Did you miss the part where I said I am willing to give them a pass? I do understand the situation, but that doesn’t change the fact that WDW has taken a slight step down overall. Again, I am willing to give them a pass because of Covid. Hopefully things will be closer to normal when we come back in February.
We were just on the Big Island and did go to the Hilton Waikola Village just to see what it now looked like (stayed there 20+ years ago when it was the Hyatt Regency Waikola) and the place was a ghost town. I understand the COVID factor here, but a resort that large that was that empty made us feel like we were sneaking into a closed resort and nosing around. It does have a rather non-Hawaiian feel due to the sprawling size and the slow moving monorail that connects the towers. Sadly, the whole place seemed drastically in need of a fresh coat of paint.
I wonder if a lot of people are putting off Hawaii until they can avoid the pre-departure testing requirement. There's been some noise about accepting proof of vaccination as a way to avoid pre-departure testing or quarantine, but it's all a little speculative still.
I hope your experience isn't a new normal.
I ate breakfast at Olivia's last fall. I wasn't a big fan of the potato casserole either. Everything else was okay, but not fantastic. I'll go there again and try lunch or dinner, but probably won't go out of my way for breakfast.
They made you eat from a "manger"?
I'm confused by the apparent lack of housekeeping and maintenance staff at a DVC resort. Dues have not decreased for owners during COVID - except for the few months the resorts were closed - so why would staffing decrease? I don't own DVC (have been considering it in recent years), but . . . I would be angry if Disney was cutting back on staffing that was 100% funded by my dues. What are they doing with those dues?? Funding a different division? Seems super sketchy to me.
I don't think you can judge all of DVC by one person's experience. We were in WDW for a week over Easter (a couple of weeks ago) and everything was excellent. Just like any resort on the face of the planet (including 5 star resorts), there are going to be times where something is missed. But that doesn't mean the overall upkeep is going down the tubes, especially during COVID where Disney is operating at a reduced workforce.
I'm not judging by one person's experience - there have been countless reports of lack of DVC staffing on these boards in the past year. That includes many in this thread excusing the lack of staffing "due to COVID." I'm just genuinely curious how this would be possible if dues have not decreased.
I tend to agree with this. When you have a bad experience your radar tends to go up. And I agree that if I found something to be unacceptable then I would be reaching out to the front desk ASAP. They tend to take care of issues like that.
Yes, DVC staffing is down. It's no secret. Disney/DVC themselves have openly talked about how they are running on reduced staff. They are starting to hire more staff as occupancy increases, so things will continue to get better. While there have been countless threads discussing the lack of staffing and perceived issues that the posters are attributing to that lack of staffing, there are also countless threads discussing positive experiences. These are tougher/leaner times and I was actually impressed with the level of maintenance, since I went into the stay knowing that things would be reduced and expecting a "lesser" experience. That wasn't the case.
During our BCV stay a few weeks ago, they changed the trash and refilled the coffee every day. In early 2020 I read that trash/coffee was being changed to a daily service, which is what we experienced.
