SSR Nightmare!!!

[MouseHouse71]

All 7 of us were excited to get to SSR to start our 1 night getaway to MVMCP on Sunday, Dec 19th. We arrived at about 1:30 to check in and room was not ready. We gave cell phone number so they could notify us when room was ready. Sounds great! We stopped back by lobby at about 3:50 to see if we had a room update. They said to go over to a certain building and we should receive a text any minute telling us which room was ours. Great, finally getting to check in. Then comes 4:10, 4:20, 4:30. At this point I had had just about enough. We went back to the lobby and after some ranting and raving got a 2-br assigned to us. We drove back to the room and our keys don't work!!! They sent someone over and finally got the keys straightened out and we got to MVMCP at about 7 PM. The thing that bothered me the most was acomment made by the CM. She said that they didn't know when my room was actually ready and it may have been ready on my initial check in.

In all the 100+ times of going to Disney, I have never had a bad experience, but this one was in front of my family. I was made to look like a fool waiting outside the building for a text that never came. HAHA!!

I did speak to a manager and got half my points (16) credited back to my account and seven 1 day park hopper passes.

Should I have gotten angry?

 

[alicat07]

Wow, sorry this happened to you. I would have been happy with the compensation to be honest, it compensated a lot of your stay. Considering you got half your points back and free park tickets (FL residents that is about $115 or so for 1 day) for your day, I would be happy.

We had a mess, but it was a week long mess and we didn't receive any compensation until AFTER we wrote a 5 page letter to DVC about it. I would have much rather gotten some sort of compensation during my stay for all the trouble, as we had 9 in our room in a grand villa.

Are you happy with your compensation? I think it was pretty decent!

 

[TisBit]

I think you were overly compensated myself, your check in time was 4 pm, so for you to feel that your room should have been ready before that was on you. Ranting and raving wasn't necessary IMHO and I think they shouldn't have caved in to you.

I think the biggest mistake that they made was to send you to a building to wait for a text before 4pm. They should have just told you that rooms were not assigned until 4pm or later (as stated on our documents which are worded "after 4pm") and that you could return to the front desk and check after 4pm to follow up. If they had done this, it would have stopped a lot of the running around that you experienced and if anything you might have only had one problem with bad keys, not waiting at a building for a text not to come.

I am not a big fan of the "after 4 pm" check in, but I understand that they are having problems getting rooms ready and have reworded things to buy some time. I am afraid if this trend keeps up, one of two things will have to give, either earlier check out times or later check in times. I have been to places that check in is as late as 6 pm, which really stinks.

 

[vicki_c]

I think your reaction is over the top, personally. Sorry that it happened - and I can relate because we just had a short trip to MNSSHP and were only checking in on party day, so I was nervous about having a room in time to get to the park at 4 PM. I'm guessing your family did not think you were a fool - sounds like maybe you were already stressed out?

But I think they compensated you more than fairly given the published check-in time being after 4 PM.

The text message thing is not reliable at Disney - sometimes it works well, sometimes it does not.

 

[Chuck S]

Angry? I would have been a little upset, but certainly not angry...nor would I have done any ranting or raving at the front desk.

Disney Resorts have been going through some extensive computer programming upgrades, and apparently the system was not up to snuff on the 19th, as there were reports of some of the websites being down as well.

You should never count on being in your room early, ever. WHile it is nice when it happens, it is also possible to get into a room as late as 5pm (or later) and given how busy the Holiday season is at Disney, I think they picked a poor time to do upgrades.

When we arrived at OKW on Dec 1, all resort systems were completely down. They could not tell us if our room was ready, and calling the number on the card was useless, as they couldn't check until the system came back online. We had temporary, hand written room keys. When we finally got a room, it was supposed to be out of service. Workmen were inside caulking the shower and were about to start removing part of the master bedroom ceiling to replace cracked drywall. Since they hadn't started yet, they let us have the room, but asked us not to use the shower for 24 hours (we had a one bedroom so we could use the whirlpool tub.) They were using the old credit card imprint machines.

Dining systems were down, too. They couldn't tell if anyone had a reservation or was a walkup when we went to lunch at Captain's Grill, the order system worked, the billing system, not so much. Of course, we couldn't room charge anything until we got our permanent room keys, but even the discounting systems, (TiW) had to have manager overrides.

But, these things sometimes happen, no vacation is perfect, no matter how much we'd like it to be so.

We were stuck in California for several days because of 9/11/01, fortunately we had a rental car and eventually would up driving it back to TX. Imagine what people experienced that were in mid-flight and had to be grounded no where near their destination for days had to go through! Problems at Disney seem like small potatoes in comparison.

 

[psac]

The point of her complaint isn't the time, it was the go there and wait for the text thing. I'd be really annoyed as well. If they just told her to come back in an hour, they could have at least done something productive during that time.

That being said, I agree the compensation was very generous and I wouldn't complain further.

 

[cheezNE1]

I went thru the same thing last May when I was waiting for my room at BWV. I had no where to go in the rain and waited for their text. Text never came thru, so i had to called them and got the room #. Had I not called them back, i don't know how long I would had to wait. I was a little upset, but I wasn't gonna make a big stink about it and certainly wasn't looking to get any freebies. I hope people don't start complaining about every little thing so they can get compensated. Somehow all these will come out of everyone else pockets.

 

[Mississippian]

One of the reasons I don't want to stay at SSR is because it is so spread out. I really don't think the OP has much of a beef, EXCEPT for the fact that wrong information in a resort that is so spread out results in an absolute disaster. Check-in time is at 4, so getting in a little later than that shouldn't be a big deal.

 

[CarolAnnC]

Quite honestly, if I was checking in for a one night stay, I would not have sat around SSR since 1:30 pm waiting for my room to be ready. Checking in is fine, you can leave your bags with Bell Services and head off to the parks. But rooms are not ready before 4:00 pm. Even at that, I would have stayed at the parks enjoying my one day and not returned till later that night. That is just my opinion, though.

 

[JWG]

DO NOT rely on the text messaging system to tell you when your room is ready. That is a widespread issue currently where the system isn't texting timely.

Our plan is always to try and check-in whenever we arrive, whether 8am or 8pm, and see what happens. If our room isn't available we request a call and text (on the off chance it works) and take the card that says what room and has the hotel number.

We then check back at 4:00pm if we haven't heard anything. We've only had to wait for our room twice (that I remember) when arriving early and only once did that go beyond 4:00pm (and it was no later than 4:30pm). I think Disney does a pretty good job considering the volume of check-outs/check-ins, the size of the rooms, and the short window of time between 11am - 4pm.

 

[drakester]

Really?

 

[maciec]

I don't think this was a "nightmare" by any means. The only thing they did wrong was to send you to the building and tell you to wait and that your keys didn't work. I think you were over compensated for being delayed 30 minutes from checking in.

 

[dmoore22]

Quite honestly, if I was checking in for a one night stay, I would not have sat around SSR since 1:30 pm waiting for my room to be ready. Checking in is fine, you can leave your bags with Bell Services and head off to the parks. But rooms are not ready before 4:00 pm. Even at that, I would have stayed at the parks enjoying my one day and not returned till later that night. That is just my opinion, though.

Well said. We had a similar situation a couple of years back at OKW which was quite frustrating. After years of being spoiled with our room ready when we arrived we suddenly had to wait for that magic 4 pm for our room. Normally we would have gone to our room to freshen up before heading to the parks or our dining reservation. Of course this was the one time we showed up a bit unkempt. We learnt from that experience not to assume all will be well when we arrive and to be prepared to engage in other activities rather than sitting around waiting for the room, or the call, or the text. There is so much network congestion in the resorts, and depending upon the processor in your cell phone, that there is a delay in receiving those texts. Ironically this only happened once and DVC continues to spoil us upon our arrival. But we still hope for the best while being prepared for the worst so that we can enjoy our visit.

 

[wdw4life]

Really? A nightmare? Annoying yes. Aggravating certainly but not a "nightmare" by any stretch of the imagination IMO. "Ranting and raving" is a bit of an overreaction. I agree you were overcompensated.

 

[cheezNE1]

Ops said they've never had problems with the 100+ stay they had, i guess this is out of the norm for them. And maybe too high of an expectation after that 100+ stay.

 

[jlewisinsyr]

Disappointing, sure, annoying, sure. Nightmare, hardly.

 

[Pakey]

Way over the top. We had the same thing happen in May at THV. I was not happy about the keys not working and having to make that long trek back to the front desk but I put on my big girl pants and dealt with it nicely. We arrived at the resort at 9pm at night and it took us over 2 hours to get into our villa.

Stuff happens. I don't expect freebies every time things don't go my way. I don't take it out on the staff; I imagine they get enough of that from the people who have unrealistic expections.

 

[sjs314]

I noticed on my most recent reservation Disney has now added to the paragraph on Check-in, I do not recall it stateing on my last one that check-in might be delayed 1 to 2 hours during busier times.

Seems going forth they will be covered since in OP's case check-in for villas is 4pm so as long as their room was ready by 6pm they would have no complaint as Dec 19th is considered a busier time at WDW

Resort Check-In/Check-Out
Check-in time is usually between 3 and 4 p.m. (some hotels have check-in after 4 p.m.), and check-out time is usually between 11 a.m. and 12 noon. During peak periods, check-in may be delayed one to two hours.

 

[3 Hobbits 2 Disney]

Hyperbole...dramatic....but with 16 or 17 posts I'm sure the DIS feedback will provide some "style guide" feedback for language. Hope your trip is fabulous.

 

[OhioDVC]

It sounds like they compensate you nicely, but it seems like check-in problems are happening more often than in the past