The Good and Bad - Our VWL Stay 1/8 - 1/15/05

ReneeQ

DIS Veteran
Joined
Feb 6, 2000
Messages
1,164
Not sure where to post, but since we stayed at Wilderness Lodge Villas, will post here. We own points at BWV and VWL, but this was our first VWL stay. We were in a 2 BR, with 6 in the party. Myself, my mother, my brother, my sister, her husband and their son/my nephew, age 7. NONE of us had ever stayed here and I wanted to impress everyone.

Check in was a disaster. It took over one hour. I had to wait about 15 min, then was helped by Mike, who was wonderful. But he informed me we were in a smoking optional room on the 2nd floor. I was disappointed and wanted a higher floor, but could live with that. But "smoking optional" was not an option. I booked this at 11 months to the day and detest smoke. My ONLY request on the reservation was nonsmoking and they couldn't honor it? We checked in around 4 PM. He had to get member services involved, but finally got us in a NON SMOKING ROOM, and said it was fifth floor, water view, "for our trouble."

The room was in perfect condition and everything worked fine. I have no complaints about the hotel or room at all. But bell services was horrible and rude on more than one occasion. My sister, who has never been to this resort, had a problem with something she purchased and mistakingly went to the bell services desk instead of the guest services desk. She explained her problem and was finishing up just as I walked up and the man said, "so, what do you want ME to do about it, we're bell services lady." This morning at check out my brother in law gave the bell guy a $25 tip! When I asked him why so much he said, "I thought I heard someone say $1 a bag and we had 21 bags." THEN we realize the guy left three bags up in our room so my brother in law goes back to get them himself. My sister realizes their car keys aren't in their car, so she goes go get them and the guy practically INSISTED on a tip from her quite rudely while dangling her keys. She said "we already gave you people a $25 tip and you left half our stuff in the room, quit being so rude!"

Speaking of very unDisneylike cast members - we were told by a lady at the Polynesian Front Desk "uh, can't you see we're in the middle of something, go over there and someone can help you." The cast member at the entrance to the Animation Tour at MGM said on the speaker to please move forward and when few did, he slammed the microphone down, let out a loud heavy angry sigh and said "MOVE UP PEOPLE!" I know there were others, but I can't remember any right now. And so many CMs just seemed snippy or angry that they were at work. What has happened to the Disney magic?????

This was my first trip renting an ECV in the park for health reasons, and I'll post about that on the disabilities board.

Overall the trip was great, weather perfect and crowds non-existant. But most cast members we encounted seemed VERY UNHAPPY to be there and that was new for me and it did put a damper on the mood.

Thanks for listening!
 
Sorry to hear about your problems. So how did a non-smoking room "magically appear"? If they were using "room ready" then you should have been offered any non-smoking room that was unoccupied. Perhaps they did have some rooms blocked and took one of them. I would e-mail member services and let them know. I don't like their current system. I think those who book at 11 months should get first chance at their requests, especially smoking/non-smoking.
 
Sorry the check-in process wasn't what you thought it should be and people were rude. That's just not right! Everyone is supposed to be friendly in Disney World! At least you had great weather and a good time otherwise. Holy moly, you had 21 bags?!?!??!?!

Shelby ::MinnieMo
 
We just got back yesterday from 6 nights at VWL following a 4 day Magic cruise. Our experience was quite the opposite, check in went very smoothly, we expected to not be able to get into a room until late, so planned on hanging out at the pool, and maybe getting some laundry done, much to our surprise, our room was ready at 10:30 or so, and we were able to check right in and get the land portion of our vacation started! We encountered no bad attitudes from CM's at the hotel, or any of the parks, in fact many went out of there way to make our trip even more magical!

My wife is much more eloquent than I am, so I will allow her to post a full trip report when she has time.

Sorry your trip was not as magical as you would have liked!

Mike
 

I'm sorry your trip was an unhappy one at WLV, I checked in Christmas week, and my experience was the opposite. I waited less than 3 minutes to check in at 9 am, and my room was ready, with all requests met. Everyone was friendly as could be, we used both bell services and valet, and valet was our only problem. They were disorganized. Every time I got my car, I had to wait up to 20 minutes before they moved the cars so I could leave! :scared1:
 
Oh, I'm sorry you had problems during check-in and with bell services. We have only had one instance where we had a CM at the front desk who was not nice at all. We have always been treated great from the Bell Services and the Valet Parking.

I wonder if your checking in delays were from the resorts being so busy because of the marathon weekend?

We can't wait for our trip coming up the end of November and we will be back at VWL. We just stopped over there this trip (tried SSR for 1st time) and went to the Villa's and the kids played checkers and I took a nap by the fire in the comfy rocking chair.

I hope your next visit is better. We recall a couple of CM's this trip that weren't the typical nice treatment, but all in all, they were friendly.
 
Sorry you didn't have the best of trips. I hope the next one is better. We had a problem with room placement last time at VWL. We checked in at 9am and was told to check back in a few hours that we had a pool view. We checked back every hour or so and when the room was ready, it was facing the walkway that enters the villas/goes to the busses. I called and asked what happened to my pool view? I was told that it wasn't pool view, but near the pool :rolleyes:
 
After every trip I write a letter to Disney, I report the good and the not so good. I think it helps, so I try, to get names, dates and times for when I draft my letter.
 
We were at Disney the week before X-mas and my husband kept noting that the service and attitud in the world just wasn't up to par this time. I hope you had a good trip despite the problems! :rolleyes:
 
The bell services is a sore spot with us also. After getting involved with a thread on tipping (over on the budget boards a while back), we decided it just was not worth it to have them carry our stuff. I figured it out that we have about 10 pieces of luggage/stuff. The advised tip on the tipping guidelines on this board is $3 per bag. We had always just did $1 per bag. Then the guy who takes it from your car and loads it onto the cart wants a tip also. So according to these boards we would have to tip $30 to the one bringing it to the room and another say $10 to the one putting it on the cart.

So this past Dec we were our own bell services and I must say that it was the most painless check-in that we have ever had at VWL. We were not rushed or stressed or felt pressure to tip more that we already did. Seems like the bell service people shot themselves in the foot for us. And the exercise did not hurt us at all.

Really kind of sad because we saw them standing around a lot and they could be making money, but not from us.
 
Sorry you had a few less than magical moments during your stay. Hopefully it was just a small percentage of the time you were there, and the rest was magical.

As for rude CMs - those instances and comments would be unacceptable anywhere - not just Disney - in my opinion!
 
That's a terrible story - I've been to VWL/WL 3 times and never had a bad thing to say - actually one year we took my parents along (drove down), and one of the valets struck up a conversation with my dad about being from NY - turned out my dad and his dad knew each other. The following year - same valet remembered me and always made a point to say "hello mr. ....".

Sorry you had such a bad experience, unfortunately it always seems to work that way when you are hoping for the best and trying to make it extra special/impressive for a larger group.
 
Hi all! ReneeQ, I'm sorry certain things were not up to par.
I have had numerous little imperfections with DVC, but I've never, ever had rude cast members.

On my last visit I personally thanked many cast members for what they do for us. I told them that we appreciate what they do, and every one thanked me for showing gratitude. A couple even said that the guests that show this gratitude make it all worth while.

Anyway, I'm happy to read that your trip was great overall... :cool:

MG
 
We have stayed at WL/VWl around 5 times so far. WE have had bad experiences with bell services 3 times!! Valet are awesome and polite. Last trip to VWL the bell man that dropped our luggage off was sooooooooo rude!! DH tipped him and told him he hoped his day got better as he was rude!! It didn't go over too well as that bell man gave us dirty looks everytime we passed by his station that week!!!!

In the future, we will carry our own stuff up to the room and back down and save us at least $25!! Money I am sure can be put to good use someone else in Disney!!

We love VWL and it still is one of DH's favorites but we just won't use the bell services. All other services yes!!!
 
I stayed at BCV in OCT and was told by the bell services, "I'm sorry sir you cant use one of our baggage carts to load your own car."
We complained to desk services and was told, "Thats the new union agreement."
I have no problem with unions but when they feel it is thier "right" to get tipped by you for moving bags 100 yards, I get P.O'd.
I almost lost my temper that day. My DW said, "I'll help you move the bags to the car. Those people dont deserve our tips." I agree and we went to it. 9 trips later we had the mini van packed. And those rude and greedy baggage people can live without the 30 dollar tip.
 
DebbieB said:
I don't like their current system. I think those who book at 11 months should get first chance at their requests, especially smoking/non-smoking.
I agree. Smoking or non-smoking should be more of a guarantee. They wouldn't put someone who requested smoking in a non-smoking room, would they?

ReneeQ - Thanks for the report. I'm sorry you ran into so many grumpy and rude CMs. It's bad enough when you run into other vacationers that have this attitude, but coming from a CM it is even worse.
 
Well, I have just realized that we are probably on the "naughty" list. Didn't realize that it was standard to tip $3 a bag. I always tip based on the service, if you give excellent service, you get an excellent tip and if it's bad service, not much of a tip. Both of our bellhops were awesome at BWVs and we gave them both $10(we had 10 bags), we thought this was a nice tip, apparently not. The valet who brought our car around was a little annoying, guess he was afraid we weren't goint to tip him because he was in my husbands face until he did tip him, we hadn't forgotten about him my DD had slipped on the curb and was crying, she was a little more important at the moment than giving out a tip. Our trip in March we will be our own bellhops and we will park our own car, less stress. My DD is old enough to help so I'll give her the money that we would have used on tips, bet she'll be more appreciative. Sorry you didn't get the magical attitude while you were there, I have seen where more and more dvcers are complaining about this. I hope this is not going to be a growing attitude at Disney, that's why we joined DVC because the employees of disney always have such a great attitude and make the trip so much more fun and memorable. To those Disney employees who no matter what is going on in their life continue to make the experience magical for its guests, we love ya and appreciate it alot, you are the true heart of Disney!!!!
 
It turns out that Disney CM's hate DVC members, according to a self proclaimed Disney CM on another thread. Just be glad you didn't end up with flat tires or egged windows.
 












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