I agree with you that the valet lady an the van driver could have told you that the van stop working at a specific time, but, I think that it was also your responsability to ask the question, speciality if had a young children.
I cannot beleive you have been compensated for that.
You can take it up with the front desk people. They offered it. Quickly. They were having some extreme issues, and DH was in a long line of people complaining. Every complaint, except for one ("it's too cold to do anything, give me my
DVC points back"), that DH heard while in line was worthy of giving feedback on.
WAIT! Are you saying you got a credit because someone neglected to inform you that a shuttle quit running at 9PM when there is an easy sidewalk to take between the two locations???? If that's the case, then this refunding money to people who complain at Disney is getting WAY out of hand. My DH has severe knee issues (we're in our mid 60's), and we would have walked it without ever thinking to complain, much less expect a refund.
The first dark night you had EVER been there? With no map? With CMs standing under their heat lamps not walking you over to were the path is, the path you can't see? With a tired 6 year old? In 35 degree weather? Really? You would have walked it with no complaints at all?
I'm sorry-I usually don't comment on these types of posts...but I can't help but to think that in the length of time it took to complain, you could have walked to Jambo and back. By the sounds of your post, you complained enough for someone to pick you up AND receive compensation for what is labeled a "courtesy" van. Or did you just rough it and take a bus?
By the sounds of my post? Hmm. My post stated exactly what happened, and anything not stated was...not stated.
We were vaguely pointed to the path, a vast dark space with no apparent signage (I'm sure there were signs, but we certainly couldn't see them), and told that it would be about 15 minutes if we walked quickly (which we couldn't, we were *exhausted*, so it seemed at the time that it would have been much longer). We were also told about the bus once we found out that the van was done for the night. We started towards the path, changed our minds, went to the bus, changed our minds, went to the path, DS was literally crying (and he's an active active kid but it was stinkin' cold and it had been a long trip and we were tired, we had been 2 hours late for our ADR thanks to various issues, some our fault, some not), so we went to the bus.
And then there were fabulous bus superfuntimes with an extremely snarly bus driver who was wont to give us any information and wanted us to read her mind. She seemed to think that we were related to the people who had been videotaped a few weeks before our trip, instead of simply *not knowing*, because she didn't tell us, that she had a wheelchair to unload and therefore we could not enter the bus (even though she had kept the front door open without telling us ANYTHING). Which was totally fine, I'm the first person to say "YES, wheelchairs should be loaded and unloaded first!" (and any checking of my past posts about wheelchairs/
ECVs can verify that), I'm a huge proponent of the ADA and how Disney deals with it, BUT you can't simply leave a door open and not tell people that they can't get on, and assume they know they can't get on.
We got back, DS and I went up to see our room (we'd tossed our stuff in and went back down to get to our reservation just after checking in), DH went to the desk b/c he was very disturbed at the situation.
DH and I met while in customer service at
amazon.com, and we ALWAYS gave the customer ALL the information. So YES we did expect that someone saying "if you don't want to drive, you can take our shuttle van to your reservation" would also include the vital information "although it does shut down at 9, an hour from when you'll get there, so maybe you should just drive your car". YES we expect that. We did that for customers (and still have the "thank you" emails customer after customer sent in response to help like that) and expect it to be done for us and anyone else in our situation.
DH went up to make sure that they talked with the Valet booth lady so that she would give all the info in the future. They said that they would do that, and they offered the credit.
I do not think that person complained to get the credit. They are just stating that Disney gave them a credit....
Disney is all about SERVICE!!!! And if someone feels they did not get good service and mentions their frustrations that their business.
Thank you. I think I love you.
Not to mention...no one else is thanking me for mentioning that bit of info! Harumph. Trying to help others here...
Ok, if you find that you don't like:
- walking for 10 minutes
- riding WDW busses
- Florida's "cold" weather
I really think you should consider a vacation destination other than WDW.
It's lovely that you don't feel that 35 degrees is cold. I must disagree. It's cold. It had been that cold all day. And all week. And before that. It was a cold cold time in Orlando last December.
The CMs told us it was 15 minutes, minimum, if we walked quickly. Which we simply could not do at that point. I did not have a smartphone during that trip, with which I could have brought up wdwinfo and found the walking path info. If only I had known that I would need it. But it was what it was!
I never said I minded riding a bus. But when offered a *van*, one doesn't expect to have to do something else on the way back. And when one is in a customer service position, one should give ALL of the pertinent information, including "if you are there later you'll take a bus, let me tell you about it...if you want to walk, here's a map of the walk and the signs to look for". It's the sort of service I gave while in CS, and it's the service I absolutely expect.
