We just returned from a 3 day AKL and 4 day Disney Wonder cruise that we used our DVC points for.
We were disappointed that the AKL villas are not actually available for DVC members yet and the accommodations were not what were expected. We had a two bedroom "villa" that essentially was a one bedroom suite and a Studio suite opened with a connecting door. The biggest problem is the Studio only has ONE bed. The other "bed" is a sleep sofa, which simply are too uncomfortable, especially for my 6' 3" 220 lb+ 16 year old son. My daughter had back surgery in 2006, so the sofa bed was out of the question for her as well. What bothers me is that I was really specific when I made the reservation about how many actual beds there would be, and I was assured one room would have two double beds and the other a queen. After much time on the phone with housekeeping, we managed to get an inflatable mattress that we put on top of the sleep sofa for my younger son. Our older son drove in from Atlanta to spend the three park days with us, and he slept on the sofa in the living room area, but didn't bother to open the sleeper part. I don't understand why they don't have sleeper beds similar to the ones on the cruise ships, which are really great.
We also had a problem when we first checked in, too. I had been told the rooms are generally ready around 3:30. When we checked in at 3:00 pm, they told us the room would be ready by 4:00 "guaranteed". Well, that was meaningless. We came back at 4:00 (we'd been up and traveling since 3 am and I really needed a quick nap) and were then told 4:30. We asked for the manager, mostly because I was annoyed by being told "guaranteed" earlier and wanted to find out just what that actually meant. She went to check and I stood there and cooled my heels another 25 minutes. She finally came back and said the "final check" of the room had been done and we could go up (by now it was 5:00 pm). Then the bed issue mentioned above became our next speed bump to get by. The manager was nice and accommodated us as best she could, but I believe 5:00 pm is an absurd check in time. On Sunday I called to see if we could have "late checkout" before it was time for the bus to the Wonder, and was told the DVC rooms had a "no late checkout" policy because they needed to prepare the room for the next guest. What a joke! Does it really take 8 hours to clean and prep a room? Either they need more housekeepers or ones that can work more efficiently. They rooms weren't particularly spotless. And our grocery order was not in the room, as I had been lead to believe it would be. I had to call down and wait an hour for that to be brought up, too. The explanation was that they aren't sure which room would be ours until we took possession of the room, yet when I asked if we could have a different room when ours wasn't available, they said we could only have the rooms assigned to us. Their right hand doesn't seem to know what their left hand is doing.
I'm not sure if the lousy treatment was because we're DVC members or what, but it was the first time we've used our DVC points at the DW and I wasn't too thrilled.
Our home property is Saratoga Springs. We were going to take a look around but didn't get a chance. I've been told by others that the place is very bland and theme-less. From what I saw from the bus, it wasn't impressive at all.
It will be very hard to get DH to go back there anytime soon.
If I'd known about the ultra late room checking time and the lack of actual beds, I'd have chosen a different property to use my points at.
The disorganization and lack of real concern on the part of the staff seemed uncharacteristic of our normal Disney experiences. Again, I don't know if it is a DVC issue or just a lowering of standards on the part of Disney.
We were disappointed that the AKL villas are not actually available for DVC members yet and the accommodations were not what were expected. We had a two bedroom "villa" that essentially was a one bedroom suite and a Studio suite opened with a connecting door. The biggest problem is the Studio only has ONE bed. The other "bed" is a sleep sofa, which simply are too uncomfortable, especially for my 6' 3" 220 lb+ 16 year old son. My daughter had back surgery in 2006, so the sofa bed was out of the question for her as well. What bothers me is that I was really specific when I made the reservation about how many actual beds there would be, and I was assured one room would have two double beds and the other a queen. After much time on the phone with housekeeping, we managed to get an inflatable mattress that we put on top of the sleep sofa for my younger son. Our older son drove in from Atlanta to spend the three park days with us, and he slept on the sofa in the living room area, but didn't bother to open the sleeper part. I don't understand why they don't have sleeper beds similar to the ones on the cruise ships, which are really great.
We also had a problem when we first checked in, too. I had been told the rooms are generally ready around 3:30. When we checked in at 3:00 pm, they told us the room would be ready by 4:00 "guaranteed". Well, that was meaningless. We came back at 4:00 (we'd been up and traveling since 3 am and I really needed a quick nap) and were then told 4:30. We asked for the manager, mostly because I was annoyed by being told "guaranteed" earlier and wanted to find out just what that actually meant. She went to check and I stood there and cooled my heels another 25 minutes. She finally came back and said the "final check" of the room had been done and we could go up (by now it was 5:00 pm). Then the bed issue mentioned above became our next speed bump to get by. The manager was nice and accommodated us as best she could, but I believe 5:00 pm is an absurd check in time. On Sunday I called to see if we could have "late checkout" before it was time for the bus to the Wonder, and was told the DVC rooms had a "no late checkout" policy because they needed to prepare the room for the next guest. What a joke! Does it really take 8 hours to clean and prep a room? Either they need more housekeepers or ones that can work more efficiently. They rooms weren't particularly spotless. And our grocery order was not in the room, as I had been lead to believe it would be. I had to call down and wait an hour for that to be brought up, too. The explanation was that they aren't sure which room would be ours until we took possession of the room, yet when I asked if we could have a different room when ours wasn't available, they said we could only have the rooms assigned to us. Their right hand doesn't seem to know what their left hand is doing.
I'm not sure if the lousy treatment was because we're DVC members or what, but it was the first time we've used our DVC points at the DW and I wasn't too thrilled.
Our home property is Saratoga Springs. We were going to take a look around but didn't get a chance. I've been told by others that the place is very bland and theme-less. From what I saw from the bus, it wasn't impressive at all.
It will be very hard to get DH to go back there anytime soon.
If I'd known about the ultra late room checking time and the lack of actual beds, I'd have chosen a different property to use my points at.
The disorganization and lack of real concern on the part of the staff seemed uncharacteristic of our normal Disney experiences. Again, I don't know if it is a DVC issue or just a lowering of standards on the part of Disney.
