Trip Review - Contemporary Atrium Club Level 8/3-8/10

[Kincade]

Just got back from our Disney trip 8/3-8/10 where we stayed at the Contemporary Resort Atrium Club Level - 12th floor Room 4847. We have never had any significant issues on previous trips, but this was different. Important to note that in 2012 we stayed Club Level Main Building at Grand Floridian and Polynesian in 2011 this exact same week.
The stay at the Contemporary Resort Atrium Club w/MK view was our first. It was also more expensive than the pricing for Poly and Grand Floridian.
Mom always said to lead with the positives, so....
The room was of a very good size, good storage space, amazing view. We were the second room from the very end closest to Space Mountain. Great views for Fireworks! Maid service was exceptional. Loved the beds.
The negatives...
By far the worst experience of Club Level that we have had at Disney. Compared to last year at Grand Floridian it was a huge disappointment. First, the majority of the staff seemed disinterested, focused on their own conversations and not welcoming. There were a few exceptions. Clarissa was amazing, but not the norm. Lisa Pergamo, the Guest Service Manager met us after a few issues and is tremendous. There was a woman named Holly who would watch you get off the elevator and turn away. Cold and seemed bothered.
The check in process was rushed, the bags arrived at our room after 2 calls and took more than 90 minutes.
At the Grand Floridian we enjoyed a glass of champagne every night, the CR does not offer it. The hot and cold appetizer offerings were also much more limited! When I asked why the Club Level offerings were not the same caliber as the Grand Floridian, Holly told me it is because that is the flagship luxury deluxe resort. The Contemporary is not the same level. I was floored to hear this and was quite aggravated. Nowhere does it say in Disney materials that there are levels of Deluxe Club Level resorts. Holly gave us the info and I took my concerns to management. It is shocking to me that a Club Level stay is different caliber of offerings, especially when it cost more to stay at CR.
Disney should be embarrassed that this kind of behind the scenes levels exist. Management did not deny it or contest what Holly told us. We will never stay at CR Club Level again knowing that it is considered a notch below internally.
The staff at CR was definitely not as impressive. The clientele in the Club Level was also different. There was a large family, multi generational that took over the club level lounge every day at various times. They would send their wild kids around the corner to play unsupervised while they sprawled out on the couches. It was a noisy and not very high class experience at most times. Certainly far different than the Grand Floridian.
For the price and service and offerings, I would not suggest the Contemporary Atrium Club Level to anyone if they had a choice of the other resorts.
Beware, behind the scenes Disney is elevating one resort over another without your knowledge. Get the experience you pay for. We will do Grand Floridian in the future.

 

[Mousemommy1]

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy your experience.

I, however, would not be surprised that the offerings in the Main Building CL at GF would be slightly better than any of the other CL's. I don't think that this is a "behind the scenes" ranking....the GF is always touted as the flagship Disney resort, the ultimate in Disney luxury. Plus, the cost to stay in the main building is far more than CR CL. (Sugarloaf at GF is less, but Main Building is about $200+ more a night than CR CL)

Every CL is different and offers different experiences. I don't think you should write them all off because of one "bad" experience. And the "clientele" issue...that's all a matter of chance....you could run into a similar situation on your next GF experience.

And back to the behind the scenes ranking thing.....we have only stayed CL at YC and WL. Using your logic, WL should have been a lesser experience than YC because it was cheaper and a "lesser deluxe", but we we absolutely blown away by CL at WL, but absolutely meh about YC.

But, here's hoping to better experiences for you in the future.

 

[mirage0306]

I am also sorry you didn't enjoy your experience, and certainly appreciate your review.

But I agree that the behind the scenes ranking sounds a bit off. I too would expect the GF CL to be the highest in Disney luxury. They are very up front that it is their flagship resort.

And yes, if CL offerings/experiences were based on rack rate cost, AKL should have been the worst experience we had in terms of food offerings (and other amenities) and it was pretty much tied with Poly (with BWI being our least favorite). I really don't think it works that way. GF may be the top of the top, but as for the rest I think it's personal preference, based on SO many factors--resort location, resort theme, etc.

The only other comment I have is about the clientele. All I am going to say is, money doesn't buy class. I think we all know here that there is no way to know (nor should there be) someone's household income based on what resort level they stay at. Plenty of wealthy people stay at values; plenty of not wealthy people stay CL at deluxes; some wealthy people have manners, some don't; same goes with those who are more middle class. If you think staying deluxe will keep you away from people who don't supervise their children, it's not going to happen.

I really am sorry you didn't enjoy CR CL.

 

[mickeynut1]

Just got back from our Disney trip 8/3-8/10 where we stayed at the Contemporary Resort Atrium Club Level - 12th floor Room 4847. We have never had any significant issues on previous trips, but this was different. Important to note that in 2012 we stayed Club Level Main Building at Grand Floridian and Polynesian in 2011 this exact same week.
The stay at the Contemporary Resort Atrium Club w/MK view was our first. It was also more expensive than the pricing for Poly and Grand Floridian.
Mom always said to lead with the positives, so....
The room was of a very good size, good storage space, amazing view. We were the second room from the very end closest to Space Mountain. Great views for Fireworks! Maid service was exceptional. Loved the beds.
The negatives...
By far the worst experience of Club Level that we have had at Disney. Compared to last year at Grand Floridian it was a huge disappointment. First, the majority of the staff seemed disinterested, focused on their own conversations and not welcoming. There were a few exceptions. Clarissa was amazing, but not the norm. Lisa Pergamo, the Guest Service Manager met us after a few issues and is tremendous. There was a woman named Holly who would watch you get off the elevator and turn away. Cold and seemed bothered.
The check in process was rushed, the bags arrived at our room after 2 calls and took more than 90 minutes.
At the Grand Floridian we enjoyed a glass of champagne every night, the CR does not offer it. The hot and cold appetizer offerings were also much more limited! When I asked why the Club Level offerings were not the same caliber as the Grand Floridian, Holly told me it is because that is the flagship luxury deluxe resort. The Contemporary is not the same level. I was floored to hear this and was quite aggravated. Nowhere does it say in Disney materials that there are levels of Deluxe Club Level resorts. Holly gave us the info and I took my concerns to management. It is shocking to me that a Club Level stay is different caliber of offerings, especially when it cost more to stay at CR.
Disney should be embarrassed that this kind of behind the scenes levels exist. Management did not deny it or contest what Holly told us. We will never stay at CR Club Level again knowing that it is considered a notch below internally.
The staff at CR was definitely not as impressive. The clientele in the Club Level was also different. There was a large family, multi generational that took over the club level lounge every day at various times. They would send their wild kids around the corner to play unsupervised while they sprawled out on the couches. It was a noisy and not very high class experience at most times. Certainly far different than the Grand Floridian.
For the price and service and offerings, I would not suggest the Contemporary Atrium Club Level to anyone if they had a choice of the other resorts.
Beware, behind the scenes Disney is elevating one resort over another without your knowledge. Get the experience you pay for. We will do Grand Floridian in the future.

Thanks for your review. I'm sorry you didn't have a very good experience at the CR, but I do have to say that all of the things you described in your post could very easily happen at any resort and is not exclusive to the CR. We are booked CR MKV CL in December and I am excited to try it. With that said, seeing "wild" kids can and DOES happen in all club levels. During my GF RPC experience in May 2011, I witnessed many unsupervised kids running around the lounge and laying all over the couches with shoes on, while others were running around barefoot grabbing food with their hands. Even though the GF is the flagship resort, it still gets rambunctious kids who run around unsupervised (I have also experienced this at GF SL). We have stayed 3 club levels (WL CL, GF SL, & GF RPC) and I disagree about the levels of CL varying by resort based on my experiences as we had just as great of an experience at WL CL as we did GF RPC. While I didn't care for GF SL (nothing that had to do with wild kids, etc), I absolutely loved WL CL and although GF RPC is my favorite, WL CL ranks right up there with it as far as food offerings and CMs. Our WL CL stay was quite some time ago (2004), but I see recent reviews that mirror our experience, so WL CL seems to be just as great as it was when we stayed there. So my point is, I hope you don't take this one CR CL experience and not try any other club level just on this one bad experience. I think you will find good and bad with all of them, but as I posted my experience with RPC, you can see that not everything is perfect at the flagship resort, either. I'm not sure how CR CL was more than GF RPC as anytime I have priced the two, RPC has always come out more expensive by quite a lot. For our dates this December, RPC is $209/night more than CR MKV CL.

 

[Pakey]

I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it. I thought it was well known that GF RPC had more offerings than the other clubs. I have stayed CL at GF 3 times spanning almost 20 years and I have also stayed at most other WDW CLs and GF has always had more offerings. Even so my 2012 stay at RPC was much slimmer for offerings than it had been in 2000.

As far as CMs, I've had some unfriendly ones at GF too. I hope your next stay there is as nice as your first. My favorite CL is BWI because the CMs there are just so nice.

 

[momtobrynncess]

I'm sorry you did not enjoy your experience. It's almost more frustrating when you think about how much you're spending.

We stayed CL at CR several years ago. A very lucky upgrade we were not expecting, so we did not pay for it, but that's another story. We really enjoyed the experience, and based on that experience, wish we could afford to do it more frequently. Although based on the reports I am hearing from a lot of folks staying CL at different resorts, maybe not. We travelled in February that year, so the crowds were probably smaller, which may be why we received the upgrade. The lounge was not crowded at all, and folks were very well behaved.

I have read really awful reports from many folks about there being large crowds and people hoarding food. I have posted this before, and I'll say it again. I think some folks just have no class. But as mirage0306 said, money doesn't buy class. I would feel like an absolute pig if I grabbed all the food I could a) knowing there were others waiting in line to have some and b) thinking that people would be thinking what I a pig I was for taking so much food. But some people just don't care. So you have folks paying tons of money for CL and Disney trying to put out enough food to feed an army and people behaving badly. It wouldn't surprise me if within the next several years we see CL changing significantly. I don't know what Disney can do to make it a better experience, and to keep folks from being hoarders, but at some point you would think something's got to give. Just my two cents.

 

[klmall]

Again, I'm sorry to read about your disappointing stay at the CR Atrium Club.

While it's been several years since we stayed on the Club Level there we too were disappointed during a 7 night stay. The food quality was so-so and offerings barely sufficient for the crowds that ate there. We also noticed one large family who appeared to take up residence in the lounge for hours at a time (parents and five or six kids). They were there when the food appeared in the morning and stayed until food was cleared mid-morning. The one time we came by midday they were there also! And of course, they showed up for hours in the PM. I wondered if they ever went to the parks!

I would best describe the Atrium Club staff as present but uninvolved; saying hello from their desks but not otherwise active.

The year before we had really enjoyed the WL Club Level food offerings, the ability to spread out and find quiet spots to relax and the staff seemed very friendly and eager to help.

After our Atrium Club stay we made the decision to skip CL entirely in future stays and use the money on other things. Deluxe rooms are our style but CL is so not worth it to us.

 

[Mousemommy1]

Again, I'm sorry to read about your disappointing stay at the CR Atrium Club.

While it's been several years since we stayed on the Club Level there we too were disappointed during a 7 night stay. The food quality was so-so and offerings barely sufficient for the crowds that ate there. We also noticed one large family who appeared to take up residence in the lounge for hours at a time (parents and five or six kids). They were there when the food appeared in the morning and stayed until food was cleared mid-morning. The one time we came by midday they were there also! And of course, they showed up for hours in the PM. I wondered if they ever went to the parks!

I would best describe the Atrium Club staff as present but uninvolved; saying hello from their desks but not otherwise active.

The year before we had really enjoyed the WL Club Level food offerings, the ability to spread out and find quiet spots to relax and the staff seemed very friendly and eager to help.

After our Atrium Club stay we made the decision to skip CL entirely in future stays and use the money on other things. Deluxe rooms are our style but CL is so not worth it to us.

Just have to say as your post count is amazing!!