Which resort didnt live up to your expections..

[vettechick99]

Stayed at ASM. Didn't expect it to be great and that's how I felt about it. Self-fulfilling prophecy maybe?

Also stayed at the CR in a tower room and didn't like it much. I think the decor turned me off. But I'd love to stay in their new rooms - those are snazzy!

On the other hand, I didn't think I'd like the Poly. I thought it would be too Brady Bunch circa their Hawaiian vacation. But I loved it! One of my favorites now.

 

[Disneyfan1977]

I love Disney (all things Disney) and it's a rare for me to have anything negative to say about disney but I will say that when we stayed at the Grand Floridian last year, we were disappointed. Our building needed a little sprucing up and one of the elevators was broke (we actually had to wait for an elevator like we would a ride).

On day three we decided to make coffee for the first time and when we went to put the coffee/filter in and we found an old moldy coffee/filter left in there from one of the previous guests. It was so gross. In addition, we paid a lot of money for a magic kingdom view and when there was a tree obstructing our view. They did offer us a slightly better room but what I imagined our view to be like was way off.

Disney did make it right though. They refunded the additional money we paid for the MK View and gave us free park hopper passes for the entire family, so I couldn't complain about that. That is why I love Disney so much.

Disney Rocks!!!!

 

[Crystal824]

Pop Century for the very reasons everyone else has stated. It was ok. My husband hated it and refuses to return there EVER. When you ask why he states it was too loud, too crowed, and the rooms were too small. He said he would rather not go to WDW as often and stay somewhere a little nicer. He loved CBR.

 

[fall08CP]

We have stayed at all of the All Stars, CSR, and POR. We hated POR and loved all of the others. We thought POR would be better than the values but it really wasn't. We didn't like that it was so close to POFQ and the busses seemed to take forever. We hated the theming and everyone there was much older than us- we really felt out of place. Needless to say, we switched to CSR pretty quickly and enjoyed the rest of our stay.

 

[yearbook50]

I will no longer stay at Pop, POFQ or WL. The decor of BWI doesn't appeal to me.

 

[abrock]

Stayed at ASM. Didn't expect it to be great and that's how I felt about it. Self-fulfilling prophecy maybe?

Also stayed at the CR in a tower room and didn't like it much. I think the decor turned me off. But I'd love to stay in their new rooms - those are snazzy!

On the other hand, I didn't think I'd like the Poly. I thought it would be too Brady Bunch circa their Hawaiian vacation. But I loved it! One of my favorites now.

The new rooms are so wonderful! We love the CR

 

[maxiesmom]

The Yacht & Beach Club. After seeing pictures of it, I wanted to stay there in the worst way. A couple of days into our stay, it was like ehh, big deal.

The pool area is awesome, but it is also very easy to loose track of your kids in that large of an area. And I didn't care of the fact that the kids had to walk across the sidewalk to get on the pool slide. What a strange design.

The busses sucked, quite frankly. Over forty minutes each way to the Magic Kingdom and the Animal Kingdom. Maybe there was construction, or maybe we had new drivers, but that seemed like way too long a ride for where we were going. It is great that you can walk to Epcot or DS, but that did not make up for the looong bus ride, imho.

If I ever plan a slow leisurley trip to Disney World, I might book at Y&B again. But I would also have to have my own car. Otherwise I will stick to the moderates or the monorail resorts.

 

[debbs0723]

I will no longer stay at Pop, POFQ or WL. The decor of BWI doesn't appeal to me.

Why wouldn't you stay at wilderness lodge again?

Debbie

 

[LivingtheWDWdream]

For the Resort that Out did my expectations and was a pleasant Surprise: All Star Music. We stayed there in September and thought it was going to just be like a super 8 and nothing special. Well we were completely wrong, the rooms were newly refurbished the staff was so friendly and warm, the food court was spotless when we were there, and we will stay there again for sure!

For the Resort that we had high hopes for and dreamt of staying at was the Polynesian Resort and we HATED it!!! We had a room in Nuie on the 1st floor at the end of the hall on the left. We had a Patio which had a nice view but they had spilled some sort of adhesive on the patio and it looked like a Protien Spill. Not the worst but not something we wanted to look at. The guests in the room before us let their kids use crayons and they drew all over the drawers!! Mousekeeping didn't do anything to get it off! The Closet door closest to the entry door was broken, and we told them we needed non smoking for medical purposes (this was before the change in policy) and the building was supposed to be non smoking but again the guest before us smoked and we were told no rooms to move us too they were supposed to bring a ozone machine in to get the smell out but never did after 4 calls and numerous visits to the front desk we gave up. We went home with our lungs irritated and my mother had to have breathing treatments. We should have asked them to move us to another resort but we didn't think we should have been inconveienced like that. The last straw was the FD manager and the CM checking us out who overcharged my VISA put it over the limit, told me "here is visa's number good luck getting it fixed" and walked away. Came home and disputed the charge, and found out that someone got ahold of my number and the visa had already put a fraud alert on the card.

I wrote a handwritten letter to both the Polynesian resort management, and to guest services and we were taken care of and while we at least got compensated we will never stay at the Poly again and it was not what we dreamed about it was a nightmare.

But bad stays can happen anywhere and we understand that and go into our vacations now just wanting a clean room and nice staff any extra magic is a bonus and we try not to let others influence what to expect.

 

[yearbook50]

Why wouldn't you stay at wilderness lodge again?

Debbie

We had multiple issues with luggage, rude employees manager, a room in awful condition. Its detailed here in my TR more.

I was really dissappointing as growing up, WL was my family's favorite hotel; however, my husband & I will no longer stay there. We love the Poly, but as you can see in this thread not everyone does.

 

[GinnyFavers]

Old Key West. I'd heard how relaxing it is.

Starting at 7 a.m. every five minutes a housekeeping cart or bus would go down the street in front of our building, and it sounded very loud in our room.

Then, a family moved into the 1 bedroom unit that was locked off from our Studio, and I could hear through the door every single thing they said or did in their living room/kitchen.

To put the icing on the noise cake, one morning they mowed the grass and weed whacked the whole area starting at 8 a.m., and finally when they'd cleared out around 8:30 a.m., just half an hour later they started pressure washing our building, including hitting our window, with us in it. I was like, are you KIDDING ME???

 

[danielle782001]

The atompshere is nice, the room was pretty nice, love the location....

But we really did not like that there is no counter-service inside the resort and the lack of dining plan counter options on the dining plan on the Boardwalk.... The pizza counter was an option until they took that off the plan last spring... We love the dining plan but found it hard to use at the resort....

The far walk to the large gift shop outside on the Boardwalk was also not the best... We did not like being forced to go all the way to the Boardwalk to grab supplies....

Mommy side of me also did not like: The pool is not great for kids after spending time at the zero-entry pools at the Beach & Yatch and the AKL... The play ground is not so great either (very small)...

I can see us liking this resort when our kids are older and we can really take advantage of the night-life and when we are spending more time in Epcot and HS instead of MK... Also nice idea to send our kids on the Boardwalk to the shop to pick up what we need and when they are big enough to enjoy that pool and cool slide... But that is a long way off for us.

 

[buzznina]

It makes me laugh that peolple going to WDW can actually complain about walking at a resort. I lost count on how many times I read, "It was to far of a walk to the pool", "The elevators are to far" The parking lot/bus stop was to far" and of course "The walk from my room to the food area was so long". For people with medical issues I understand, but the majority do not have these issues. We stayed at POR Riverside and was in the back of the resort, it took a "whole(sarcastic)" 8 minutes to walk to the food court. My family enjoyed the walk, after all day at the parks it was a way to unwind before we got to our room. When it rained, I turned into a little 47 year old kid and grab my daughters hand and hit every puddle we see We go by a simple model "you get out of your vacation what you put into it". I hope this does not offend anyone.

 

[Jan3571]

When I opened this thread, I was expecting alot of folks to say the Grand Floridian did not live up to expectations.

We are DVC members and have stayed on property around 20+ times, mostly at DVC resorts. We have stayed at the GF 4 times. The first was our honeymoon in 1994 and it was wonderful. The next was a garden view room in 1997 and it was ok, nothing special and cost around $300/night. The next time it was 2000 in a room in the main building concierge and was great, but very expensive at around $500/night.

Then was the trip in March 2007 concierge level in the Sugar Loaf building at $630/night!!!! My husband booked the trip as a surprise and thought we were to be in the main building again. They never told him otherwise, and never mentioned the Sugar Loaf bldg, so he assumed main building. That was disappointing and, I feel, a little misleading. The room was not that clean. The fixtures were very dusty. It was as if they only hit the easy spots cleaning and never did any deep cleaning at all. We had to call housekeeping 3 times to get them to clean the balcony where a previous guest had spilled soda all over the place. In my opinion, that should have been done before we checked in. In the end, housekeeping did a poor job of it and I ended up going behind them with a wet washcloth myself. All that for $630!!!!

I'm not saying I wouldn't stay there again, but there are far better places to stay for far less money. We will be just going over for dinner or tea and enjoying the beautiful lobby w/o paying a high price for mediocre service.

 

[Peepster]

Old Key West. I'd heard how relaxing it is.

Starting at 7 a.m. every five minutes a housekeeping cart or bus would go down the street in front of our building, and it sounded very loud in our room.

Then, a family moved into the 1 bedroom unit that was locked off from our Studio, and I could hear through the door every single thing they said or did in their living room/kitchen.

To put the icing on the noise cake, one morning they mowed the grass and weed whacked the whole area starting at 8 a.m., and finally when they'd cleared out around 8:30 a.m., just half an hour later they started pressure washing our building, including hitting our window, with us in it. I was like, are you KIDDING ME???

Hey, you wrote my reply to this thread! We tried this resort twice before we gave up. We got so little sleep it wasn't funny and we had specifically stayed there because my traveling companion has a chronic disease that is kept under control by adequate sleep and naps. I will say that the management staff at the resort did try to help us out but you can't control the rudeness of your fellow travelers. I can't understand if some people are just new to staying in hotels or if they're so arrogant that they don't feel they have to be considerate of fellow vacationers.

 

[jimmiej]

For us, it was Contemporary.

We stayed in the South Wing with a partial view of the lake. Things we liked: large room, monorail access, nice view from the pool, Chef Mickey's.

Disappointments: hallways were dirty, the entire property appeared run down. I guess we expected a deluxe property to be nicer.

That being said, we would stay there again, but only in the tower or the new DVC rooms.

 

[Lucky'sMom]

I see no advantages to staying at this resort. If you don't get a villa near the main pool, then you would need to drive or take the bus to get there. Our unit looked so old and dated. I still cannot believe it has not undergone a major refurb yet. The decor is so muted and blah. Our room was dusty, and there was a huge cobweb over the vanity mirror that stayed there all week. I see no benefits to staying here over staying off-site. We stayed in luxurious villas off-site that took no longer to drive to the parks than from here. If I'm going to pay on-site prices, then I want to be in the "middle of things" like at the Epcot DVC's.

 

[LSchrow]

sooooooooo
has any resort survived this thread unscathed?

 

[HugsForEeyore]

We had multiple issues with luggage, rude employees manager, a room in awful condition. Its detailed here in my TR more.

I was really dissappointing as growing up, WL was my family's favorite hotel; however, my husband & I will no longer stay there. We love the Poly, but as you can see in this thread not everyone does.

Wow, thanks for sharing your trip report! And sharing your experience at WL - I also had awful luck at WL with worn-out ground floor king handicapped rooms. I am so glad I am not the only one who had issues with them - I don't feel so alone now! And sadly, your post is more proof that most king bed rooms at WL are located on the ground floor and are handicapped-assessible, and for whatever reason, they seem to be more worn out that other rooms.

So most couples or solos who want to stay at WL better not expect a balcony or a tub! Chances are you will be ground floor in a handicapped-assessible room, it appears.

You were so lucky to get a "true" king bed room with a balcony! Least that part worked out well.

 

[tiger4me2]

which disney resort do you feel did not live up to its hype...???

The GF in my books had too many problems that even when talking to several managers about them & nothing was done. All the rooms were booked & couldn't moved me nor move us to a different resort. One of the problem was a toilet that didn't work period. All they had to do was replaced it but nooooo kept on repairing it & finally the day before we left, they replaced it which what they should have done before. like at the begining of stay not at the end.