Lame service at Disneyland Hotel

[tinkerbell13]

My DH and I decided to spend a night for our Anniversary(no kids!) we got to the hotel at 2:50(check-in is 3:00) so we went straight to the hotel got checked-in and was told the room key would be available after 3:15 at info desk. We wait around til then, made a few phone calls, etc. 3:20 we go to pick up key, girl walks away "to call housekeeping to see if it's ready" and comes back like 5 minutes later and says it's not ready. Dh asks if we can check out later due to this and they tell us to call in the morning to check-wow thanks! So we just wasted a half hour. Nobody helped us with our luggage, no apologies, we lug our stuff out to bell services to see if we can leave it there so we can go to the parks.
We go ahead to the parks, fireworks(great) etc, park closed at 9 so we go to a movie at DTD. bottom line we get our key at around 11:45 at night, I think that is so lame to pay for a stay that you are getting less than 12 hours in your room.
I did write a long comment on our card, but I highly doubt anyone cares. I know I should have talked to someone then, but we were limited on time and wanted to have some fun.
I stayed at the Marriott for something else 2 nights later and we were able to check in to our room at 9:30 am and get the keys, much nicer room and cheaper too!

 

[spendleb]

What is this hotel like inside? We only saw Goofy's Kitchen but I have to say I was not impressed at all by the exterior, our hotel in Newport Beach was so much nicer, this looked very dated and like something you see in a cheap resort in Spain?

 

[hookedup]

I agree that it is totally lame when you don't get your room at (or very near) check in time. I have had this happen to me at WDW and DL. When you are staying for only one night it makes it a lot worse. I was staying at the Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach (not a cheap hotel) this weekend and we did not get our room until after 5:00.
As far as the other bad service - that just makes the whole experience even worse. That is about the point when I let a duty manager know (in a very polite and friendly way) how my experience is going. A hotel that is focused on service needs to know if they are not living up to expectations.

I have also had great luck and had my rooms ready early (9:00 am, 12:00 noon, etc.) which I never count on either.

 

[Amy&Dan]

QUOTE=spendleb; What is this hotel like inside? We only saw Goofy's Kitchen but I have to say I was not impressed at all by the exterior, our hotel in Newport Beach was so much nicer, this looked very dated and like something you see in a cheap resort in Spain?


I think the hotel is very nice on the inside. The buildings are pretty basic on the outside but the rooms are very spacious and nicely furnished. It is one of our favorite hotels and we stay at many 4 and 5 star places. We have stayed there with family and they all enjoyed it too. Since their usual choices include the Grand Wailea and Kei Lani resorts on Maui, I trust their judgement! The grounds and pool area are very nice and well maintained. However, have never been to Spain so have no way to let you know if it is as tacky as the cheap places there. I believe Mary Jo had some nice pictures of DLH on recently, you might try a search.

 

[crazymomof 4]

Like everyone else I tried to buy into the whole Magic thing last December. I agree service was cruddy. Our overpriced view for the top of the coffee shop that sucked made it worse for me personally. The inside of the rooms are big enough. On the armoire there is a picture of DL. The lamps in the bathroom area are Mickey's hands. That area is big and there is a safe in the closet. The beds were very comfortable. Unfortunately housekeeping seemed to be on our floor all the time. The hotel is a long walk from Dl it is at the other end of DTD. We will never stay there again.

 

[yeartolate]

It drives me nuts when rooms are not ready on time. 3 and 4 pm check in's are already late enough. Disneyland Hotel has been good about checkins so far for my family.


Sheraton Universal strung us along last year and we did not check in until 6 pm. The wierd thing is that they did not seem to see anything unusual about it . They offered us breakfast vouchers for the stay. Ummm.....dude...we are on concierge level - breakfast is ....uh...included.

 

[poohj80]

We just returned from DL and had similar guest services issues at the Grand Californian. Everyone passed the buck and sent us all over to talk to someone else. This was before our room was ready so we still had luggage with us. We were sent from the GC to Guest Servcies at DL, to WDTC office in DTD, to Tour office which we couldn't get to since it was inside the park. Finally went back to GC and found a wonderful manager named John who showed us that there are some DL cast members who understand the Disney tradition. Between John and the staff at Guest Relations at DCA, all was made up for.

 

[scanmom]

We had very poor service at PPH. We were given the wrong room #, and sent to a floor that was being refurbished, and was deserted except for 2 workers that did not speak english. When I went down to try to figure out why our room key would not work, my family waited in the hallway. The Front Desk people told me to head back up and go to another room on another floor. In the meantime,bell services brought our luggage to the room where DH and kids were, and let them in, so DH unpacked. I could not find my family when I went back to find them (I didn't know they were in the room that was not ours). I went back and forth to the front desk, the new room and the old room. I was starting to freak out, when I finally thought of calling the old room from the new one. Well, DH was pretty mad that he had to pack all our bags again. He called the FD and gave them an earful. FD said they would send a bellhop to move our bags, but that it may be an hour or so, since they were busy!!! We moved the bags ourselves, DH called and griped at FD again, and the next day they sent us 5 Mickey cookies and some milk to make up for it! Plus they left the milk out on the table and it got warm! YUCK!!! The room had a fridge, why didn't they use it? We wasted about 2 hours of time trying to get into our room, and that was after being told at 4o pm that our room was not ready. We did all this at 7:30 when they finally checked us in!
This last trip (1 year past the PPH trip), we stayed at HoJo's, and checked in at 11:00 am, had a great room, great service, and walked about the same distance to get to the parks as the PPH. Plus, we got the entertainment rate of $49.00/ nite! We will stick with HoJo's when in Anaheim!

 

[Snurk71]

I don't want to add in to the DIS' recent poor reputation on members berating each other. But I don't think you can place blame on DLH for not getting your key until 11:45 and only getting 12 hours in your room. I imagine your room was ready much earlier, but you chose to go do other fun stuff instead. I've had a room not ready at 3:00 before, and I was irritated. But stuff like that happens sometimes, less often than more.

The staff could have been more helpful, sure. But it's not their fault that you didn't get your key until 11:45 and only had 12 hours of the room.

 

[DevilDuckie]

I stayed there 6 years ago and it was dreadful! Room service sent warm champagne and cold fried mozzarella. Furniture was broken, service was poor, the maid skipped two days straight...

By the time we checked out and spoke to a mamanger they comped one of our four nights. That helped a little but I won't go back.

 

[tinkerbell13]

I don't want to add in to the DIS' recent poor reputation on members berating each other. But I don't think you can place blame on DLH for not getting your key until 11:45 and only getting 12 hours in your room. I imagine your room was ready much earlier, but you chose to go do other fun stuff instead. I've had a room not ready at 3:00 before, and I was irritated. But stuff like that happens sometimes, less often than more.

The staff could have been more helpful, sure. But it's not their fault that you didn't get your key until 11:45 and only had 12 hours of the room.

You are right, we did choose to go do something instead of sit and wait for our room. But they should have taken the opportunity to help us since Check-in is "Guaranteed"(their words)at 3:00. I should at the very least get what I pay for.