Tikiman, could you answer a few Poly Concierge questions for me?

[Wendy_Darling_2001]

Welcome back Tikiman!

Happy belated anniversary and birthday! And congrats on your new house. I have been following your posts and website for awhile now. You and Tara sound so much like my boyfriend and I, esp. after reading your trip report. It sounds like you are taking a break from WDW for awhile, we would have loved to meet another Disney couple our age.

We (myself, 27, boyfriend 29) are planning our Polynesian Garden View trip for Labor Day weekend. I love your website, it convinced me to stay at the resort. Well that and maybe "Lilo and Stitch". This will be our first time at the Polynesian as well as our first time Concierge.

I have done all my research and I have a few questions that hopefully you or anyone else might be able to answer.

1) Is Captain Cook's open 24 hours?

2) Are the free hula lessons still offered and are they only for children?

3) I have heard that you can peek in the Neverland Club before it opens to the kids. As a huge Peter Pan fan, I would love to check it out, do you know if this is possible?

4) We will be arriving early morning, have you had luck with your room being ready early in the day? Have you had luck with a late check-out?

5) I assume we can pull our car up and have bellmen take our luggage and then self park our car to avoid daily valet fee?

6) When should we expect to be contacted by concierge? We are currently about 45 days out.

7) The most important question, how do the concierge privelages work on check-in/check-out day? For example, if we arrive before noon, can we stop in the lounge and grab a snack? And how does this work the day you check-out? Do you only have access until check-out time?

And I am curious, how do you get so many goodies ... cakes, strawberries, champagne on more than one occasion during your stay?

Thanks so much in advance for your help.

Wendy

 

[Tikiman]

Aloha Wendy,

Captain Cook’s is open 24 hours but the grill closes at 10:00 or 11:00. I had many late nights where I grabbed a personal pizza on the way to the room.

The hula lessons are usually a kids activity that they do sometimes over at Luau Cove during the day.

Yes you can check out the Neverland Club. I did while I was there last week. It looks like fun for the kids.

The earliest we have checked in was 2:00. Even if your room is not ready they will take you over to the concierge building and hold your stuff. You will have access to the lounge and the food that is out and you can head off to the parks. We usually check out late. The latest they can give you is 1:00.

You can self park and the lot is very close.

The concierge will usually not call but sometimes do. The Personal Itinerary will come anywhere from 90-30 days out but sometimes will not come at all depending on how you did your reservations. Some travel agents do not give the Polynesian your information to send you the itinerary. You can email them any time at:

wdw.polynesian.island.planning.office@disney.com

This address is concierge only.

As I said above you can use the lounge the minute you get there. As far as after you check out, they would not kick you out of the lounge but your key may not still work to get into the building. I have never tried.

As far as getting so much stuff, that was just a mistake. We know many of the staff and they were all putting in requests for the stuff so we got it more than the one time we were supposed to. That does not usually happen.

Have a great time and I am sure you will enjoy it.

Aloha

Steve

 

[Wendy_Darling_2001]

Mahalo Steve!

I really appreciate it!

Wendy

 

[tinkerbelle30]

tikiman-
as a folow up to Wendy's ?'s- We're going in dec(as you can see below) Would it be too early to e-mail the concierge staff about the personal itinerary? I booked through MK travel(disney club) and from your web site it looks like they may not get my info??? I want to make PS for cal. grille (120 days) - Your Opinion??? Thanks!!

 

[Tess]

As far as your check-out day question is concerned, you are welcome to use the lounge until you depart the resort. Your key will work to enter the concierge building until midnight of your check-out day but will NOT work for the room you just vacated.

We always have a late departure time on our last day and have used the lounge for snacks, appetizers, breakfast, etc. We've used the third floor lounge restroom for pool changing and last minute freshening up before our departure.

tinkerbelle30--you can contact concierge anytime after you've booked. If you have special PS you want to make and they have a 120 day window, by all means--let them know! BTW, I've had DC bookings at concierge and still received the PVI. Frankly, I prefer to utilize e-mail to make my PS and other requests--much quicker! I've never had a problem using the computer to contact the planning staff.

Have fun both of you! We'll be returning in a little less than one year! Anxiously awaiting the time I can book flights for next summer.

 

[Tikiman]

Thanks Tess. I did not know that.

I agree that you can and should contact them any time. I would also have to say not to worry too much about reservations. I have never made reservations before I got to WDW and I have always gotten into any place I wanted to eat. The concierge can actually book a reservation when the system says it is full. We ate at Cali Grill, Coral Reef, Cindys and 'Ohana last minute. Infact we got into 'Ohana 20 minutes from the time we asked if there was anything. The system said they were booked but the concierge could bump us in. Not that it is not good to have it planned ahead of time but we never know what we want to do till we get there and have never had a problem.

Aloha

Steve

 

[tinkerbelle30]

mahalo