Warning...vent ahead....(updated!!)

[squirrlygirl]

We stayed at Saratoga Springs for the first time this past week. We started out with dirty linens sitting outside our room (which stayed there until we complained the next day) I used the bathroom and discovered the toilet was broken. I brought out the high chair to feed the baby and there was food and grime (and even an identifiable noodle) coating the entire thing! There were (ahem...) hairs in the corner of the bathroom. Dust was coating the toilet paper holders, bathroom vents, and one particular picture frame half an inch thick. Curiously other places were spotless.

Then we discovered the bedroom door shut and locked. We called maintenance and the man was quite rude and refused to give us any help. Said he normally just doesn't lock the doors (!) Clearly he's never traveled with young children We finally found a paper clip on my son's homework to unlock the door and discovered the door locked because the doorstop was just lying on the floor broken (so the door lock hits the wall and locks) The master shower wall (the one you can't see unless you're in the shower) had an amazing amount of mold. We also found cobwebs in the corner, the dining room light didn't work, the wall under the bar was coated in food, and something brown dripping down a kitchen cupboard. And boy was looking over the cupboards a mistake! Anyone missing a yellow golf ball and a piece of pizza?

The icing on the cake was when my son pulled a cup out of the cupboard that appeared to have been puked in. No kidding-the smell was horrendous and the substance unidentifiable. So my husband went to the front desk and talked to a manager, gave her a written list of problem areas, and gave her the cup. She sympathized with him and promised him what she called a "VIP cleaning" and a visit from maintenance to fix the bedroom door stop so we wouldn't have children locked in. This was to be done by the time we returned from the parks that day.

When we return, instead of a clean room we come back to a blinking light. The manager left us a message that said the housekeeping manager was going to inspect the room to see our "minor" complaints and that if the room wasn't clean when we came back, it would be done the next day. As you can probably already guess, no one ever came to clean the room or fix the door.

So if you stay in room 6735, look for the "clean me" written in the dust of the picture frame over the whirlpool tub. It was childish but it briefly (all too briefly, though) made me feel better.

I want to complain to someone above the manager (Eliza?) but I'm not sure who or how. We stayed at OKW in September and had no issues so we were quite surprised to find this.

 

[isyt]

I am checking into SS on Friday and really hope not to find this!! What kind of room was it? I would really follow up with a letter to ms or SS.

 

[squirrlygirl]

It was a dedicated 2 bedroom.

What is SS?

 

[dwelty]

Write a REAL letter to DVC and address it to Jim Lewis. These problems, and the poor response need to be addressed. I have been to SSR twice in the last year. We found our 2 bedrooms immaculate. Sorry to hear of your problems.

 

[spruce]

Sorry. Here's our bad room story.
We were given a studo at OKW that was not clean and discoverd it upon entering and we immediatly called the front desk for a reassignment. The front desk agreed and sent a runner with new room keys. This room smelled of smoke so we called the front desk immediatly again. After 35 minutes, a very appologetic manager brought us a third rooms keys and walked down the third room (which was good) and also walked down the other two and agreed that our issues with the first two rooms had merit.
This is the first time we ever had any trouble worth mentioning with any rooms at any DVC resort. The resort staff met our expectations since we were clear that nothing else was acceptable. We held the resort to the standard we have come to expect.
In your case, I would have gotten a different room because I won't wait to have an unsatisfactory room fixed, I would want the issues solved now so we can go back to being on vacation.

 

[BroganMc]

So if you stay in room 6735, look for the "clean me" written in the dust of the picture frame over the whirlpool tub. It was childish but it briefly (all too briefly, though) made me feel better.

I gotta ask, why in the world did you stay in this room? If I had noticed issues like those when I entered the room, I would have immediately marched over to the Carriage House and refused the room.

Was it ever cleaned completely? If not, please do follow up with member services. SSR is my home resort and I can't say I've ever experienced problems with my room or the Front Desk. At the very least it bugs me that housekeeping didn't respond as they were supposed to.

But on another note, what parent leaves behind a messy high chair?! And who in the world sticks pizza in the cupboard?

Come to think of it, not to question the legitimacy of your outrage, but exactly how did that bedroom door lock? If memory serves, the handles at SSR are the lever kind that require pressing a button to lock them. Simply shutting wouldn't lock the door. Unless you already had the button depressed or one of your kids did that.

 

[global_mom]

Come to think of it, not to question the legitimacy of your outrage, but exactly how did that bedroom door lock? If memory serves, the handles at SSR are the lever kind that require pressing a button to lock them. Simply shutting wouldn't lock the door. Unless you already had the button depressed or one of your kids did that.

I think that she explained that the doorstop behind the door was broken and thus the door would bang into the wall and that would press in the button.

We have never had any extreme room issues at WDW but we have always had speedy repair for the small issues that we have encountered. We have refused rooms at other resorts when we found things to be sub-standard. We do a "room check" upon arrival and if there is anything major then we ask for a new room assignment. We have never found this to be a problem.

 

[OKW Mom]

any response from a litany of bad experiences in an OKW 2BR. Local resort management did not have resolutions while we were visiting-just apologies.

I did write two emails to DVC and got one "canned" response to my second email that my concerns were being passed on in August.

It's November and I have nothing from any of my issues reported.

Filth and dirt should not be accepted, and members should know to leave the place better than they found it. (I am an old Girl Scout...and that it what we are supposed to do!).

 

[2Princes2Princesses]

Anyone missing a yellow golf ball and a piece of pizza?

So if you stay in room 6735, look for the "clean me" written in the dust of the picture frame over the whirlpool tub.

These two things just made me laugh out loud.

Your experience, however, did not. That is terrible and there is no excuse for it. We have had good experiences at SSR, always clean rooms, except for the one time we had a 2BR lockoff....the studio portion bathroom was....not clean in the toilet area. We called and let them know and they came and cleaned it right away. It was nasty.

The attitude you were given by the maintenance man was uncalled for, as well.

I hope you can get in touch with someone higher up who will address issues like these and that your next room is immaculate.

 

[Esmerelda]

I'm so sorry you had a bad experience at SSR. We have stayed there at least 5 or 6 times now and never had a bad room nor experience.

I honestly think I would have just turned around and asked for a different villa (and I would have taken some good video of the one I currently had). This would not have been acceptable to me. This does not sound up to Disney standards at all.

I hope you get these issues resolved.

Other than that, did the rest of your stay go well? I hope so. SSR is our absolute favorite resort and we refuse to stay anywhere else while at Disney.


Esmerelda

 

[nzdisneymom]

I'm sorry to read about your experience, but I'm glad you shared it here. Because of reports like this, I make sure when we first enter a room to do a quick "room check" for the issues that seem to be more common so that if the room is not adequately cleaned / repaired we can get moved or address the issue right away. I've had to convince my kids to let us do a "room check" before bringing stuff in.

 

[lsutigerita]

Sorry to hear about your experience. DH and I just returned from SSR this past weekend. We stayed in the Grandstand Section. Our room was nice and clean. We did not experience any problems.

 

[squirrlygirl]

When we first showed up, we were in a hurry to make dinner reservations so we kind of dumped and ran. The broken toilet and the dirty linens were annoying but no big deal by themselves. And the toilet was promptly fixed, so we had no reason to think that no one would follow through on the rest. By the time we realized that no one was going to show up, we were on day 4 of our vacation.

I will definitely in the future do a sweep of the room before settling in.


I have emailed member satisfaction and received a canned response saying it will take up to 5 days to hear back.

As for the rest of our vacation, except for one extremely disastrous never-ever-think-about-eating there again dinner at Tony's Town Square, we had a wonderful vacation

 

[3DisneyKids]

I am sorry for your unacceptable room conditions. This is not ok at ANY resort--DVC or otherwise. Please continue to follow-up and let us know if/when anything happens.

I love the "clean me" comment! By chance did your "write" the date in the dust, too? That would REALLY be telling if it got discovered months from now!

 

[squirrlygirl]

I love the "clean me" comment! By chance did your "write" the date in the dust, too? That would REALLY be telling if it got discovered months from now!

Aww shucks! Didn't think of that!

 

[spiceycat]

boy you had a horrible experience.

if this ever happens to you again.

try to fix it when you are there. the manager owed you an apology and a dinner at least.

trying now to get something - unless you took pictures - won't do anything.

all the maintence/engineering people I have talked to have always helped. So sorry you got a bad one.

sounds like the place was wrecked with the family before you - and the maid just didn't have the time to completely clean everything - no excuse - but they only have so much time they can spend on any room.

so sorry!!!

time to bring the cleaning stuff on vacation again!

mold - was it up high - so that a 5' feet (or less height) could not reach it?

down low - definitely should have been cleaned.

now this is not a fact - just a notice from watching them clean. Other places allow the maids to use the brooms and mops on the walls even the whirlpool tub. (seem it) Disney does not allow this.

so if the mold was in a place where a short person couldn't reach it - that is the problem.

 

[alldiz]

OMG.....totally unacceptable....
I can't believe they would turn a room over in that condition.

That is beyond nasty....I definately would have been at the front desk
and not left until a housekeeper walked me back to my room with
her cleaning bucket......YUCK.

Please write a letter to Jim Lewis describing all of this....
Kerri

 

[squirrlygirl]

The mold was on the half-wall portion that you cannot see until you're inside the shower. It was an area between knee and waist, so no reason it couldn't have been cleaned. There's no way that some of it was due to a one-time cleaning problem-the dust had to have been accumulating for at least weeks

I DO have pictures and intend to use them if I don't receive an appropriate response to my letter. I probably should've attached them to my email the first time but I didn't think about it.

 

[disneynutz]

Our last 2 trips to SSR resulted in dirty linens being left outside our door. The first time they were there for 3 days. I called every day to request removal. The last trip they were only there for 2 days but on day 2 someone added more linens and someone added trash to the pile.

 

["Got Disney"]

Our last 2 trips to SSR resulted in dirty linens being left outside our door. The first time they were there for 3 days. I called every day to request removal. The last trip they were only there for 2 days but on day 2 someone added more linens and someone added trash to the pile.

I would first ask nicely than after that all bts are off. I would have insisted on a different room right away. If none were available than I would stand at the desk bugging them till a cleaning crew was sent up.

I would also insist on some kind of perk like a free breakfast for the family or all day fast passes. something for my agrivation.

when stayed at the GrandCalifornian in DL(asked prior for a room with no obstructions) they gave me a room with a view that was blocked...imagine a blocked view....they gave me another view room that had another obstruction could only see views if stood up and bent over in a corner..

my girl friends and I were running around laughing(girls weekend out) as they sent us to 3 different rooms. finally a room with a half way decent veiw( of DTD still semi blocked but it was duable) and I called up and asked for something for our troubles and they gave us breakfast at the Storytime restaurant.

Made me feel better and as we all know points are valuble and we want what we ask for give or take a little.

Maybe someone last in there was not a DVC member but a renter? they would not care as much about taken care of the property.