Deb & Bill
DVC-Trivia Contest, Apr-2006: Honorable Mention
- Joined
- Mar 20, 2000
- Messages
- 60,919
OKW is really a very nice resort. Enjoy your stay.
After discussions with the other members of this group, we've decided we will not give out the name of the broker.
Yes we were led to believe that our reservation was just like a reservation for a hotel room made directly through Disney. Two separate conversations were made on a speaker phone with three of us listening on the first conversation and four on the second. But we have all decided that we should have done more research on the broker and the entire process and not relied on the information given to us verbally. Nothing in the written contract confirms anything that was said verbally. We have learned our lesson.
I am positive we will have a great time, we always do when we travel together.
We again want to thank everyone for all of your suggestions and comments, you have been a great source of information.
I don't know if anyone has mentioned dining, but you can make all of your own dining reservations (you don't even need to have a reservation) at disneyworld.com. With that many people, I'd get a Tables in Wonderland card, rather than using the dining plan. You'll save money and it's a better fit..
We're bringing along decorations and will put them up ourselves to help celebrate one members birthday. As suggested we'll pick up her birthday button at City Hall in Magic Kingdom. Those of us who've celebrated before, want her to experience the recognition she'll get.
You can get a "Happy Birthday" button from the front desk when you check in.
Are we allowed to ask for a specific building/location upon check-in? We do have one member who has a slight mobility issue. We would like to be close to the main building and on the ground level if possible. Any suggestions for building numbers.
The area near the Hospitality House is a booking category so if that is not what you have reserved, you will not get it. You can take any bus from any bus stop and it will take you to the HH since all buses stop there just before they leave the resort. My suggestion would just be to request a ground-level room near a bus stop.
I've read that there is parking near the individual buildings - is this true? Is it assigned parking?
It is not assigned parking, but the spaces are right out in front of the buildings.
Is there WiFi service available in the resort? How reliable/fast is it? One member has to be able to check in with their office at least once a day.
Yes, there is wi-fi. Most have reported that it is spotty and terrible, but I did not have any problems with it in June. I will say that I did not use my laptop, but I streamed Netflix through my iPod every night.
I read that there are four sets of towels in each bathroom - for a total of 8 for our two bathrooms. Can we request two additional towels at check-in? Each of us uses one towel for our hair and one for our bodies.
You would need to "purchase" 2 towel packs...1 bath towel, 1 hand towel and 1 washcloth in each. I believe they are $6-$8. As someone mentioned before, all of the resort amenities, including the towels and laundry, are paid for by the owners so there is not a lot of complimentary items for owners like there are for cash guests.
Are there towels at the pools or do we use the room towels?
Yes, there are pool towels. There are linen carts at the pool where you can pick up and return your pool towels. You are not supposed to bring them back to your room.
Okay this is now way toooo long. I'll post again if I think of anything else.
But they are usually not replaced on the T & T day. We'l often make sure we wash towels on T & T day so they're in the W/D when they come and they'll leave more.Towel Package, $6.00 - 4 bath towels, 2 hand towels, 4 washcloths, 1 bath mat
We thought we had done our research - we were told by the broker that it worked exactly like a hotel reservation. We would receive all the same benefits as if we had reserved directly through Disney and once the reservation number was associated with my account we could make arrangements for Dining, Magical Express, Pre-checkin for one member who will arrive in WDW about 10:00 am and the rest of us at 2:00pm.
If we had known it was in some ways like renting a condo unit we wouldn't be as confused now. It wasn't until after we made the final payment, received a reservation number, and tried to register the number on the Disney site that the issues began. After the number was input, a small banner appeared saying something like "contact the original booker for any changes". From then on trying to get answers from the owner through the broker has been very stressful and very time-consuming. As I previously posted, We received more help and info from one post here than we have in weeks of e-mails and phone calls between us and the owner.
So now we have a few more questions - what kind of coffee machine is in the unit? Does the washer use liquid or powder detergent? Does the refrigerator have an ice machine?
Is there a page, site, or thread that would be helpful to us while trying to plan our trip?
Thanks for the help it is sincerely appreciated.
...We're bringing along decorations and will put them up ourselves to help celebrate one members birthday. ...
Are we allowed to ask for a specific building/location upon check-in? We do have one member who has a slight mobility issue. We would like to be close to the main building and on the ground level if possible. Any suggestions for building numbers....
Are there towels at the pools or do we use the room towels?
Okay this is now way toooo long. I'll post again if I think of anything else.
I understand. I suggested it for 2 reasons. One is that others might need to know IF this were really happening in an intentionally misleading way. The other that 2 of the main rental/broker options are sponsors here and thus DIS needs to know. I'd suggest you still send the info privately to a moderator or webmaster. I'm still thinking it was more likely you made the assumption than you were purposefully misled but non of us were there so we'll have to rely on your judgement of the situation. One of the issues in renting is that most people who approach the possibility of renting have an idea of what to expect and thus most who rent, generally assume people have some idea of what to expect as well. I also remember getting a contact about a possible rental and responding very simplistically in a way I might if someone didn't know anything about DVC or timeshares (the original contact suggested that was the correct approach) and the other party felt patronized and talked down to because they were more knowledgeable than the initial info suggested. So you really can't win.After discussions with the other members of this group, we've decided we will not give out the name of the broker.
Yes we were led to believe that our reservation was just like a reservation for a hotel room made directly through Disney. Two separate conversations were made on a speaker phone with three of us listening on the first conversation and four on the second. But we have all decided that we should have done more research on the broker and the entire process and not relied on the information given to us verbally. Nothing in the written contract confirms anything that was said verbally. We have learned our lesson.
I am positive we will have a great time, we always do when we travel together.
We again want to thank everyone for all of your suggestions and comments, you have been a great source of information.