain a nightmare. Part of our frustration with the transportation was the fact that in order to use or DDP sit dowm meals we had to make our reservations MONTHS ahead of time. While we were there we tryed to change one night and found that it was impossible (that's what they said "Impossible") to find a table for at ANY sitdown restaurant for 4 adult and 2 kids between the hours of 5:00 and 8:00! We talked to one couple who paid for the DDP but didn't know they would need to make the reservations well ahead of thier trip and they could not find any sit-down dining available. And since you cannot swap counter service for sit-down, and since it is none-refundable, they are just "out" the money for the DDP sit-down portion. !!! You can be sure they will be telling everyone they know that Disney screwed them, and I'm not so sure I disagree. Aside form the reservation issue, we found the DDP to be just confusing and a pain to work with and, frankly, fattening! We don't normally eat that much! So for us, DDP will not happen again.

I don't mean to be negative, and believe it or not we LOVE WDW and everything about it (well, except that DDP ). But I think Disney needs to take note that there are things that are not working and the bad PR will eventually catch up with them. And honestly, when the DVC took the "not our problem" position on the transportation thing when they had well over 1/2 dozen vans sitting there, well, that just sort of corked me.

Ok, I'm done now. I think.