We however did not. To all of you with a booked GV room and not having some kind of magical fairy follow you around (or evidently having a great
travel agent! ) please don't go to Disney expecting any kind of upgrade. We not only didn't get any kind of upgrade we got put in Sago Cay which is the only building that is not refurbished. ALSO if you have a GV be sure to put in the request you want, because the idea that you leave no request and this will give you upgrade opportunities if for the birds. I don't have any clue how or why certain people get upgraded and on this board it seems that EVERYONE gets an upgrade, but we just did not. Channing and I had the same discount, so I gotta believe that didn't have anything to do with it. It was noted on our reservation that we were celebrating our 15 year anniversary (and in today's world, I think that quite a feat!!
). When we checked in we asked politely and nicely if it was possible to get a refurbished room. The girl smiled and said "we have you in building 5". Which of course, I knew was the only one not refurbished. So I sucked it up and we waited for our room to be ready. After all Channing and lots of others told me not to worry, no bad GV rooms!! Well when our room wasn't ready at 4:15 we had to go to dinner at the MK for our 4:30 reservation at CP. We didn't come back until around 11 pm to find out that our room 5121 was on the ground floor right next to the elevator in Sago Cay. It is funny because if you look back the only thing I ever posted that I really wanted was a higher floor and non smoking and hopefully a refurbished room(oh and I did really want to split my kids sleeping so I wanted a bench which is WHY I didn't request a higher floor since the dormer rooms do not have the extra bench bed.) I mean think of all the rooms in GV that AREN"T on the ground floor! I figured the odds were good that I would at least have a good chance of being off the ground level. Nope!
When we went to open the curtain and see our balcony we opened the door and a whoosh of smoke smell just filled the room. I guess our balcony is right outside a bench where people smoke. Don't know if this is a designated spot, but clearly someone was just smoking. Again, ironically the only thing our reservation as far as requests had was NON smoking since my DD has a severe alergy to smoke. So it was 11:30 at night and my daughter started coughing and my husband who has "sound senitivity" was up all night with the humming of the elevator. I cried myself to sleep! Very big let down for "upgrading our resort".
Now we are not frequent GF guest but we come to Disney once a year, so my husband went down the next morning and again nicely asked if there was any way we can move to a refurbished room on a higher floor away from an elevator. He explained that this was our 15 year anniversary and that we were splurging and his wife cried herself to sleep so any help would be appreciated. They said they would move us. So we packed up and put our luggage with Bell Services just to be told that we wouldn't have a room until after three but our luggage would be in our new room. At about three we called from Epcot and were told they put us in 5320. SO we got moved across the hall from the elevator and up two floors. It was more quiet and no chance of smoke, so my hubby was happy. I of course looked out and saw the view. While my kids were thrilled to see the monorail, I of course saw the maintenance trucks and we got to listen to them backing up! Then we look out over the pond and get to look at this big yellow tractor. Not very magical so again I cried myself to sleep, but at this point there was nothing we could do. We did go on to have a good trip. Weather was perfect. Warm, swimming weather and cold on our last night for the
MVMCP. That party is AWESOME! The resort was nice. I liked Gasparillas, hated those stinking Golf carts EVERYWHERE. We always had one parked in front of our building and had to dodge them quite a bit! We sat in front of Gasppy's to watch the fireworks and had at least six carts pass us during the 10 minute show.
OK I know I sound sour, but reading this thread it is very hard not to get the impression that this resort is Grand and magic happens here. It just didn't happen for us. My DH said if I hadn't read these boards I probably wouldn't have been so dissappointed in our room(s). He is right of course, so to those of you dreaming of an upgrade - or at least a refurbished room- don't do it!
One last thing. While I was crying in the bathroom the Bellhop guy came with our luggage (which they assured us would be in our second room and we wouldn't have to call for, but of course we had to call!) he told my DH that he was sorry I was upset but that Disney Management was having a conference and of course they took up two of the refurbished buildings. Just bad luck on our part.
We probably won't be back to the GF. We can't afford RPC or Sugar Loaf, and I didn't really need those things, I just really wanted the refurbished room. Channing and others had told me there were very few bad views.... Just my luck I got one of those! We didn't bother taking a picture of our room since it was the old version. Do have a picture of our lovely tractor view though!
Channing very glad you got upgraded. You probably would have hated the GV rooms!
Oh yeah, Mousekeeping was great. No extra soaps or anything, but the room was clean and turn down each night. They did bring me up clean towels quickly if we needed extra because we went swimming a couple of days.
OK thats my review! Hope everyone has a wonderful trip coming up over the holidays. The gingerbread house was lovely! Sorry if I sound sour, just want you GV people to make sure you put in a request for what you want and then try not to be dissappointed if you don't get it.
Here are some pictures of the view from 5320!
By the last day of our trip the tractor was moved..... Disney Management was at the resort, so I gotta believe that had something to do it.
Although, if everyone does, it will be crowded. 
I have no clue how those S/D thread folks say what they say because it sure hasn't applied to me and our stays ever.
