Worried about bad reviews of GF on Trip Advisor

[Chicago526]

I've been reading some of the reviews for GF on Trip Advisor.com and a lot of them seem to be negative. DF and I will be staying there on our honeymoon in October and I'm starting to get worried. I've dreamed about staying there since I first saw the hotel in 1998, and I don't want our dream trip to be tarnished by a bad hotel experiance.

This same thing happened before our Dec. '04 stay at the Poly. Tons of bad review right before we left, but we had a fantastic trip and loved the Poly, so I'm hoping the bad reviews are just from grumpy people who can't be made happy no mater what.

Can anyone comment on recent experiances or the bad reviews?

 

[zurgswife]

I decided a while back that Trip Advisor must pay people to write negative reviews...The places I have been interested in ALWAYS have very negative reviews...but after staying myself I find the reports are very off base. Not everybody is going to enjoy every hotel but they seem to always find the people that have the absolutely WORST time...

 

[MargaretF]

I can't think of anyplace more wonderful for a honeymoon than GF. We stayed there in 2003 and loved it. The theming was great, the big pool was uncrowded (most kids were at the slide pool), food is good and there is great variety. You'll have a great time just being at the resort. Read all the GF threads from those who loved it, you'll get a much better sense of the resort. I wish I had thought to go there for my honeymoon.

 

[Chicago526]

I decided a while back that Trip Advisor must pay people to write negative reviews...The places I have been interested in ALWAYS have very negative reviews...but after staying myself I find the reports are very off base. Not everybody is going to enjoy every hotel but they seem to always find the people that have the absolutely WORST time...

I've found their reviews helpfull in the past, I kept my brother and SIL out of a VERY seedy hotel with their reviews. My brother stoped by that hotel to visit a friend that insisted on staying there and the bad reviews were confirmed. I wonder if it's just Disney bashing? Or that most people will only write a review of a bad experiance at Disney, since good experiances are so much the norm?

 

[Lewisc]

People are far more likely to take the time to wrote a review to warn people about a bad experience than to write about a great trip.

Most of the complaints about the GF are subjective. The level of service isn't always up to the level one would expect from a hotel that thinks it's almost a 5* property.

 

[debbiedoo]

I would go and have a great time. I have stayed at several on-site disney resorts.(including the GF) Their are always those bad reviews that tuen people away. But, what people do not realize: for every great trip--person might tell 1 or 2 people, you let someone have a bad experience---they were tell about 20.

ok everyone. . . .let the great reviews roll in!!

 

[Lives4Disney]

Chicago526 The Grand Floridian is a LOVELY resort! I have stayed in the main building RPC & Sugar Loaf building and I am just crazy about the place. I don't think you could choose a better resort to honeymoon in. We did have some issues with the concierge staff that we ran into, and a couple of other snafus during our first visit - mostly due to one of the concierge members - but the place itself is WONDERFUL. You are lucky you get to stay there for your honeymoon. When my husband and I honeymooned, we were broke - stayed at some dive outside of WDW, and then with his parents in Clearwater. Enjoy the Grand Floridian!!! I am dying to get back there again - I LOVE that place and I am particular about where I stay and have certain expectations of an expensive resort.

Happy honeymoon!!

Lives4Disney

 

[leighe]

My sister and I stayed at the GF right before Christmas last year and we just loved it! We were in a garden view room in Boca Chica - our room looked out over one of the pools. The room was gorgeous and the location can't be beat. The whole resort had a very elegant, yet laid-back feel to it. We loved Narcoossee's (sp?). I would love to go back for our summer trip but DH thinks it's "girly" and we want to try out the Beach Club.

You are going to have a great time!

 

[heyabbott]

Be mindful of people who rate WDW resorts without regard to the entire WDW experience. As a stand alone resort GF isn't a typical 5 star resort like the Four Seasons on St Barts or the Hotel Del Coronado in San Diego. At WDW, the GF is a fabulous resort, with great amenities and an attentive staff. But part of the joy of The Grand Floridian is its location in WDW and the Disney charm. If you're not into the Disney Charm and Magic, I can see how it wouldn't shape up as the creme de la creme of resorts.

I've been to Disney on 5 different occasions, as a child, as single guy in his 20's and twice as a real grown up with my own children. I still had the same smile on my face when I was 41 as I did when I was 8, the same excitement and fun.

 

[3lilprincesses]

i just can't understand how anyone can have anything bad to say about GF. my family loved it and we would happily and confidently recommend it to anyone. i really think it would be a dream honeymoon! unfortunately, most people are all too happy to provide negative feedback, but don't bother when they have a good experience. i never use tripadvisor, but maybe after your wonderful honeymoon, you could add a positive review!

have a fabulous honeymoon!!

 

[DisneyMomx7]

We LOVE the Grand FLoridian. So much that we keep coming back year after year. I can't think of a more beautiful relaxing place to spend your honeymoon. Have a wonderful time and don't pay attention to negative reviews.

 

[DisOrBust]

The GF does get the bad review here as well, especially concierge level. The GF has the highest expectations put on it so when it falls it falls down BIG TIME.

Do a search ans read the reviews here most are well balanced. No place will ever be perfect. I don't think the reviews would stop me from staying at the GF if my heart was set on it. They may however hold more weight if I was tossing around several resorts.

 

[tongatoast]

We stayed at the Grand Floridian last spring, and it was lovely.

It's not my favorite, but that's just a matter of taste....I like the Poly better, but just because I like the lushness of the landscaping and it has a more laid back feel.

But you can't go wrong at the GF.

 

[CarolA]

I will be honest. I was disappointed in the GF. From Disney's advertising and based on the prices I expected a full resort experience comparable to the Ritz Carlton's and places like that. What I got was a beautiful hotel with basic services. (The service was not dramatically better then that of a value or moderate and in some cases was just flat out bad)

For the money I wanted top class service. I think it is telling that Tyler (who works for Disney and posts on the Transporation board) posted once that the GF lost a star in the one of the hotel rating systems due to not meeting service expectations.

I think Disney needs to gets the GF management and send them to some world class resorts. I am not willing to give them the break simply for the location.

 

[Lives4Disney]

CAROLA - I agree with you 100%. My sister is a concierge at a Ritz and I know how she and other employees are expected to treat customers. There is a difference for sure!!

I guess with me, though, I am willing to let that go because I LOVE the location. For me, the location makes up for the difference in the level of service and I feel like what I am paying for is the location. It really depends on what your expectations for your stay are, I guess. For a Disney vacation I think the GF is IT. The resort is just beautiful. I could get a great family discount at the new Ritz in Orlando, but it is important to me to stay in WDW when I am there.

Lives4Disney

 

[Chicago526]

Oh, believe me, I'm not looking for perfect, and I'm not planning on counting on the Concierge staff for much (not because I don't trust them, it's because I don't mind doing it myself). But I was reading reviews saying the rooms were dirty and in major need of rehab, the room service trays were left out all day, resulting in the hallway smelling, noise, extremely long check-in lines, so-so food, and bad bus service to MGM, AK, DTD and the water parks. It's the comments like these that have me worried.

Any one else?

 

[DAWGPOUNDAJ]

Hey there! Okay I am one of the people, not on trip advisor, never heard of that website before so thank you for letting me know about it with this post, but someone who has left bad reviews for the GF.

Were we grumpy? OH YEAH! lol We were grumpy though because when we got back from the parks one day a lot of our clothes, my wallet (mind you this was a few years back when I was young enough to go with my family, I'm 23 now so it's about 5 years back now), and my stuffed animals (yes I know an 18 years old who collects stuffed animals, what can I say? *sheepish grin) to all have been stolen! STOLEN From our ROOM! The door was locked b/c my dad is insanely neruotic about making sure doors are closed. We understood that things happen at all resorts, so figured it would be fixed to the best of hte GF's staff's ability when we reported it. After standing in line patiently for 20 minutes (really, we were not miffed about that b/c were used to lines already) we explained to the CM what had happened. They told us that it could not have happened. We assured them it did, and asked if they could help us since the only people with room access (since we had ALL our key cards) would have been GF staff. Until the CM turned their back (literally) walked away, and started helping someone else for 10 minutes!!!! We finally called them back amazed at their rudeness about a serious matter! Now until then, we had found our abysmally bad luck very amusing, but after that we were grumpy, I'll admit, but nice anyway. (You get no help if your not nice and yelling, and were believers in good behavior at WDW). Anyways, long story short, they finally got us a manager, who said they couldn't help us. They didnt evne promise to look into it or anything, and blew us off. We'll never go back b/c we don't trust our belongings to be safe.

That being said, was the room nice? OH YEAH! Beautiful! The ammenities good? Sorta. We really prefer the food courts at the All Stars to the GF restaurants. Sounds crazy, but my father owns his own buisness so were around upscale restaurnats at home a lot for his meetings, and it just seemed ot bland to us. Besides that everythign was great, I'm sure you'll have a blast too! Don't worry about the bad trip reports (like mine) b/c you need to make your own memories there. I've never heard of anything happening to anyone there, like what happened to us, before and since then. I doubt it'll happen again, we let them know they lost business from our family after we got home from that trip. Oh THEN they took us seriously. lol

So no, were not grumpy people, but anyone can have a bad experience at evne the best of hotels, b/c all human staff members have off days. Just keep in mind that for some, that the GF isnt' great just b/c it is the most expensive. A lot of people equate luxury wiht expense, but to some, perhaps you may find yourself included in this group or thinking after your stay there, it simply depends on the theming, and we find the GF to be a bit blah compared to the magic at the Poly for us.

It's personal perference.

Happy HOneymoon! Congratulations! ANd have a great time!

 

[Grammamouse]

My 2 sisters and I stayed at GF RPC the first week in Dec. 2004. It is a beautiful hotel and we loved it. The hotel was very busy and unfortunately, the Sunday that we checked in, the computers were down for a few hours so we had to wait a little while for our room. Waiting in the concierge lounge, however, is not exactly a hardship. Our room was suppose to be 2 queens and a day bed, but the room we got was smaller and just the 2 queens. I think is was the 2nd bedroom of a suite. It was fine, but we could have used a little more room for our luggage. The room itself was beautiful and wonderfully kept up by Mousekkeeping. We received towel animals every day that we were there and a plate of chocolate covered strawberries were on the table in our room when we arrived. Now, the welcome card had someone else's name on it, but we threw that away and indulged. If we ate your strawberries, sorry about that, but no way we were going to return them.

The Christmas decor and music was very enjoyable and the RPC building and the grounds were gorgeous. We loved the monorail access and the conceirge lounge.

We did have some problems with Conceirge service. The CM who took us to our room must have been new that day, because she didn't know the hotel at all and couldn't find our room at first. We weren't given much information about the hotel and didn't find out for 3 days that we should take the back elevator to the pool. Our rooom keys didn't work on the elevator and we had to return twice for new keys. The second time, the CM told us that the park tickets were not on the cards either and gave us new ones ( third set). When we went to MK the next day, the cards were still not validated for park entry and we had to go to Guest Services.

I had made all of my own PS but did email conceirge to see if they could change our LeCellier PS to the Candlelight Processional dinner pkg. They said that would be fine and asked for a Visa #, which I gave them. At check in we found out that the dinner pkg was not set up and our initial PS was cancelled. No other times were available for that day and we had to re-arrange our schedule.

I would stay at GF again in a heartbeat for the ambience and location, but not for the service.

 

[DawnCt1]

I will be honest. I was disappointed in the GF. From Disney's advertising and based on the prices I expected a full resort experience comparable to the Ritz Carlton's and places like that. What I got was a beautiful hotel with basic services. (The service was not dramatically better then that of a value or moderate and in some cases was just flat out bad)

For the money I wanted top class service. I think it is telling that Tyler (who works for Disney and posts on the Transporation board) posted once that the GF lost a star in the one of the hotel rating systems due to not meeting service expectations.

I think Disney needs to gets the GF management and send them to some world class resorts. I am not willing to give them the break simply for the location.

I think you hit the nail on the head. People rate a hotel not only in terms of amenities but value. That's what a lot of the reviews seemed to be centered on; The Rate in relation to the property. I have stayed at the GF when I have gotton great rates. If I am paying a reasonable rate, then I am not only delighted that I got a bargain but I am enjoying my stay. One guest in the review said that he paid $550 per night for each of two rooms. IMO, the GF isn't a property that I would spend $550 per night to stay in because it doesn't measure up to the Ritz or other five star resorts. Also to add, if you check the reviews of SoG, there is a lot more satisfaction with the resort. Is it a better resort? Probably not but guests pay a lot less money per night and they feel that they get an excellent value.

 

[Sammie]

We have stayed at the Grand many times in a garden view room, Lagoon view and Sugar Loaf and had wonderful trips each and every time. Except for Pop Century we have stayed at all Disney resorts and the Grand is the only resort we have "never" had any type of unpleasant experience.

Enjoy your stay.