Firstly, I'd like to say hello, I'm a newbie here, but not to Disney World. My family and I (we're from Toronto, Canada) went twice when I was little, and me and my mom have gone 3 times since 2006. I also want to keep in mind that my mom booked this trip via Disney and not a third party travel provider.
We went a couple weeks ago for a week long stay at Port Orleans (which we stayed in on our last visit); however, this time around we decided to stay in the Royal Rooms.
Anywho, our issues started when we arrived at check-in, where it was only than that we were informed that they are now using wristbands (which were sent to our rooms two days after we arrived); luckily, the staff at Port Orleans was, eventually, able to find a couple of wristbands for us to use.
This is when we were, than, informed that the fastpass system allowed you to book your fast passes in advance, and since we we never told about this new system, neither of us pre-booked any fast passes OR brought digital devices with us (we have a policy of not bringing anything but basic cell phones for emergencies on vacation).
After our extensively long check-in, we went to our rooms, which surprisingly, were behind the building viewing the parking lot. The rooms themselves consisted of white bedding (no comforter) and a single long pillow on one bed. In fact, on entrance, we thought the housekeeping hadn't even *made* the beds yet until my mom looked closer to see that they had.
We were pretty furious about this, since the
Disney travel agent didn't tell us anything about there being different qualities of Royal Rooms (since we saw some rooms when we arrived, through their windows, that they did have the beds made-up as shown in the advertisements). Had we know there were lower-grade rooms that were hidden at the back, we would have just spent the money on a basic room with a river view.
We mentioned this to them at the front desk, and they made-up for this by sending us two throw blankets, which we used since the bedding was so thin we would have freezed without them
Later that day, we went to the Magic Kingdom and noticed that the park had a much higher attendance than when we went the same time in 2009, and that the average wait for a ride was 40 minutes to an hour, and of course, all fast passes were sold out in advance.
This was our experience throughout all of the Disney parks, which meant we opted out of going on rides, for the most part.
*ftr, I preferred the old system, where people were only allotted one fast pass per a certain time; this allowed an even playing field for attendees.
Even with a lot of the let downs, we were still optimistic about our trip and trying to have fun, but that pretty much came to an end when we went to Mickeys's Not So Scarey Halloween party on Halloween day.
We bought our tickets back in late August, and when we arrived to get our entrance cards the employee at the booth stated that we were not listed. Luckily my mom carried the confirmation number for the purchase, which than required 15 minutes on the computer for the employee to find out that we had, indeed, bought said tickets and were than given our access cards.
That, however, was not the worst part. When we went into the Magic Kingdom we saw the place jam packed, it seemed to be more packed than it was during any time I've ever been there, yet we were under the impression that this was an *exclusive* event for people who bought a tickets in advance, but it looked like instead they sold as many tickets as they could legally allow people into the park. In other words, it was an oversold ripoff, and judging by some of the people we talked to, they felt the same way.
When we were able to make our way through the sea of people and find a spot for the parade, we happily stood behind a couple who attended with two babies in a stroller and a toddler (this was about 15 minutes before the parade started). Less than 5 minutes before it started, two large men and a woman barged in front of said couple, preventing their kids from seeing the parade they waited longer than us to see.
And this was happening ALL around us; adults, standing in front of children, holding up camera phones, and the Disney staff said or did nothing about it. You'd think they'd try to make a kids in the front only policy, nope, they could have cared less and just danced around.
I could not even keep track at the number of crying kids.
After the parade, me and my mom decided to skip the castle show and fireworks because the entire street and area near the castle was jam packed, so we headed to find the trick-or-treat zones listed on the map. We looked up and down the listed locations, and it wasn't until we went to go on Pirate of the Caribbean that these zones were *hidden* inside places, not even marked to tell anyone, through poorly lit paths where you can't see anything but people.
By 12:00am, I was able to get about half a (small) bag of candy, and that's mainly due to a couple guys giving me multiple handfuls. We also were only able to go on 3 rides within the hour of the parks closing, since a lot of the crowds had left the park by 10:30-11:00.
When we left to go to the bus stop, the wait line for our resort went past the rail lines, and we noticed there were only two buses going there. Seriously? Two buses for a park closing that they know will have maybe hundreds of attendees, from said resort.
We didn't even get on a bus to close to 1:00am and there was still a long line behind us, filled with crying, cranky kids
Had we known that this event was so poorly run, we never would have bought tickets to it.
Another complaint I had with the parks is their obvious reduction in product quality. I bought a red Mickey t-shirt back in 2006 that's cotton and well made, for the same price as the less detailed, thin, clearly sweat shop made clothing they now sell. Even a plastic pen, dollar store quality, cost $10!
In comparison, we went to Universal Studios for a day, went to both parks, on 7 rides within the time it would take to go on two at Disney. Their lines were long, but clearly moved quicker due to better organization, they also had a lot more rides which, I would guess, prevented over crowding.
Their products were also cheaper and better made than Disney's; I bought a well made plush at the Harry Potter section for about the same price of a poorly made, small, stuffed plush at the Disney Parks
That's 7 rides within less than 6 hours. Within our entire 7 day park stay at Disney, we got to go on 4 rides
I don't want to sound like a complainer, but really, this was a bad experience from a multiple attendee like us. Our visits in 2006, 2008 and 2009 were totally different and we had nothing but nice things to say about Disney.
I don't know if it's new park management or what, but we both agreed that we won't be going on anymore
Disney vacations, which is sad, since my mom was hoping to try their cruise line [/rant]
The room in particular sounds bad. I'm sorry your 
