The Most Amazing Upgrade Story

[TinkerBelle_325]

Ok this one is kinda lengthy so bear with me.

In August 2003 my parents, myself (18) and my best friend (also 18) went to WDW for a week. It was my 2nd trip with my best friend and we wanted it to be special. The first time we went together (March 2001) we stayed at Coronado Springs (my FAV resort hehe) and she asked if we could stay there again this time.

The trip started out wonderfully. We got a water view Casitas room, 1st floor with an amazing view of the Dig Site. The day we checked in it was sunny and bright....for all of 5 minutes...then the heavens opened up and torrential rain fell. After we had unloaded our bags I went to grab some ice and slipped, skidding down a VERY slippery ramp. Not fun!

The next day was practically perfect, but when we got back to our room we noticed there was a message. The front desk had called to inform us that a HUGE conference (an insurance company I believe) was checking in today. They were taking up 75% of the resorts rom and were having several functions that would...*gasp* CLOSE THE DIG SITE!! No!!! This is one of the main reasons we adore Coronado so much.

Here comes the plus they offered to transfer us, free of charge to a Deluxe Resort. Woohoo!! The initially offered the Animal Kingdom Lodge....and we kinda....sorta....well...didn't want to stay there LOL yes yes i know everyone raves about this resort but it just doesn't do anything for us.

So we started pondering where we wanted to switch to... Wilderness Lodge came to mind, but we are really obsesed with Epcot and had never had the chance to stay at one of the Epcot Area resorts. Ok...which one? Yacht Club! Come on...hello? Stormalong Bay!! Ever since I first saw pictures of that pool i knew i HAD to swim in it.

We called the front desk, said we would take them up on their offer and would check in to the Yacht Club tomorrow. They assured us it would be a waterview room at the Yacht Club as we had payed for a water view at CSR. Cool!

The next day...my dad's birthday... we slept in, went and had brunch at Cracker Barrel and proceeded to the Yacht Club to Check in. Now, we had dropped off our bags before we went to brunch and had been assured that we would have a room ready in an hour. Ok great an hour passes, we call...no sorry the room isn't ready yet. No big deal, we'll go to the Florida Mall and then call back. Another hour...no sorry no room ready yet. Hmmm...ok lets head back there and talk to them in person.

We got back half an hour after the second call. It was now 3:30, 21/2 hous after we had been told a room was ready. At four, after a half an hour of talking to the people at the front desk we STILL DIDN'T HAVE A ROOM!

I thought my dad was going to blow a gasket... but He kept his calm. He explained (many times) that we were being switched not by our choice but due to a conference and we had now been waiting 3 hours for a room! The girl at the check in counter was no help saying it wasn't her problem that we had to switch...excuse me? Doesn't sound too Disney-ish to me. After speaking with a general manager my dad almost....almost got us upgraded to the....*drumroll* PRESIDENTIAL SUITE!! But it wasn't available for our whole stay and we didn't want to switch rooms AGAIN midway through the week. So we settled *pfft* we jumped for joy at getting a conceirge room! We were also given 2 front of the line fast passes to use on any attraction we wished. Including Mission:Space, which was open for a few days (before the offical opening woohoo!!)

So here's the kicker. We paid $1950 (we had the Fairytale Package) for 1 week at Coronado Waterview and we recieved....1 week (just under 1 week actually) at Yacht Club Waterview Conceirge!!! That's my story hehe...any other amazing upgrades?

 

[square pond]

WOW That is an amazing story! Sorry to hear your stay started out so bad. But glad to hear the Fairies were smiling down on you and sent thier pixie dust to fix your problems!!

 

[stina]

That's an incredible story. I'm so happy for you. Not to be an eeyore but I have a bad upgrade story.

I went to AKL last fall (Sept 04) with my partner and we booked a standard room. It was the 2nd week in Sept, we knew the hotel would not be full so we figured there'd be a good chance of an upgrade.

So we arrive, get in check-in line and low and behold, WHO ends up waiting on us but the manager who was training a new underling. We knew we were doomed. She wouldn't even consider giving us an upgrade! It was so disappointing. I mean, I knew not to get my hopes up (you get what you pay for) but it was the second week of Sept, probably THE slowest week of the year!

So we slumped over to the lobby chairs with a look of despair on our faces.
My partner finally snapped out of it and said she hadn't come this far to give up now. So she got on the lobby phone (that's right 5 ft from the front desk!) and called to see if our room was ready. When she did she managed to ask AGAIN if there was anyway to upgrade. The person on the line was KINDER than little miss manager, and said he'd look and see, he came back and upgraded us to pool view! Hey it was better than parking lot view! So we decided to be very happy with that. And I'm glad we tried.

We also found out a big piece of info when that happened. Although 2nd week in Sept. is typically one of the slowest weeks of the year, the hotel was at 100% capacity the weekend we checked in.... because of a projected hurricane. All the locals came and checked in that weekend filling the hotel Saturday and promptly checked out on Monday. I'm not trying to sound resentful, but that pretty much ruined our chances (the 8 day vacationers) of getting a nicer room. But we were happy that we got to stay there and thrilled with the pool upgrade and a room we enjoyed very much.

Ironically the manager lady who denied us a room upgrade just happened to be featured in the in-room promotional video about AKL. So everytime we watched that video we'd see her face and roll our eyes!

stina

 

[Alicnwondrln]

I love the upgrade stories
and the love the bad stories to
hahhaa