Wasn't thrilled with Old Key West

[Disneyplanners]

I know this isn't going to be popular, as I know many people here really enjoy OKW, but we were not crazy about the resort after our recent stay. I had looked at many pictures before our trip, and my expectations were high, so that be contributing to the disappointment.

I'll start out with some of things that we enjoyed about the resort:
- The pool was great. We think OKW has one of the best pool slides, and my kids also loved the edge of the pool with the overhang to jump in.
- The community hall was a little older looking, but had several games the kids liked. Movie rental selection was good, although we were told that we did not return a movie, when we already had. Eventually the movie was found already put away.
- Olivia's was nice, however the second time we went, the hostess didn't want to give DS11 a kids menu.


Now for some of the negatives:
- I was slightly disappointed that our requests were not met. We requested the buildings 45 / 46 section, but were put in miller's road, building 18. We ended up happy with the miller's road location as it wasn't an extremely long walk to HH. It took me about 6 minutes to get there, about 10 with the whole gang.
- The bathroom was quite dirty. My son took a shower the first night, and I used the small tub towel to dry up the floor. I looked at the underside of the towel and found it very dirty where I had dried up. The little cubby with the window in the bathroom was filled with dirt and tiny bugs. The edges and corners in the bathroom were filthy.
- I did not realize (although obviously I should have with the amount of time I had looked at the OKW map) that all of the walking paths to the pools, HH, bus stops, etc. were along the road. One of the things I was looking forward to at OKW was enjoying just walking around. I did not like walking a few feet from where the disney buses went by, and some of them went pretty fast.
- The bees were bad! We purchased refillable mugs, and no less than 15+ bees surrounded the drink station at any time during our first 5 days. They were also bad at the tables around the pool. Towards the end of our trip, I'd say about day 5, we saw someone who appeared to be a manager at the drink station trying to control them. Later that afternoon the situation was much better, and we only saw 1 or 2 at a time. So, clearly there is something that can be done about them. The good news around this is that my tolerance for bees is now up after the number of times I reached into them to get drinks!
- Impatient and cranky castmembers. When we went to buy our mugs and meals the first morning at goods to go, the man at the register was clearly irritated with us. We ordered the mugs, he insisted I put my band to the mickey scanner. When I explained we wanted to order food too, he took our order and again kept telling me to scan my band even though we were trying to give him a gift card to pay with. Eventually he listened and used the gift card, but I had no idea why he was so irritated by us. Another castmember gave me a hard time for taking towels outside of the pool area. When we left our carryon bags at bell services on the first day we asked them to send the bags to our room with the magical express bags when the room was ready, and they said they wouldn't do that Many of the other OKW cm's were however very friendly.
- In the women's bathroom by the pool, the toilet in the first stall flushed continuously through the entire week. I saw CM's in there a couple of times, so the problem was not unknown.
- The bus stops seemed so spread out that it took 20+ minutes for a bus to get through the entire resort. And with miller's road being the last stop before heading to the parks, if the bus was full, our stop would be skipped. We realized we had to walk to the peninsular road stop if we wanted to get on an early morning bus.

After our 7 nights at OKW, we had 3 nights at AKL, which we enjoyed much more. We still had a very nice trip, and the weather was better than I expected it to be. We've been going to Disney for 10 years now, and there has certainly been a decline from when we first started going, and we started out at the all star resorts. I wanted to share our experience just to see if others had noticed similar issues, or maybe it was just bad luck.

 

[Deb & Bill]

I know this isn't going to be popular, as I know many people here really enjoy OKW, but we were not crazy about the resort after our recent stay. I had looked at many pictures before our trip, and my expectations were high, so that be contributing to the disappointment.

I'll start out with some of things that we enjoyed about the resort:
- The pool was great. We think OKW has one of the best pool slides, and my kids also loved the edge of the pool with the overhang to jump in.
- The community hall was a little older looking, but had several games the kids liked. Movie rental selection was good, although we were told that we did not return a movie, when we already had. Eventually the movie was found already put away.
- Olivia's was nice, however the second time we went, the hostess didn't want to give DS11 a kids menu.


Now for some of the negatives:
- I was slightly disappointed that our requests were not met. We requested the buildings 45 / 46 section, but were put in miller's road, building 18. We ended up happy with the miller's road location as it wasn't an extremely long walk to HH. It took me about 6 minutes to get there, about 10 with the whole gang.
- The bathroom was quite dirty. My son took a shower the first night, and I used the small tub towel to dry up the floor. I looked at the underside of the towel and found it very dirty where I had dried up. The little cubby with the window in the bathroom was filled with dirt and tiny bugs. The edges and corners in the bathroom were filthy.
- I did not realize (although obviously I should have with the amount of time I had looked at the OKW map) that all of the walking paths to the pools, HH, bus stops, etc. were along the road. One of the things I was looking forward to at OKW was enjoying just walking around. I did not like walking a few feet from where the disney buses went by, and some of them went pretty fast.
- The bees were bad! We purchased refillable mugs, and no less than 15+ bees surrounded the drink station at any time during our first 5 days. They were also bad at the tables around the pool. Towards the end of our trip, I'd say about day 5, we saw someone who appeared to be a manager at the drink station trying to control them. Later that afternoon the situation was much better, and we only saw 1 or 2 at a time. So, clearly there is something that can be done about them. The good news around this is that my tolerance for bees is now up after the number of times I reached into them to get drinks!
- Impatient and cranky castmembers. When we went to buy our mugs and meals the first morning at goods to go, the man at the register was clearly irritated with us. We ordered the mugs, he insisted I put my band to the mickey scanner. When I explained we wanted to order food too, he took our order and again kept telling me to scan my band even though we were trying to give him a gift card to pay with. Eventually he listened and used the gift card, but I had no idea why he was so irritated by us. Another castmember gave me a hard time for taking towels outside of the pool area. When we left our carryon bags at bell services on the first day we asked them to send the bags to our room with the magical express bags when the room was ready, and they said they wouldn't do that Many of the other OKW cm's were however very friendly.
- In the women's bathroom by the pool, the toilet in the first stall flushed continuously through the entire week. I saw CM's in there a couple of times, so the problem was not unknown.
- The bus stops seemed so spread out that it took 20+ minutes for a bus to get through the entire resort. And with miller's road being the last stop before heading to the parks, if the bus was full, our stop would be skipped. We realized we had to walk to the peninsular road stop if we wanted to get on an early morning bus.

After our 7 nights at OKW, we had 3 nights at AKL, which we enjoyed much more. We still had a very nice trip, and the weather was better than I expected it to be. We've been going to Disney for 10 years now, and there has certainly been a decline from when we first started going, and we started out at the all star resorts. I wanted to share our experience just to see if others had noticed similar issues, or maybe it was just bad luck.

Sorry that you didn't love OKW. It's our favorite. We don't have any problems walking around OKW and the sidewalks don't bother us at all.

I've heard the bees are an issue with the refill station. With all the flowers and plants around OKW, I could see where that extra sugar would be enticing to the bees. And with bees somewhat endangered, I'm kind of glad Disney isn't just killing them.

And I'm sorry you didn't care for Miller's Road. It's our favorite area. We've stayed there the last two times we were at OKW and really enjoy it. We haven't had a problem with the buses at all, for F&W or F&G booking times. Bldg 45 and 46 are probably the most requested buildings of all at OKW. We've requested them a few times until we discovered Millers Road.

What I like about OKW buses (and we haven't had a problem with them at all), is that once you leave the resort you are only minutes away from MK and Epcot. Like 7-8 minutes away. If you stay at the Epcot DVC resorts, you have to take a bus to AK and MK and those buses are shared with the resorts there. AKV is pretty much the only dedicated with two or fewer bus stops. SSR and OKW both have four or five stops, but no stops at other resorts.

I just booked our 17th stay at OKW for the spring. We love it there. And we'll probably be back for the fall in 2015 for F&W before we head to the beach in South FL.

 

[ChanFO]

Oh man, not the bees! You are a nicer/braver person than I am! DH is allergic to stings and that would have been a deal-breaker for my vacation to have them flying around all the time. I'll have to keep that in mind if we ever want to consider a stay at OKW.

 

[cvjw]

You have some valid points about OKW - we just spent a week there in July. The sidewalks are by the roads and we did end up frustrated with the buses by the end of the week. My Mom loved the long bus rides around OKW - she said it was the most relaxing part of her Disney day

We also requested building 45/46 and also did not get our request met. I suspect lots and lots of people have that same request and only so many people can actually stay there. We were assigned bldg 54, which overlooks a golf course and a major road. We normally use our balconies alot, but we could not have with this villa - it was just too loud with all of the cars passing by. It ended up being too hot to go outside on the deck anyway, so it was a non-issue.

We own at OKW, but this was only our 3rd stay. We will stay there again for the low point cost and huge villas.

 

[Murron]

Don't feel badly ... we are also not OKW fans. I simply find it boring and am not thrilled with Olivia's (I'll be shunned for this!). We actually were staying at another resort and gave Olivia's another chance. Big mistake. This was our first ownership which we eventually sold. I like a bit of excitement around me. A bit of magic if you will. Now...that being said....everyone has different wants and desires in a resort. If you want quiet and peaceful easy feelings, this is the place. OKW was just not our style of vacationing.

 

[disneynutz]

I know this isn't going to be popular, as I know many people here really enjoy OKW, but we were not crazy about the resort after our recent stay. I had looked at many pictures before our trip, and my expectations were high, so that be contributing to the disappointment.

I'll start out with some of things that we enjoyed about the resort:
- The pool was great. We think OKW has one of the best pool slides, and my kids also loved the edge of the pool with the overhang to jump in.
- The community hall was a little older looking, but had several games the kids liked. Movie rental selection was good, although we were told that we did not return a movie, when we already had. Eventually the movie was found already put away.
- Olivia's was nice, however the second time we went, the hostess didn't want to give DS11 a kids menu.


Now for some of the negatives:
- I was slightly disappointed that our requests were not met. We requested the buildings 45 / 46 section, but were put in miller's road, building 18. We ended up happy with the miller's road location as it wasn't an extremely long walk to HH. It took me about 6 minutes to get there, about 10 with the whole gang.
- The bathroom was quite dirty. My son took a shower the first night, and I used the small tub towel to dry up the floor. I looked at the underside of the towel and found it very dirty where I had dried up. The little cubby with the window in the bathroom was filled with dirt and tiny bugs. The edges and corners in the bathroom were filthy.
- I did not realize (although obviously I should have with the amount of time I had looked at the OKW map) that all of the walking paths to the pools, HH, bus stops, etc. were along the road. One of the things I was looking forward to at OKW was enjoying just walking around. I did not like walking a few feet from where the disney buses went by, and some of them went pretty fast.
- The bees were bad! We purchased refillable mugs, and no less than 15+ bees surrounded the drink station at any time during our first 5 days. They were also bad at the tables around the pool. Towards the end of our trip, I'd say about day 5, we saw someone who appeared to be a manager at the drink station trying to control them. Later that afternoon the situation was much better, and we only saw 1 or 2 at a time. So, clearly there is something that can be done about them. The good news around this is that my tolerance for bees is now up after the number of times I reached into them to get drinks!
- Impatient and cranky castmembers. When we went to buy our mugs and meals the first morning at goods to go, the man at the register was clearly irritated with us. We ordered the mugs, he insisted I put my band to the mickey scanner. When I explained we wanted to order food too, he took our order and again kept telling me to scan my band even though we were trying to give him a gift card to pay with. Eventually he listened and used the gift card, but I had no idea why he was so irritated by us. Another castmember gave me a hard time for taking towels outside of the pool area. When we left our carryon bags at bell services on the first day we asked them to send the bags to our room with the magical express bags when the room was ready, and they said they wouldn't do that Many of the other OKW cm's were however very friendly.
- In the women's bathroom by the pool, the toilet in the first stall flushed continuously through the entire week. I saw CM's in there a couple of times, so the problem was not unknown.
- The bus stops seemed so spread out that it took 20+ minutes for a bus to get through the entire resort. And with miller's road being the last stop before heading to the parks, if the bus was full, our stop would be skipped. We realized we had to walk to the peninsular road stop if we wanted to get on an early morning bus.

After our 7 nights at OKW, we had 3 nights at AKL, which we enjoyed much more. We still had a very nice trip, and the weather was better than I expected it to be. We've been going to Disney for 10 years now, and there has certainly been a decline from when we first started going, and we started out at the all star resorts. I wanted to share our experience just to see if others had noticed similar issues, or maybe it was just bad luck.

Most of what you didn't like at OKW can be found at any DVC resort.

After 30 plus stays and all of the WDW resorts we get our room requests about 50% of the time.

Cleaning is an issue more than it should be at all of the resorts, other resorts have bee issues, the soda syrup attracts them.

You will sometime get a cranky CM, they are human. Pool towels aren't supposed to be removed from the pool area.

Disney uses your band to track you for sales purposes, we had to scan our band then use the gift card. Bell Services and their union has an agreement with Disney to require an adult in the room when they pick up or deliver luggage, why, so they can get a tip. DME is under a different agreement and the luggage tip is included in the service so no one need be in the room.

Disney transportation can always have issues, 20 min wait is the norm and often the bus is full. We hope that with magic bands Disney will better track guests waiting for a bus and dispatch extras when needed.

Sorry that your stay didn't meet your expectations and I not trying to defend Disney, just sharing that we have experienced similar issues at other resorts.

Bill

 

[eeyoresmom]

We own at OKW. There are things I personally love about it and things I don't. ( My teens and young adult kids would rather stay here than any other dvc resort) However, the bathrooms in the villas and ESPECIALLY the ones by the main pool are in desperate need of refurbishment

 

[bumbershoot]

When we left our carryon bags at bell services on the first day we asked them to send the bags to our room with the magical express bags when the room was ready, and they said they wouldn't do that

Correct. The DME delivery people have been tipped by DME. The bags you leave with Bell Services don't have a tip attached to them. The people delivering them want a chance for a tip. You have to be IN the room for such bags to be delivered, at any of the resorts unless you get weird pixie dust.

Oh man, not the bees! You are a nicer/braver person than I am! DH is allergic to stings and that would have been a deal-breaker for my vacation to have them flying around all the time. I'll have to keep that in mind if we ever want to consider a stay at OKW.

Disney is putting soda stations OUTSIDE. This is going to be a problem no matter what resort you are at. I nearly got a soda (I almost never drink it) one day while doing laundry at an SSR quiet pool, and the bees crawling up inside of the soda nozzles stopped me cold.

The place to start is telling Disney that no matter how convenient it is, we do not need our soda stations outside. They can be inside and away from the bees' natural habitat.

Better for the bees, too. They certainly don't need HFCS and dyes!

Disney uses your band to track you for sales purposes, we had to scan our band then use the gift card.

They have not asked that of me. And they wouldn't get a "yes" if they did.

 

[finster]

Just got back tonight from a week at OKW. It is our favorite (BWV is our home but we tend to stay at OKW).

A few comments/observations of my own:

1. I didn't see the bee issue this week, so hopefully they addressed it.
2. I actually thought the Community Hall looked like it had been redone since the last time we were there (last August), but I may be wrong.
3. I saw a guest go crazy on a bell services cast member this morning while waiting for DME. Cursing, screaming - the whole thing -- I was embarrassed for this guy the way he was acting. I thought the cast member handled it professionally (and much better than I would have). As someone else pointed out, they're human too, but I did see a couple of cast members at OKW where I thought to myself "things have changed" - I was always impressed with how OKW "stood out" as far as the friendliness factor and felt that some of them just didn't carry themselves the way I've seen other cast members in the past..
4. I have always been a huge fan of Olivia's.. Just something about it. But to be honest, after this trip, I'm sick of it. Food was still good, but I felt like we ate the same meal every night (even though we did order different things). Last night we had planned a night swim for the kids and just grab some quick stuff from the counter and eat by the pool. Mother nature decided to have a heck of a thunderstorm and the skies opened up, so we wound up at Olivia's simply because we had no food left in our unit and there's really no other easy options there. I actually contemplated skipping dinner because I was just tired of Olivia's this week. The staff still is awesome - I love all the servers, they're genuinely nice people.
5. We stayed in Building 26, and it was clean as I would expect, but it felt like it was due for an overhaul (I thought 26 had already been done within the last couple of years).
6. As far as the roads, I guess it's just personal preference. I run in the mornings and actually like the layout and the busses don't bother me, I just am very aware of my surroundings, especially if I have my iPod cranking.

Our next trip we're going to head back to BWV (our home) just to mix things up, but I'm sure we'll be back at OKW before long. There's just a charm about it I like.

 

[eliza61]

I think everyone has one resort they aren't bowled over by. Mine is Saratoga springs. I only stayed at old key west one time. Glad your trip was enjoyable though.

I absolutely hate, loathe and despise the magic bands. Basically I take them off when I'm not in the parks. I use cc for my purchases and never scan my badge. Sorry, no I don't want to be a part of their marketing.

 

[Deb & Bill]

...5. We stayed in Building 26, and it was clean as I would expect, but it felt like it was due for an overhaul (I thought 26 had already been done within the last couple of years).....

All the buildings at OKW were renovated in 2012. They were supposed to do a 100% renovation, but they didn't do anything to the bathrooms.

 

[ktate82]

We had our first stay there in June, and we were not impressed either. My son has a joint disorder that causes pain with a lot of walking/activity. We have gotten to where we don't need a stroller the whole time (we take breaks everyday). I had requested a ground floor or building with an elevator and close to the bus stop. We ended up on the third floor of a building a decent little walk from a bus stop. When they told me it was on the third floor, I asked if we could have a different room due to this and was told no. A week of carrying him up three flights of stairs was rough. The room we did have had mold in the bathroom and the clothesline was dry rotted (broke when we tried to pull it out the first day).

We had a lot of grouchy CMs (although the women in the gift shop were super friendly), and bus issues. We waited 45 mins for the internal shuttle to get from the pool back to our room. After 25 mins, we asked a CM and was told if the bus wasn't there in another 20 mins to ask someone again.

We did love the pool though. It has a pretty amazing slide, and I loved the fact that the water got "deep" for a Disney pool. It seems most of the pools are a max of 3-4 feet deep.

 

[PetePanMan]

I don't understand concern over walking paths. It sounds like you are walking right on the roads - are there not wide sidewalks?

 

[Deb & Bill]

I don't understand concern over walking paths. It sounds like you are walking right on the roads - are there not wide sidewalks?

There a lots of nice wide sidewalk at OKW. Sometimes they end and there is a crosswalk to get to the next section of the sidewalk. For example, if you walk from the HH area to Turtle Pond, you can't cross the bridge on the left hand side because there is no sidewalk along the canal side of the road. You cross on the right hand side of the bridge to the Peninsular Road bus stop area. Then if you continue over to South Point, when the road curves, you cross the street over to Bldg 45/46 area towards the South Point bus stop.

 

[Bbbethei]

We stayed at OKW for the first time in the past month and feel I can be pretty objective about the place. Was it perfect? No. Up to what I expected for Disney standards? Maybe. Would I go back? I think so.

Here are my thoughts:
- Staff. We checked-in on a Saturday so it was busy. Very busy. We never got the text with our room assignment so I had to come back later in the afternoon. The girl remembered my name. They won me over at that point. I worked at the front desk of a hotel when I was in college and know what it's like to see a lot of people in a day. Remembering a name like that? Impressive.

- Room. We stayed in a one bedroom unit with two adults and two children. The room size was great. Kitchen was fairly stocked (Wyndham does a better job). The bedroom was nicely updated, but some of the other areas were under par. All of it was doable for the week. I've definitely stayed in better and worse places.

- Olivia's. Food was fine. Service was ok. Definitely overpriced. Sorry, I know that's not a popular opinion.

- Buses. We rented a car, so the bus situation was never an issue. Definitely enjoyed the freedom of the car as we made multiple trips to the grocery store. (Hey, we go through a lot of vegetables and eggs, even on vacation!) The only time we took the bus was when the boats to DTD were down due to a storm. Which brings me to my next thoughts...

- Boats to DTD. This had to be one of my favorite parts of OKW. I can't explain how or why, but I just found it so peaceful to take that little ride back and forth in the evenings. I'd love to bring my parents back here for that part alone. My dad would love it.

- Layout. We are four healthy people so we had no issue with things being a little spread out. We had no problems walking to the Hospitality House for swimming (although the boys preferred the quieter closer pool) or to take the boat to DTD. Third floor room? Not a problem. (I know not everybody is as fortunate and we don't take our health for granted.)

- Workout room. This is highly subjective, but I thought there were to many cardio machines and not enough weights. However, I was grateful for the dumbbells and a cross cable. Not everybody exercises the same way, so this wasn't a big deal at all. I'd say that overall it was still above average for a hotel.

- Bees. Easy, we drink water and almost nothing else. No refillable mugs for us. We went through three cases of water instead. I can see how they'd be attracted to all the sugar and how that would quickly be a problem. Luckily, it wasn't an issue we had to deal with.

I'd love an opportunity to stay at some of the more updated resorts. We got OKW on a RCI trade so it was a pretty good value. Was it the best resort ever? No. Would I go back? Yes.

 

[lovesdumbo]

I stayed at OKW with just my youngest DD in December. I thought it was OK. My DD surprisingly to me really loved it. I would stay there again but it wouldn't be my 1st choice. I prefer a more compact resort.

We just returned from BLT. At the pool soda fountain there then have a "no fly zone" fan over the fountain so there were no bees there.

 

[Leleluvsdis]

I know this isn't going to be popular, as I know many people here really enjoy OKW, but we were not crazy about the resort after our recent stay. I had looked at many pictures before our trip, and my expectations were high, so that be contributing to the disappointment.

I'll start out with some of things that we enjoyed about the resort:
- The pool was great. We think OKW has one of the best pool slides, and my kids also loved the edge of the pool with the overhang to jump in.
- The community hall was a little older looking, but had several games the kids liked. Movie rental selection was good, although we were told that we did not return a movie, when we already had. Eventually the movie was found already put away.
- Olivia's was nice, however the second time we went, the hostess didn't want to give DS11 a kids menu.


Now for some of the negatives:
- I was slightly disappointed that our requests were not met. We requested the buildings 45 / 46 section, but were put in miller's road, building 18. We ended up happy with the miller's road location as it wasn't an extremely long walk to HH. It took me about 6 minutes to get there, about 10 with the whole gang.
- The bathroom was quite dirty. My son took a shower the first night, and I used the small tub towel to dry up the floor. I looked at the underside of the towel and found it very dirty where I had dried up. The little cubby with the window in the bathroom was filled with dirt and tiny bugs. The edges and corners in the bathroom were filthy.
- I did not realize (although obviously I should have with the amount of time I had looked at the OKW map) that all of the walking paths to the pools, HH, bus stops, etc. were along the road. One of the things I was looking forward to at OKW was enjoying just walking around. I did not like walking a few feet from where the disney buses went by, and some of them went pretty fast.
- The bees were bad! We purchased refillable mugs, and no less than 15+ bees surrounded the drink station at any time during our first 5 days. They were also bad at the tables around the pool. Towards the end of our trip, I'd say about day 5, we saw someone who appeared to be a manager at the drink station trying to control them. Later that afternoon the situation was much better, and we only saw 1 or 2 at a time. So, clearly there is something that can be done about them. The good news around this is that my tolerance for bees is now up after the number of times I reached into them to get drinks!
- Impatient and cranky castmembers. When we went to buy our mugs and meals the first morning at goods to go, the man at the register was clearly irritated with us. We ordered the mugs, he insisted I put my band to the mickey scanner. When I explained we wanted to order food too, he took our order and again kept telling me to scan my band even though we were trying to give him a gift card to pay with. Eventually he listened and used the gift card, but I had no idea why he was so irritated by us. Another castmember gave me a hard time for taking towels outside of the pool area. When we left our carryon bags at bell services on the first day we asked them to send the bags to our room with the magical express bags when the room was ready, and they said they wouldn't do that Many of the other OKW cm's were however very friendly.
- In the women's bathroom by the pool, the toilet in the first stall flushed continuously through the entire week. I saw CM's in there a couple of times, so the problem was not unknown.
- The bus stops seemed so spread out that it took 20+ minutes for a bus to get through the entire resort. And with miller's road being the last stop before heading to the parks, if the bus was full, our stop would be skipped. We realized we had to walk to the peninsular road stop if we wanted to get on an early morning bus.

After our 7 nights at OKW, we had 3 nights at AKL, which we enjoyed much more. We still had a very nice trip, and the weather was better than I expected it to be. We've been going to Disney for 10 years now, and there has certainly been a decline from when we first started going, and we started out at the all star resorts. I wanted to share our experience just to see if others had noticed similar issues, or maybe it was just bad luck.

We haven't stayed at OKW since 2011, but we much prefer OKW over SSR. We have only ever stayed DVC at OKW or SSR, so I can't really compare it to other DVCs. When we stayed at OWK in 2011, we found various personalities in CMs. I will say we had the same complaint about CMs at Goods to Go. One night in particular, DH and I went and ordered a salad, order of fries, and burger. We waited a good 4-5 minutes to order, just because the person who was working the window couldn't stop stocking condiments to come take our order, and another girl was busy talking through the food window to the kitchen. She even took the time to turn around and say, someone will be with you in a minute We, with no hesitation, made this known to a manager. I'm not sure how the situation was addressed, but we didn't see the gentleman who was more concerned about stocking than helping customers the rest of the week. I also want to add that it was not busy at all!! We were there in mid October, to start with, but we never saw anyone at goods during the whole experience of ordering or eating.

Our other complaint with OKW was its size. It is massive compared to other resorts, with the exception of SSR. After staying at SSR last year, we have a much greater appreciation for the size of OKW. One morning we spent 45 mins just going around SSR to pick up before leaving for the parks. We were the first stop, which was nice because we always got on, but it took over an hour to get to the parks after all of the stops.

I have heard many complaints about the cleanliness issue at various resorts recently. Please don't let that be the reason you don't stay at OKW again. The sheer size of the rooms at OKW makes us want to return soon. We also love how relaxing it is. It is so nice to come back from a hectic day at the park to the relaxation that OKW provides.

We never ate at Olivia's but did try one nice. We were traveling with me, DH, my mom, and my dad. We were all wanting something sweet one night, so my dad and I walked up to Olivia's to get some dessert. Well.... They closed at 10 (I believe), and we got there around 930. We were met at the door with we close at 10. We clearly stated we wanted to order dessert to go, no food, and would not be dining in. We were taking it back to the condo, because not everyone in the party was with us. We received the same statement of, we close at 10. We responded with we understand, but we just want dessert to go. We will choose something that just requires packaging, no cooking if that is the issue. Keep in mind, the restaurant still have several tables of people, so they were still assisting guests. One family was just ordering. Needless to say after the 3rd or 4th round of this conversation, the hostess said, if you want dessert, you can get it from the gift shop or goods to go. We close at 10. We had planned to go for breakfast one morning, but that put a rather bad taste in our mouth for the their customer service.

Whatever you decide in the future, I'm sure you will have an amazing time, but I completely understand the disappointments.

 

[Deb & Bill]

...We never ate at Olivia's but did try one nice. We were traveling with me, DH, my mom, and my dad. We were all wanting something sweet one night, so my dad and I walked up to Olivia's to get some dessert. Well.... They closed at 10 (I believe), and we got there around 930. We were met at the door with we close at 10. We clearly stated we wanted to order dessert to go, no food, and would not be dining in. We were taking it back to the condo, because not everyone in the party was with us. ....

You cannot get food to go from Olivia's, just Goods to Go or the store. That started with the Dining Plan where guests wanted to use quick service credits for to go food. So they decided nothing to go.

 

[fromscratchmom]

That's discouraging to hear. But then again I always hate to hear of any customer service decision that penalizes all future customers based on previous ornery customers. Between the current level of service showing a refusal to take food orders with a half hour till stated closing and failing to properly communicate what was really going on and why and the overall bad choice of refusing all to go orders...wow.

I mean on the one hand it's pretty bad with the previous customers. how hard is it to understand that a counter service credit is for a meal of a different level of quality and a different level of overhead expense to the restaurant and a table service restaurant isn't suddenly cheap just because you waiv part of the offered service and carry food out the door. But on the other hand the management response shows just as much lack of logic and reason and is just as poor on several other levels. Only now it's every single future customer and potential customer getting a lower level of service rather than just a bad night on the job with an obnoxious or unintelligent customer from time to time.

 

[Disneyplanners]

Correct. The DME delivery people have been tipped by DME. The bags you leave with Bell Services don't have a tip attached to them. The people delivering them want a chance for a tip. You have to be IN the room for such bags to be delivered, at any of the resorts unless you get weird pixie dust.

This makes sense now that I know. At the time we are thinking, you are going to be delivery 3 suitcases in a few hours, why can't you just add on a couple of bags?