Wasn't thrilled with Old Key West

[Disneyplanners]

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




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



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

Of all the times we've stayed at a disney world resort, (or any hotel with a pool) this is the first someone has ever stopped me about the towels. I will wear one to stay warmer after the pool or wrap one around my neck in case I need it, etc. They are always taken back to the towel return. The man that confronted me was actually quite condescending about it like I was stealing them. I realize that rules need to be followed, but some things need to be relaxed a bit, and it seems incredibly cheap of disney to strictly police the pool towels.

 

[Disneyplanners]

Sorry for the multiple replies ... I couldn't figure out how to multi - quote. Thank you for your kind responses, I expected to get hammered for my post. I think in a few years we'll give OKW a try again. I did not at all mind the size of the resort, I enjoy walking. It's the fact that cars and buses are right next to you, so I can't leisurely walk with my husband and let the kids go ahead or straggle behind.

We are going to start renting a car on our trips, not just for OKW, but the buses have frustrating aspects at all of the resorts. At AKL Jambo, we had to stand on every bus we boarded, and actually had longer waits than OKW. Plus I'm just plain tired of the Disney's food choices and costs. We'll also forgo on the refillable mugs and take our own beach towels.

Disney world has been our vacation spot for 10 years, since first DS was born, and we enjoyed it so much that we purchased DVC 8 years ago. I'm certainly not going to say we won't be going anymore, but I am disappointed neither the parks or resorts are at the quality they once were.

 

[lovin'fl]

We own at OKW and have plans to sell it and get more BWV and/or BLT or VWL. We don't love OKW but don't hate it either...but it and SSR are at the bottom of the WDW DVC list for us (mostly because we prefer to walk to the parks...or boat).

Since we own, we get HH section and can get on HH buses and off Penninsular buses...making OKW busing the best WDW DVC busing IMO. That said, there is not much of a draw for us to OKW....except that the villas are larger. We just stayed at SSR, 2 weeks ago, and the rooms there, while smaller, are nicer and very clean. The staff was wonderful and our room was ready when we arrived and it was as we requested (Congress Park, close to path to Marketplace). And we loved the quick shot over to the Marketplace. BUT...the busing was awful...awful...awful...had better busing at AKV. Much better dining option with SSR as well...we too are not huge fans of Olivias. As I said before, we like to walk to the parks but if we need to take a form of transportation we are good with the boats and hate the buses and monorail. When we book a stay for WDW this is the order we will book in:
1- BCV or BWV (we spend most time at Epcot)
2- BLT (for walk to MK) or AKV (AKV for resort mainly and club level which we are trying for next trip)
3- VWL (boat to MK)
4- If nothing else is available- SSR if we want to hit DtD a lot (not usually, though we are debating witching our Nov VWL resie to here since pool bar will be closed and SSR is only option and it's an adults only trip where we'd like the nightlife at DtD) and OKW if we need space and/or want the better busing
5- not likely to book VGF as it takes too many points (may try 1 or 2 nights with just DH someday)

 

[Deb & Bill]

Of all the times we've stayed at a disney world resort, (or any hotel with a pool) this is the first someone has ever stopped me about the towels. I will wear one to stay warmer after the pool or wrap one around my neck in case I need it, etc. They are always taken back to the towel return. The man that confronted me was actually quite condescending about it like I was stealing them. I realize that rules need to be followed, but some things need to be relaxed a bit, and it seems incredibly cheap of disney to strictly police the pool towels.

Gotta ask. Who pays for those pool towels? We do and you do and they cost more to launder than the room towels. So everytime someone takes a clean towel back to the villa to use instead of purchasing an extra towel pack or laundering their villa towels, that's an extra cost passed on to the members. We don't get anything at all at the resort that we don't pay for. That's why some locations (Aulani or Vero Beach, I think) have gone from having pool towels at the pool to providing pool towels in the villa to use. It's like that at most timeshares. You have to forget about what you have done at a hotel when you stay in a timeshare.

And going back to the issue at Olivia's. The poster did say they wanted to take food back to the villa to the CM when they tried to enter Olivia's as take out. They didn't want to dine in. And the CM offered two suggestions for take out - Goods to Go and the store.

 

[disneynutz]

I don't know if this is still true today but in the past pool towels and room towels were laundered by different facilities. Room towels taken to the pool or pool towels taken to the room have to be sorted and transported to the other facility. That's why the pool towels have a distinctive pattern so the CM's can easily tell them apart.

Bill

 

[fromscratchmom]

Two oddities that I don't see a rationale for. Why would the pool towels be laundered at a separate facility? There could be a good reason but as things stand it just sounds like a foolish economic model that is all downside.
And the second thing is that while telling a customer a suggestion for where they *might* have their needs met if the company representative had a clue what those needs were beyond the most basic and crude form of the stated request is better than flipping them the bird it's not in the same ball park (or even the same country) as actually meeting their needs. Something as off kilter as refusing a normal industry standard service of restaurants across the country going back to time immemorial and claiming its because you are scheduled to stop offering service a half an hour later than the moment that you are actually refusing service is at best bizarre and a little rude and at worst not a far degree off from the worst of bad behavior towards customers that would be seen in the worst of food establishments. If they've set themselves the goal of kicking out all their patrons and being well on their way to getting all the employees out the door by ten they need to advertise their closing time as 9 or 9:15. Or perhaps set up a sign prominently displaying that no further orders will be taken after 9:15, but patrons are welcome to sit and chat till 10. It is up to any business to earn a good reputation over and over again (or to drop the pretense of having such a goal.) The business that wants the reputation of offering magical vacation experiences particularly must take on the job to make their signs, policies and statements come across like a gift from a magical being rather than leaving it to the customer to happily cooperate with rude and strange things that happen. And I say all that as a sincere and devoted Disney fan. Past reputation is no excuse for future bad behavior. Even if you do have customers like me that have life long dreams wrapped up in getting to return, you can still kill all that by turning to unprofitable policies and poor customer service.

Disney's stated goals and plans for their deluxe model necessitate the extension of the best of Disney's cast member/guest customer service model be applied. Although I'm not a frequent patron of true luxury hotels, it is easy to see that Disney's deluxe model and the deluxe model alternative, DVC would be wise to make it easy for customers to have good room service or at least good quality real food that they can carry themselves to their rooms in the late evening hours, while these types of reports reflect your average struggling store or restaurant in any given town where it's sometimes hard to find or train employees that are up to a reasonable customer service standard.

 

[disneynutz]

Two oddities that I don't see a rationale for. Why would the pool towels be laundered at a separate facility? There could be a good reason but as things stand it just sounds like a foolish economic model that is all downside.
And the second thing is that while telling a customer a suggestion for where they *might* have their needs met if the company representative had a clue what those needs were beyond the most basic and crude form of the stated request is better than flipping them the bird it's not in the same ball park (or even the same country) as actually meeting their needs. Something as off kilter as refusing a normal industry standard service of restaurants across the country going back to time immemorial and claiming its because you are scheduled to stop offering service a half an hour later than the moment that you are actually refusing service is at best bizarre and a little rude and at worst not a far degree off from the worst of bad behavior towards customers that would be seen in the worst of food establishments. If they've set themselves the goal of kicking out all their patrons and being well on their way to getting all the employees out the door by ten they need to advertise their closing time as 9 or 9:15. Or perhaps set up a sign prominently displaying that no further orders will be taken after 9:15, but patrons are welcome to sit and chat till 10. It is up to any business to earn a good reputation over and over again (or to drop the pretense of having such a goal.) The business that wants the reputation of offering magical vacation experiences particularly must take on the job to make their signs, policies and statements come across like a gift from a magical being rather than leaving it to the customer to happily cooperate with rude and strange things that happen. And I say all that as a sincere and devoted Disney fan. Past reputation is no excuse for future bad behavior. Even if you do have customers like me that have life long dreams wrapped up in getting to return, you can still kill all that by turning to unprofitable policies and poor customer service.

Disney's stated goals and plans for their deluxe model necessitate the extension of the best of Disney's cast member/guest customer service model be applied. Although I'm not a frequent patron of true luxury hotels, it is easy to see that Disney's deluxe model and the deluxe model alternative, DVC would be wise to make it easy for customers to have good room service or at least good quality real food that they can carry themselves to their rooms in the late evening hours, while these types of reports reflect your average struggling store or restaurant in any given town where it's sometimes hard to find or train employees that are up to a reasonable customer service standard.

There are many areas where Disney could improve, they choose not to, why should they with record attendance and record profits.

The pool towel laundry had a different process than the room towels and linens. Their machinery is so specialized that changing the size of a sheet can cause problems. In a weeks time Disney at WDW launders at least 41,000 sheets.

Bill

 

[DebbieB]

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.

They may not have the kitchen capacity to fill orders for people sitting in the restaurant plus to go orders. It's not a very big kitchen.

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?

I've seen them take the luggage from the carts that they are delivered in from DME, they look up the room numbers and write it on the tags. Then they load them up for delivery to the rooms. It's not going to be easy to remember that they have 2 more bags for room 1234 sitting in the storage room.

 

[bbn1122]

We had our first stay at OKW 8/15-8/17 and then back for one night on 8/24-8/25.

We liked it. But this was a quick stay to enjoy the resort and DTD, no parks.

Our room villa was ready when we got there. I did online check in. I was greeted by a CM who went and got my paperwork. I was surprise that the Magic Bands were ready to go. I did not even go to the counter. Very quick and convenient.

We first were in a dedicated 2 bedroom. Building 23 ...villa 2323. We really like the location...close to HH nice view, second floor. The villa was huge.....we were spoiled because after OKW we went to VB.

The resort was big, but as big as the map looks my first morning I took a walk all the way towards building in the 50's and I also walk to the end of Turtle Pond Road. It is a very pretty setting.

The pool area was nice. My sons and I took a surrey ride all around one evening and had a lot of fun.

We ate at Olivia's the first night and loved it. Our server was fantastic and the food was great. We also had two lunches from GOOD's....love the Conch Chowder and Onion Rings.

We loved the location close to DTD and utilize the boat. We had dinner at Raglan Road the 2nd night. And my DH and sons went to a movie the first afternoon.

The 2nd stay we had a 1 bedroom in building 13, villa 1321 for just one night. We got there about 9:30am, our villa was not ready yet. My DH and sons went down to DTD while. I waited a bit. I walked around, got a drink. It was very crowded because there were a lot of guest waiting to head out for the DVC Cruise. I head down to DTD about 10:45am and got a text a little later that our villas was ready about 11:40am.

We had reservation at Spiltsville, we got there a little early and they could take us. We had a great lunch, fun bowling and a great server. Thanks Digger!

We head back to our room to relax after a busy week VB and a DCL cruise.

My sons got GOOd's for dinner. DH and I headed to Grand Floridian Cafe and to check out VGF!

The VGF was gorgeous. We just saw the lobby and grounds. Dinner was very nice.

We do not use the mugs, so I can not comment on bees.

But OKW was a great match for us and what we needed this visit.

 

[Cee]

Ah, OKW.....it's been awhile and I can't wait to stay in the "gingerbread architecture of the Conch Republic".

Sent from my iPad using DISBoards