Terrible Experience -POR RIV

[jenjersnap]

We found pills ... and old Froot Loops under a bed at AKL so I sympathize. They weren't prescription but they were tylenol, enough of them to have injured either of my two small boys. Luckily, I, not them, found the pills.

I am sorry you had a bad stay. The keys part in particular is unacceptable.

 

[Soccer Canada]

The way disney handles the keys not working issue is terrible. We were at the All Star Sports in September for 4 nights. First we had requested a king size preferred view(and paid more for it as well). Got up to the room, they key didnt work. We were in the Football Building's so it wasnt that bad to walk back, (whilst dodging 500 various sports teams in the main lobby). We got back they said "we dont know what happened", the disney CM redid the keys. We went back up to the room which was "parking lot view" and found that we had 2 double beds.. To make along story short it took us 6 trips to the main desk to get the room we had asked for and get the key's to work.. And they never even offered us a free breakfest or 10% off for the trouble..

 

[ufgator]

I'm sorry you had a terrible stay. We've stayed at POR a couple of times and have had great stays. Our last stay was a year ago.

 

[J and R's mom]

What an absolute mess! And how terribly disappointing, especially when you were (like most of us on these boards) greatly anticipating the upcoming trip.

I have no doubt you spent numerous hours planning this trip and looking forward to it. You even took steps to ensure that your reservations were linked.

And then they try to fix it for you by sending you to BC, but you end up with even more grief when you think it's finally all over.

Now you have the credit card mix ups and endless phone calls to sort all of that out.

This was a very UN-Disney experience....regardless that others "have never had these problems on their stays."

I hope Disney fixes this for you and makes a return trip worth your while.

 

[shezfrombermuda]

The way disney handles the keys not working issue is terrible. We were at the All Star Sports in September for 4 nights. First we had requested a king size preferred view(and paid more for it as well). Got up to the room, they key didnt work. We were in the Football Building's so it wasnt that bad to walk back, (whilst dodging 500 various sports teams in the main lobby). We got back they said "we dont know what happened", the disney CM redid the keys. We went back up to the room which was "parking lot view" and found that we had 2 double beds.. To make along story short it took us 6 trips to the main desk to get the room we had asked for and get the key's to work.. And they never even offered us a free breakfest or 10% off for the trouble..

I don't know what is going on but you would think that the CM's know which rooms have which views before they assign one. You would think that they know how to make the key cards work! The manager at POR said that they had alot of new staff and that was the reason for having these problems. Maybe they are not being trained adequately.

 

[asianmom]

The OP's bad experience kind of reminds me of our first stay at Miacosta hotel TokyoDisney (Japan). We went during a busy time of the year and I was informed during check in that the hotel was fully booked for the day so it was lucky for us that we had made prior reservations.Sure, sure. We were then issued room keys and were swiftly whisked away by a very friendly looking porter. As it was our v first trip to Disney and the hotel was truly beautiful, we were awe-struck and were enjoying every minute of the journey to our room UNTIL the porter inserted our key into its rightful lock. Gasp, Gasp,problem, wait purleesu (please), no English (meaning he doesn't speak English) , get another person for you. So, with great dismay, we saw our dear porter make his hurried exit down the corridor. Some 20 min later, a lady in uniform hurried towards us. Sorry to keep you waiting, new key. But alas, it didn't fit again. Wait a moment please and she was gone. A moment turned out to be another 25 minutes or so, by the time which we were all sitting on our suitcases and I was beginning a slow boil inside.Very, very sorry, she said, followed by three deep bows.(How can U get angry at somebody who bows at U?).The lady then go on to inform me that our lock was 'out of order' and we would have to change room but the only thing that was available that day was a suite!
From all her gesturing I didn't think this upgrade was to be for free. Being the frugal good house wife that I am, I became quite agitated at this point. No, no, this room was to be ours, maybe you could break the lock or something, we don't care for the lock, got a hammer?(just joking, didn't actually mention the hammer, but just so U get the picture.I was livid) Anyway, to make the long story short, the nice lady must have felt sorry for this weird foreigner who 'd gone quite berserk for she then spent the next 30 min talking very vehemently over her walkie talkie and at last managed to get a room in the same category for us. What a relieve. So, for those who are counting, we spent just over an hour of golden park time checking in. Not that bad compared the OP but it sure wasn't funny then. Please don't take me wrong, I am not complaining, just wanted to share. We had a good time there despite the key fiasco, so much so that we went back again within that year.

 

[shezfrombermuda]

What an absolute mess! And how terribly disappointing, especially when you were (like most of us on these boards) greatly anticipating the upcoming trip.

I have no doubt you spent numerous hours planning this trip and looking forward to it. You even took steps to ensure that your reservations were linked.

And then they try to fix it for you by sending you to BC, but you end up with even more grief when you think it's finally all over.

Now you have the credit card mix ups and endless phone calls to sort all of that out.

This was a very UN-Disney experience....regardless that others "have never had these problems on their stays."

I hope Disney fixes this for you and makes a return trip worth your while.

If we go back, no I am sure we will, I am going to stay for less than 10 nights. The concept of a continuing reservation was alien to most CM's. and that was the cause of most of the problems. I might stay at the Dolphin or Swan or might consider a Deluxe. (Housekeeping was much better at BC).

From now on I will check under the beds of all hotels!

For now I just hope Disney fixes the charges on my credit card.

 

[pansmermaidzlagoon]

Also, if you have a recurring problem where the key does not open the door - have them send someone out to check the lock mechanism - after numerous trips to the front desk, (where they would insist we MUST be doing something to demagnitize them) they finally did this for us - turns out there is a little battery in there that does occasionally need to be replaced - they did this - and no more problems - the CM was also very informative and pleasant to chat with!

 

[Cinderumbrella]

Sorry you had a bad trip... we just returned from a stay at POR from 10/25 to 11/1. We checked in on the day that the computers were down at the resort and there was a problem issuing room keys and park tickets. We couldn't even activate the dining plan the whole first day we were there. The guy who checked us in was clueless and really didn't seem to care that this was an inconvenience. We had to charge our meals and then present the receipts at the front desk and have our account credited. Each night for 3 days my husband would wait 30-45 minutes at the front desk to get all of our issues resolved. Our second day we were given new key cards that were supposed to include our room key, park hoppers and dining plan. Still no dining plan. On our third day, the dining plan was there, but the park hoppers disappeared from our keys (Luckily the CM at AK took pity on us and let us in anyway). We finally met up with a wonderful woman who felt awful about the whole thing. She credited our credit card for all of our meals, but never subtracted them from our dining plan so we ended up with a bunch of extra meals to use (and believe me- we did!)

Despite that, we really loved the resort. Our room was clean. We were in Oak Manor which was close to everything. We got towel animals everyday. We thought the food court staff were very polite and helpful. We loved the ladies in the gift shop. Bus service was very good (never waited over 10 minutes) and almost always got a seat. We have decided to stay there again next December.

 

[belleandthebeast]

Just wanted to reply and say that we had the same problems w/ our room key cards. We did not have a problem w/ dining or park hoppers but we did have numerous problems getting into our rooms w/ the cards. Thank goodness we had connecting rooms because we were able to get into only 1 room.

Checked w/ the front desk numerous times only to be told that if I:

1. Put the room key card next to my cell phone, which by the way, I kept doing,

2. Put the room key card next to credit cards or any other cards w/ a magnetic strip

or

3. Put them next to anything magnetic,

the keys would deactivate. I must have done that every second, because the keys never did work during our 3-night stay.

 

[jeancbpugh]

Wow! A prescription pill?! I would definitely write a letter and let them know what you found. It's such a huge resort, I am thinking they may be understaffed or you just had a really bad mousekeeper.

When my kids were little I used to always check under the beds at hotels. Most of them had bits of food, or pills, or some small things that kids shouldn't put in their mouths. I don't think Mousekeeping is unique in missing this stuff.

 

[goofy4tink]

I don't want to seem argumentative here but.....when you are staying in a value resort there are no 'preferred' views. There are 'preferred' buildings. They do not have the same 'view' system that the other resorts have. At Music, the preferred bldg is Calypso, at Pop it's the 60's bldgs....at Movies and Sports I'm not nearly as sure, so will keep my mouth shut on them. But, you can't request, and pay extra for, a pool view. At least that was the case the times I've stayed in them. It could have changed but that was the case in August.
However, this in no way negates the OP terrible experience. Pills should not be left under beds and the rooms should be cleaned. I know that when we were at Pop last August it was brutally hot and my dd and I tried to come back to our room around 2-3 in the afternoon. Almost everyday we did that, the room wasn't made up. One day, we got to the room, saw the housekeepers cart outside the room (she was in the room next door), so we went for a walk around the bldg. We were gone for about 30 minutes...still not done. We waited, and watched, from a different area to see just how long she would take. It was another 20 minutes!!! Almost an hour to clean two rooms?? I don't think so. When we got to our room, she had made the beds, taken the trash out and 'swiped' out the tub and the sink. But, that was it. We had rehung our towels on the bars since we don't need fresh ones every day....yep, she took them and replaced them. Why in heavens name do they put out signage telling us to reuse our towels in order to conserve water if the maids are just going to take them anyway??!! I could have done what that housekeeper did in about 10 minutes...and yes, I did time myself the day we left!!! I did the exact same stuff she did...took me less than the 10 minutes.

Yes, there are some really good housekeepers in WDW and they do a terrific job. It must be incredibly hard to meet everyone's requests in a timely fashion, with the ole timeclock just ticking away. I have to say that I would rather have a clean room than towel animals anyday. Maybe the housekeeping staff should try to clean really well first and then make some of those towel animals.

Anyway....just wanted to clear up any misconceptions about 'views' at the values.

 

[bedgraynexl]

Just wanted to post my two cents:

when we stayed at the Dolphin April of 05, we also had none working key issue. Though, the CM were great. Got new keys, they called maintainence and a manager with a master key escorted me back to our room so we didn't have to wait in the hall. Turns out because we were checking in on the first day of Daylight Savings the computers for the key locks were still an hour behind, so it thought our room could not be released for another hour.

 

[ugadog99]

We just returned from POR and will definitely be back. I'm sorry the OP didn't have a pleasant experience at Riverside, but we LOVED it!

 

[mcreamer9]

Wow, I am so sorry that you had all of that happen in one trip. I have stayed at POR and have not had any problems. We are staying there this weekend for a quick trip. I love that resort. Hope everything qoes well with your next stay.

 

[nbodyhome]

I am sorry about your experience - each room at the resorts, no matter where, should be cleaned thoroughly between guests. The Pop room we had was wonderful, but I've had problems in the past with various resorts - deluxe mostly.

The worst experience I can remember at any resort was at the Wilderness Lodge. We had a standard/smokehouse/dumpster view in the back, and at like 1am, a whole mess of vans came (I was sleeping and woke up), and then those workers were a floor above us, doing all kinds of work - hammering, drilling, etc. I couldn't believe it! Everyone on our floor came out in their p.j.s, some went up to the rooms and banged on the doors upstairs to try to get them to stop. Some of us yelled down to the front desk, others went down and the front desk clerks got scared and hid. It took maybe a half hour or more for it to stop. I think I got like 20% off one night for that. Ugh. It was horrible! But I still love the Lodge!

 

[cdrn1]

Wow! A prescription pill?! I would definitely write a letter and let them know what you found. It's such a huge resort, I am thinking they may be understaffed or you just had a really bad mousekeeper.

We found a prescription pill at AKL (thankfully before 11-month old DGD found it) but the rest of our room was very clean and was, in fact, cleaned meticulously our whole stay there, so I don't necessarily think it was a matter of bad mousekeeping; it just taught us the lesson that we need to get down on her level and look for hazards when we check in. Something that small could easily be missed by the vacuum, and hard to see. I wish that people who drop pills would take the time to find them; I mean, you know it fell, it has to be there, look until you find it!!!

 

[Sammie]

When my kids were little I used to always check under the beds at hotels. Most of them had bits of food, or pills, or some small things that kids shouldn't put in their mouths. I don't think Mousekeeping is unique in missing this stuff.

Personally I think it is the type of vacumns they use. They all use commercial grade uprights and I think small items such as pills instead of being picked up by the vacumn actually get pushed under the bed.

As to the keys we have had this problem and I just think it is the nature of the beast, magnetic cards.

I had problems and finally decided it was just my "magnetic" personality because literally I could carry the card in my hand from the desk to my room and it would not work. The front desk ran one up after numerous attempts and it worked. I have trouble though with my watches messing up sometimes too though.

 

[MariettaC]

bump.

 

[MariettaC]

:
when my first reservation was up I was told to throw away our first key to the world cards because we would be issued new ones, found out later that these were our passes and we couldn't get into parks
- issued new cards which also didn't work and key cards which didn't open our rooms
- charging privileges didn't work all the time
- wasting alot of my time standing in lines with guest relations, front desk staff
- our room was far from the main building

I will never go to a moderate disney hotel again. Also considering not returning to a Deluxe.

My family had similar problems last March at CBR and would never stay there again.