OMG - I am seething!!!

[mrsgus06]

I camp in Disney at Ft. Wilderness. It is located next to the Wilderness Lodge and has been there forever. I grew up camping in tents there with my parents and wanted to do the same for my kids. It is a part of Disney and we get all the perks. I bought the camper because with 5 kids ages 10 and under, I would have to get two value rooms. The campsites, with the discount, is about $55.00 a night. I also get to eat breakfast, lunch and dinner at the camper, saving tons of money. The campground has a petting zoo, 2 pools (non-themed, but nice) a sing a long every night and Disney movie and the Hoop de doo Revue (sp?) I think it is a hidden treasure of Disney and you have to like to camp, as all my kids love it. We also own our own golf cart (Christmas present from Santa) so I will save $50.00 a day on rental to help get the 3 yo to and from any location. The other kids ride their bikes.
Dave Ramsey is a financial guru that I have listened to for the past couple of years on the raido. I have also read all of his books. He makes sense on just about everything. We have no credit cards, except Disney Visa, for any promotional discounts, that has no balance. All 4 of our cars and camper are paid for. I take the equivilant of the car payments and set them aside for vacations at Disney. Daveramsey.com is his web site. We are actually hoping to have our house paid off in the next two years and will pay cash for the renovations (husband is a licensed contractor). I realize each and every time we go to Disney how fortunate we are to be able to do so. It is important to us that our kids have the same wonderful memories.

 

[DMRick]

I also asked what happens to canceled discounted reservations and was told it went back to rack rate.
**
I can't tell you how many times I tried to get an AP when they first came out, to be told there are no rooms for my dates, and to keep calling back. I do, and I have always gotten the AP rate at a later date. That tells me that they prob re open as AP rates.

 

[momshark]

"Well, if you think you know more than me, then you should be the one working here!"
WOW! That really was a rude remark from a CM!

Yogibigdog. I had two ressies, one at POR and one at Poly, but because there were two different seasons for rates, going from Peak into Regular, I booked separate ressies for each season at each resort. If I could get the AP rate for each season, then I would be at the Poly. If not, then I had the rack rates at POR to fall back on. I would be canceling one of the resorts soon anyway, but to be told by a CM that she was going to cancel 3 of them, before she even checked the dates, was just wrong.

I'm dying to get home and call to see if, in fact, she did cancel my ressies w/out my permission.

minmate I agree, There are 100 exceptional CMs for every 1 "Millie". I do plan on thanking them also. Many of them have helped me tremendously over these last few months.

 

[CarolA]

Who is Dave Ramsey?

'

Well Dave Ramsey can be JUST as bad as a rude CM. Actually Dave Ramsey is a self styled "financial genius" He has a very common sense method which advocates selling extras paying off debt and living a cash lifestyle. All of it makes perfect sense. He has books and a "Fianancial Peace University" The problem I have is some of Dave's advice is just a little strange.

For example, I have my car financed at 0%. I have the money to pay it off. According to Dave I should cash in my investments which are making money instead of using the "free" GM money.

Plus he keeps telling you... I have been where you are.... Not exactly... Dave was in far worse shape then most people can ever get in. MILLIONS of dollars in debt.

I guess what gets me is he acts like he is doing all this as a public service while he gets RICH! If it was a public service it would be free!

 

[momshark]

OK Just an update - when I got home I called CRO right away. "Millie" did not cancel my ressies. I did though because, as I said, Dreams Unlimited did their magic and got me the AP rate for my whole stay.
I also spoke to McGruter at the "recovery center" (must mean damage control) about Millie. He was very nice and I did let him know that I have spoken to at least 15-20 CMs who are really awesome.

One suggestion from DU: If you currently have a reservation but are quoted a better rate through DU, do not cancel your other ressies until DU confirms your deposit and reservation number. She said that sometimes there is a glitch when the credit card goes through and if you cancel the other reservation you may end up with nothing. I hope that made sense.

 

[lemondog]

'
I guess what gets me is he acts like he is doing all this as a public service while he gets RICH! If it was a public service it would be free!

Well, Dave does have a nationally syndicated radio show that is on for several hours every day. All of it is the same advice you get in his books. So in a sense, it IS free.

My hubby is a huge Dave Ramsey fan. We are in Nashville where Dave is based. Most of his advice is very good and common sense, but you HAVE to have the perseverance to do it. He is a big advocate of the "envelope system." Label envelopes each month for things like groceries, entertainment, toiletries, etc. Then make a budget each month, allocating a certian amount for each category. Cash then goes into the envelope, and you can ONLY spend what is in there. Once you run out, you are out until the next paycheck when you replenish. It's tough if you have no willpower.

Also, Dave is Christian and uses plenty of references in his books and in giving advice in general. It would be easy to ignore that part, though, if you don't care for it.

 

[minmate]

Momshark, I'm glad to hear everything worked out for you! Hope you can put this behind you and have a super trip!

 

[WDWRC]

I'm beginning to think that rudeness is an absolute requirement for Disney employment with CRO.

I currently have four reservations under my name, and I made them all at the same time. If this was not allowed, then surely the CM that was making them would have said something. At least, one would THINK they would have said something. Their new slogan needs to be "You just never know with CRO".

I believe that they hired me for my professional service and sales skills. Rudeness is not an absolute requirement to work at CRO. If you have an issue with a CM, ask to speak to Guest Services. Not everyone is as you describe at CRO, and I take offense being grouped into that bunch.

Tracy

 

[Ariel Wanna-be]

I believe that they hired me for my professional service and sales skills. Rudeness is not an absolute requirement to work at CRO. If you have an issue with a CM, ask to speak to Guest Services. Not everyone is as you describe at CRO, and I take offense being grouped into that bunch.

Tracy

I'm sorry you were offended.

Obviously, my post was meant to be tongue-in-cheek. I'm sure there are many professional CMs at CRO, but in my experience (see my second post to this thread) they tend to be the exception rather than the rule.

I did attempt to speak to Guest Services after a particularly rude comment from a CM, and I was promptly disconnected.

Again, I'm sorry you felt offended.

 

[A Mickeyfan]

March 25 - April 2nd 1st reservation
June 11 - June 21 2nd reservation
June 21- July 01 3rd reservation
July 01 - July 10 4th reservation
July 10-July 31 5th reservation
Deceber 26 - January 2 6th reservation

The op stated it was for a continuous stay. My cm, Malcolm who was wonderful, broke mine up that way for me to give me the ap rate. The rate was only good for 10 day increments so he seperated what he could for June and I am very thankful for that. I am staying 51 nights in June/July and if he had not spent 1 1/2 hours on the phone with me last week, I would have never been able to get any discounts. The other 15 cm's I spoke with before him kept telling me that I would only get 10 days out of the 51 at a discount (so) and they did not have the exact dates as to when the discount was available. I say a discount for 10 days is better than rack for those 10 days. I did have to put down an additional 2 deposits, but that was no problem. I am sorry you had a terrible cast member and I also think there should be a way to rate them at the end of the call. I would speak to a supervisor about her. Good luck. Oh, by the way, I called everyday, 2 and 3 times a day. It is their job to help you and if they don't like it, they need to find a new job.

I think I had the same CM as you did. I think that was his name & I was his first call for the AP rate wanting to stay more than 10 days. We went thru every resort & they all came back saying no availability. We both agreed that something was wrong. He put me on hold, then came back and expalined that the system can only give you 10 days, so therefor if you are booking more than that, it shows there is no availability. We broke up my stay & then he applied the code...forgot to mention, original ressie was without the code (I already had one that I tried to get over to a discounted one). The CM even called me back 30 minutes later to let me know that every thing was done correctly and not to worry. He was an awsome CM...now the one before him...she was I am sorry to say but down right nasty.... she said basically what another poster complained about. She saw I had called earlier that day & said "well if there was nothing then, there is nothing now"...she wouldn't even look... I said fine, I hung up & tried again.... a few rude CM's aren't going to ruin my plans.. I have to say, for the most part 99.9% of the CM's are great, one bad apple isn't going to turn me against the others... besides, I am a former CM & can see both sides.

 

[ILoveDisney-Angie]

I just typed this really long email about how I was supposed to have the AP rate applied (four times) and didn't. I will fill you all in on it later. I don't have the patience to type it all over. I went to post and it was gone! ERGH!

I just wanted to subscribe to this thread so that I can find it later.

 

[Lewisc]

I also asked what happens to canceled discounted reservations and was told it went back to rack rate.
**
I can't tell you how many times I tried to get an AP when they first came out, to be told there are no rooms for my dates, and to keep calling back. I do, and I have always gotten the AP rate at a later date. That tells me that they prob re open as AP rates.

Doris I think both answers are correct. I'm under the impression, don't remember where I read it, that the rooms automatically go back at rack rate BUT Disney looks at the bookings and will sometimes add more AP discounted rooms. In other words the rooms go back at rack rate until someone decides that additional discounted rooms makes sense.

Despite what others post, I've actually seen SW add discounted seats to a flight long after the initial bucket of discounted fares sold out.

 

[ILoveDisney-Angie]

It took me a couple of days to get back on and type this whole thing over again. I was really fuming. So anyway, here goes...

On the "official" day that AP codes were released I called at 7:08 in the morning and waited on hold for an hour and a half. After going mad and finally giving into my urge to sing "yo ho, yo ho a pirate's life for me" I finally got someone on the line. His name was Filbert. He couldn't find any availability with the codes for POFQ even though we already had a room booked. He even tried some of the deluxe resorts and the rest of the moderate resorts to no avail. He asked me to hold on again and finally found availability at WL (we really wanted to stay there or the beach club). It had to split up our stay since we were staying more than ten nights. The first two nights he put us in a courtyard view room since that was the least expensive room that they had available but the next nine nights we would have a standard view room. Both reservations had the AP code applied. I was so excited. He gave me the new balances and everything was correct. Since I had already put down a deposit for our ressie at POFQ that could be applied to our new ressie at the WL but I would need to put down more money. I then put down $300 (plus the previous $183.97). I was VERY excited. I called DH to tell him the good news.

After that, I realized that I should have checked on our PS ressies since we had made them while we were booked to stay at POFQ and would now be staying at the WL. I called from work at lunch and waited my whole lunch hour but had to hang up so I decided to call from my cell phone on the way home from work. I called from my cell phone in the car and waited for 30 more minutes and hung up to call from my house.

I called as soon as I got in the house and only had to wait 30 minutes. Thank goodness because the pirate song was really start to get to me. I talked to another CM who told me that she would need to change the PS ressies to reflect the resort change in case they needed to contact us. For some reason I had this feeling that I should check on our balances (just to make sure the AP rate was applied). Sure enough, it was a good thing that I checked. She told me that I was set to pay rack rate and that both of my deposits had been applied to the same ressie so that one of my ressies was going to be cancelled at the end of the day had I not put down a deposit on that one. I was shocked. She checked availability and there was only the courtyard view for the first two nights and woods view for the next 9 nights. I said I would take it even though I wasn't thrilled about it. I had already been quoted something else. Oh well, it would have to do. She told me that I had my name listed twice on the reservation (married and maiden) and called guest services to see how to take the maiden name off. She said that they would look into it and fix it for me. Well to make a long story short. She said that she couldn't do it but she was able to put in a request to have the second deposit applied to the other of my two reservations. I said that instead of taking the chance that I lose my ressie I would rather put down an additional deposit. She seemed like she didn't want to be bothered and told me that my account was freezing her computer. I didn't like the sound of it. But what could I do. I then got off the phone and told DH. He was mad so he said he would call back.

DH called and waited on hold for 2 hours. He wasn't sure if he should stay on hold or hang up because the music stopped 40 minutes before someone answered the phone. He thought that maybe he was disconnected. Anyway, he after he finally got someone on the line he was told that the AP rates had still not been applied and at that time there were none left for the first two nights but we could get it for the 9 nights in the woods view room. HE WAS FURIOUS. Not because we had to pay that but we were quoted something twice and did not get what was quoted. The CM told him to keep calling back. During this time, the CM noticed that there were three names on the reservation but only two names were being charged. What happened is that Disney had my DH, me (married and maiden name). So he said he would take care of it.

So this all transpired on Wednesday. On Friday, DH and I went to dinner and when we got home we had a message waiting from Disney. They had called to inquire why we had two names on the room but three people needing the new transportation. DH called back (I was starting to lose my cool) and talked to someone named Yvonne. She REALLY knew what she was doing and fixed my name (deleted my maiden name). Rich was scared to ask about our room reservation. He wanted to see if we could now get the standard view room with the AP rate again. I was scared too. I didn't want to have it screwed up or taken off after all of this. Well he ended up asking and she found it for him. However, the first two nights would still be courtyard and no AP rate. At this point, we're still worried even though she seems to really know what she is doing.

I called back on Monday just to check the balances (this way I can find out if the AP rate was truly applied). The CM told me the balance. It was exactly what it should be with the AP rate. But then he tells me that the AP rate has not been applied to the 9 nights. I told him that I knew it had based on the balance. I even had him read the deposits (which matched up). I didn't want to take any chances that he might screw this up so I just thanked him and hung up.

I just want to say that this whole process of making reservations is "UN-magical" and I personally think it takes away from the vacation. I have been a nervous wreck. I think that some of these CMs need to be replaced. Some of them do a wonderful job but others either don't care or aren't trained well enough.

So this was my story that I had typed with a little variation seeing as I lost everything when I went to post it last week.

But now I have an update. Over the weekend, we got our confirmation (I was desperately awaiting it to make sure we had the AP rate for our last 9 nights). And lo and behold, it says annual passholder rate room only. YIPPEE!

Now here's my question. Do we call again to see if we can change the 2 night ressie to a woods or standard view or see if any AP rates are available? I am SCARED to call for fear that someone deletes our 9 night AP rate. It might just be worth it to pay $334 a night for the first two to get the $139 plus tax for the next nine nights. What do you all think? Who knows when we arrive, the front desk might even let us stay in the courtyard view room our whole trip instead of moving after the two nights.