LibertyLover
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Oct 14, 2004
- Messages
- 407
I had planned this trip for months, deliberately not taking time off in December so that I would have more vacation time accrued. I even made ADRs pretty early on as restaurants we either liked or wanted to try. So, what went wrong. Better yet, what went right? The answer is - not much.
We had decided to split our stay between Poly and AKL, which previously had been my favorite hotel. I probably should have had a clue that not everything was going to be wonderful when I tried to arrange for Magical Express and in spite of giving our flight information 4 times both on line and to cast members over the phone, ME still mucked it up. Oh, we got our luggage tags and vouchers, but they still had "No Flight Information Available" on them. ME going to WDW worked ok. DH checked us in and our bus to the WL, CR, Poly and GF left shortly afterwards. What ME doesn't do a good job about explaining is that when they say "your luggage will follow in the truck", they mean that it will eventually arrive at your hotel, anywhere from 3 to 5 hours later. Our flight got in to MCO at 3 pm, we checked in at the Poly at 4:30 and our luggage didn't get to our room until almost 9 pm.
At the Poly we stayed in Room 1019 in Tahiti. It had not been renovated. The room was worn - not dirty per se, but worn. The beds were hard and the bedmaking sloppy. 1 lamp's light bulb was burned out and even though we alerted housekeeping personally and by phone, it was never replaced. Yeah, I know I should have called the front desk, but we solved the problem by removing a light bulb from an unused over the bed light and carried on. One day housekeeping didn't get in to make up the room until 2 pm. My husband had not been feeling well and stayed back at the hotel while my DSD25, DD3 and I went to AKL. He put a make up the room sign on the door and went out to sit on the terrace in the sun. Nobody came by until we had come back from AKL, had lunch, put DSD on the bus back to the airport (and in the process giving our flight information to ME yet again) and were getting ready to put DD3 down for a nap. There was no refrigerator in the room yet - we didn't bother asking for one since Captain Cook's wasn't too far a walk. But the size of the room, the shower in the bathroom and the feeling of space and green vegetation were lovely. The Poly is my DH's favorite resort and I think it is mine as well, if only because he didn't whine and moan the whole time we were there.
A few minuses aside from the moderately poor housekeeping were that the pools were not adequately heated. My DSD loves to swim and is used to swimming in all sorts of water - bay, ocean, lake, pool. She is also pretty resistant to cooler water temps, but even she complained that both the quiet and the volcano pools were not adequately heated. I felt it was too cool during our Poly stay for my DD to go in the water as she is very sensitive to the cold.
But we did experience pixie dust
One afternoon we went to Capt. Cook's for lunch. I left DH, DSD and DD in the booth and went to place our order. When I came back, several cast members came over to our table, rang a bell and announced that my DD was the Chef of the Day. They gave her a chef's toque (decorated with mouse ears naturally), a certificate and brought her a cookie to decorate with whipped cream, chocolate and butterscotch syrups and sprinkles. My daughters had such a good time (the DSD helped her little sister decorate) and was so proud of the cookie she decorated. DH took the Behind the Scenes train tour which he enjoyed. And DSD went over to the GF Spa for a 2 hour treatment that left her feeling relaxed and happy the rest of the day.
Our move over to AKL seemed to go off without a hitch - our luggage was picked up and when we got there our room, upgraded from standard savannah view to deluxe, was ready. We were in 5519 on the Uzima savannah, a new savannah for us. Usually we are on Sunset. We had the baby giraffe on our side and it was fun watching for her. But we noticed the service seemed to be slipshod and spotty. After we got settled in we went down to Mara for lunch. The 2 cashiers on duty were not adequately trained and each transaction took them a long time to process - primarily because of Disney Dining Experience cards. (As an aside, I found that wherever we ate, when I told them I was not on DDE there was a sigh of relief from the server.) While I was waiting in line a guest from Japan tried to purchase one of the Magical Celebration giftcards. Neither cashier knew how to sell one and didn't offer to get a manager. The guest left, frustrated, and the cashiers started laughing and chatting about not knowing how to sell the cards and her distress in Spanish. They did look a bit chagrinned when I told them, in Spanish, that not being able to properly do their jobs was not a cause for laugher and they should ask to be trained on how to sell the gift cards.
We put DD down for a nap and DH and I opened a bottle of South African wine, sat out on the balcony and spent a lovely afternoon relaxing. The problem was that our luggage didn't get to the room until 5:30 and we almost missed our Jiko reservations. What a fabulous restaurant Jiko is.
DH got annoyed with the smokers and the smoking policy at AKL and complained. I got annoyed with DH and his annoyance. I don't smoke and don't particularly like it, but the way he carried on you would have thought he had had to walk through several smoke filled rooms. He swears that he is still wheezing from the smoke - oh please. Then he got annoyed at ME. Two days before we left I wanted to confirm our pick up with ME. So I checked with Guest Services who told me to go to the airline desk. The airline desk was not manned because it was after 1 pm. Guest Services didn't mention that I could have called ME from the phone at Bell Services. The day before we left we got a note from ME that we needed to confirm our pickup. So we went to the airline desk while waiting for our table in Boma. The castmembers at the airline desk were very snippy and rude. That set DH off. Luckily the pager went off and I sent him to breakfast while I sorted ME out. The person in line in front of us needed ME too and was on the phone at Bell Services for 20 minutes. The airline desk people finally told me that I could use any phone in the lobby to call. So I tried. None of the phones in the AKL lobby would dial ME - I tried all of them. I walked back to Bell Services and the same guy was still on the phone trying to fix his ME problem. The airline desk people refused to speak to me, but Bell services immediately realizing the problem, got another phone, dialed ME for me and were very helpful. ME still didn't have our flight information. I told the rep that this was the 5th time I had given it to them and I was getting very frustrated. She told me that I could not have contacted them because if I had, they would have the flight information. Thank you very much for calling me a liar. After breakfast I went back to Guest Services and let them know that I had found their information regarding contacting ME inadequate and inaccurate. The castmember I spoke with, not the same one as the day before, simply handed me a card with an address and told me to write management with my complaint.
I honestly thought that I had found AKL frustrating this trip because I was on edge over my husband's easily wounded sensibilities and having to deal with his minor health complaints and our daughter's misbehaviour because she was tired and well, 3 years old. But on the bus to the airport several other passengers complained about the service at AKL this time. My husband has said that he will not go back to AKL, only wants to stay at monorail resorts, preferably the Poly, although he does want to try GR and CR, and that he doesn't ever want to deal with ME again. He also got mad when I mentioned that Paul Revere and the Raiders were playing EPCOT's Garden Festival. While it would be fun to see them and recapture a bit of my youth for an hour or so, realistically I can't go to WDW in April, May or June because of my job. He threw a major hissy fit that I was looking at something from Disney. Of course he did say to me today that the next time we go to Disney we should drive down, stay at a Disney hotel, but get out and do a few other things, like go to Kennedy Space Center and SeaWorld. So, I guess all is not lost. I'd like to go for a long weekend in October for the Food and Wine festival, but we are planning a trip to Scotland in December, so WDW may be out for a year or so. Oh well, at least he is amenable to going back at some point - so long as I pay for the deluxe monorail resorts.
We had decided to split our stay between Poly and AKL, which previously had been my favorite hotel. I probably should have had a clue that not everything was going to be wonderful when I tried to arrange for Magical Express and in spite of giving our flight information 4 times both on line and to cast members over the phone, ME still mucked it up. Oh, we got our luggage tags and vouchers, but they still had "No Flight Information Available" on them. ME going to WDW worked ok. DH checked us in and our bus to the WL, CR, Poly and GF left shortly afterwards. What ME doesn't do a good job about explaining is that when they say "your luggage will follow in the truck", they mean that it will eventually arrive at your hotel, anywhere from 3 to 5 hours later. Our flight got in to MCO at 3 pm, we checked in at the Poly at 4:30 and our luggage didn't get to our room until almost 9 pm.
At the Poly we stayed in Room 1019 in Tahiti. It had not been renovated. The room was worn - not dirty per se, but worn. The beds were hard and the bedmaking sloppy. 1 lamp's light bulb was burned out and even though we alerted housekeeping personally and by phone, it was never replaced. Yeah, I know I should have called the front desk, but we solved the problem by removing a light bulb from an unused over the bed light and carried on. One day housekeeping didn't get in to make up the room until 2 pm. My husband had not been feeling well and stayed back at the hotel while my DSD25, DD3 and I went to AKL. He put a make up the room sign on the door and went out to sit on the terrace in the sun. Nobody came by until we had come back from AKL, had lunch, put DSD on the bus back to the airport (and in the process giving our flight information to ME yet again) and were getting ready to put DD3 down for a nap. There was no refrigerator in the room yet - we didn't bother asking for one since Captain Cook's wasn't too far a walk. But the size of the room, the shower in the bathroom and the feeling of space and green vegetation were lovely. The Poly is my DH's favorite resort and I think it is mine as well, if only because he didn't whine and moan the whole time we were there.
A few minuses aside from the moderately poor housekeeping were that the pools were not adequately heated. My DSD loves to swim and is used to swimming in all sorts of water - bay, ocean, lake, pool. She is also pretty resistant to cooler water temps, but even she complained that both the quiet and the volcano pools were not adequately heated. I felt it was too cool during our Poly stay for my DD to go in the water as she is very sensitive to the cold.
But we did experience pixie dust
One afternoon we went to Capt. Cook's for lunch. I left DH, DSD and DD in the booth and went to place our order. When I came back, several cast members came over to our table, rang a bell and announced that my DD was the Chef of the Day. They gave her a chef's toque (decorated with mouse ears naturally), a certificate and brought her a cookie to decorate with whipped cream, chocolate and butterscotch syrups and sprinkles. My daughters had such a good time (the DSD helped her little sister decorate) and was so proud of the cookie she decorated. DH took the Behind the Scenes train tour which he enjoyed. And DSD went over to the GF Spa for a 2 hour treatment that left her feeling relaxed and happy the rest of the day.Our move over to AKL seemed to go off without a hitch - our luggage was picked up and when we got there our room, upgraded from standard savannah view to deluxe, was ready. We were in 5519 on the Uzima savannah, a new savannah for us. Usually we are on Sunset. We had the baby giraffe on our side and it was fun watching for her. But we noticed the service seemed to be slipshod and spotty. After we got settled in we went down to Mara for lunch. The 2 cashiers on duty were not adequately trained and each transaction took them a long time to process - primarily because of Disney Dining Experience cards. (As an aside, I found that wherever we ate, when I told them I was not on DDE there was a sigh of relief from the server.) While I was waiting in line a guest from Japan tried to purchase one of the Magical Celebration giftcards. Neither cashier knew how to sell one and didn't offer to get a manager. The guest left, frustrated, and the cashiers started laughing and chatting about not knowing how to sell the cards and her distress in Spanish. They did look a bit chagrinned when I told them, in Spanish, that not being able to properly do their jobs was not a cause for laugher and they should ask to be trained on how to sell the gift cards.
We put DD down for a nap and DH and I opened a bottle of South African wine, sat out on the balcony and spent a lovely afternoon relaxing. The problem was that our luggage didn't get to the room until 5:30 and we almost missed our Jiko reservations. What a fabulous restaurant Jiko is.
DH got annoyed with the smokers and the smoking policy at AKL and complained. I got annoyed with DH and his annoyance. I don't smoke and don't particularly like it, but the way he carried on you would have thought he had had to walk through several smoke filled rooms. He swears that he is still wheezing from the smoke - oh please. Then he got annoyed at ME. Two days before we left I wanted to confirm our pick up with ME. So I checked with Guest Services who told me to go to the airline desk. The airline desk was not manned because it was after 1 pm. Guest Services didn't mention that I could have called ME from the phone at Bell Services. The day before we left we got a note from ME that we needed to confirm our pickup. So we went to the airline desk while waiting for our table in Boma. The castmembers at the airline desk were very snippy and rude. That set DH off. Luckily the pager went off and I sent him to breakfast while I sorted ME out. The person in line in front of us needed ME too and was on the phone at Bell Services for 20 minutes. The airline desk people finally told me that I could use any phone in the lobby to call. So I tried. None of the phones in the AKL lobby would dial ME - I tried all of them. I walked back to Bell Services and the same guy was still on the phone trying to fix his ME problem. The airline desk people refused to speak to me, but Bell services immediately realizing the problem, got another phone, dialed ME for me and were very helpful. ME still didn't have our flight information. I told the rep that this was the 5th time I had given it to them and I was getting very frustrated. She told me that I could not have contacted them because if I had, they would have the flight information. Thank you very much for calling me a liar. After breakfast I went back to Guest Services and let them know that I had found their information regarding contacting ME inadequate and inaccurate. The castmember I spoke with, not the same one as the day before, simply handed me a card with an address and told me to write management with my complaint.
I honestly thought that I had found AKL frustrating this trip because I was on edge over my husband's easily wounded sensibilities and having to deal with his minor health complaints and our daughter's misbehaviour because she was tired and well, 3 years old. But on the bus to the airport several other passengers complained about the service at AKL this time. My husband has said that he will not go back to AKL, only wants to stay at monorail resorts, preferably the Poly, although he does want to try GR and CR, and that he doesn't ever want to deal with ME again. He also got mad when I mentioned that Paul Revere and the Raiders were playing EPCOT's Garden Festival. While it would be fun to see them and recapture a bit of my youth for an hour or so, realistically I can't go to WDW in April, May or June because of my job. He threw a major hissy fit that I was looking at something from Disney. Of course he did say to me today that the next time we go to Disney we should drive down, stay at a Disney hotel, but get out and do a few other things, like go to Kennedy Space Center and SeaWorld. So, I guess all is not lost. I'd like to go for a long weekend in October for the Food and Wine festival, but we are planning a trip to Scotland in December, so WDW may be out for a year or so. Oh well, at least he is amenable to going back at some point - so long as I pay for the deluxe monorail resorts.
So sorry your trip didn't go as hoped. this lack of good customer care is becoming all too common and not what we should expect from WDW. At least DH is willing to have another try in the future. thankyou for sharing your experience,
