So first, let me start by saying this post could easily fall under this category or Trip Reports category but I settled on here since I'm not going to recall all of my trip. Second, I swear I'm not just looking for a place to complain. I am a Disney parks fanatic through and through and I feel like I'm usually about a step away from selling Disney vacations door to door. I just wanted to start a discussion and see if I'm alone in feeling a certain way after our last trip.
Two weeks ago, we spent 8 days at WDW staying at Port Orleans - Riverside. This was our first trip staying at that resort but not our first WDW trip. In fact, we've been visiting WDW every year for the past several years. I'll start by saying I've seen a lot of chatter lately (on this forum and others) about how the parks, specifically MK, have become TOO crowded to be enjoyable. I really thought this was just people being a little over dramatic but after a couple of days of the same experience, I was starting to second guess that. I will say that not every day was this crowded but there were several days where you just could not move through the sea of people. Several times we just sat and people watched as it was just too crowded to actually do anything.
Then, there was the bus transportation. Now, I've had some crazy bus lines but every single night on this trip; no matter the time, no matter the park, the bus lines were crazy. I wouldn't have been too upset by this but we were always next to the Coronado stop and every night, they would have about 4 buses picking up 15-20 people in the time it took us to get two buses and man, were the bus drivers some of the most hateful cast members.
Then the final straw for me was the resort. The food court was a nightmare every night. Usually Disney seems to be pretty organized when it comes to food service but not here. On at least two different nights, we waited for 20+ minutes for food only to find out the kitchen had somehow lost our order. We had housekeeping leave a dirty tray of food in the room (that was sitting in plain sight on the table) and found roaches on two different occasions.
I say all this to come around to my discussion topic I guess. I went to the front desk and wrote an email to guest services. I've always heard about Disney's excellent commitment to customer service but as we've never complained or gone to guest services, I've never had a personal experience. The hotel manager acted like I was an idiot for complaining about roaches. He proceeded to tell me we were in Florida and there are roaches in Florida. He apologized and moved us to another room. My email to guest services got us a whopping $150 back. Now look, I certainly wasn't trying to get a full refund of our trip but after spending over $2000 just in room fees and park tickets, $150 almost seemed laughable and I'm not sure I've ever stayed in ANY hotel that would take having roaches as lightly as the manager at Port Orleans did.
Usually, by this time, I'm already rearing to go back but we actually just cancelled our trip for next year and are trying to decide if we really want to go back before 2021. Has anyone else run into this feeling? I don't want to become jaded but I just feel a complete sense of disappointment after this trip.
Two weeks ago, we spent 8 days at WDW staying at Port Orleans - Riverside. This was our first trip staying at that resort but not our first WDW trip. In fact, we've been visiting WDW every year for the past several years. I'll start by saying I've seen a lot of chatter lately (on this forum and others) about how the parks, specifically MK, have become TOO crowded to be enjoyable. I really thought this was just people being a little over dramatic but after a couple of days of the same experience, I was starting to second guess that. I will say that not every day was this crowded but there were several days where you just could not move through the sea of people. Several times we just sat and people watched as it was just too crowded to actually do anything.
Then, there was the bus transportation. Now, I've had some crazy bus lines but every single night on this trip; no matter the time, no matter the park, the bus lines were crazy. I wouldn't have been too upset by this but we were always next to the Coronado stop and every night, they would have about 4 buses picking up 15-20 people in the time it took us to get two buses and man, were the bus drivers some of the most hateful cast members.
Then the final straw for me was the resort. The food court was a nightmare every night. Usually Disney seems to be pretty organized when it comes to food service but not here. On at least two different nights, we waited for 20+ minutes for food only to find out the kitchen had somehow lost our order. We had housekeeping leave a dirty tray of food in the room (that was sitting in plain sight on the table) and found roaches on two different occasions.
I say all this to come around to my discussion topic I guess. I went to the front desk and wrote an email to guest services. I've always heard about Disney's excellent commitment to customer service but as we've never complained or gone to guest services, I've never had a personal experience. The hotel manager acted like I was an idiot for complaining about roaches. He proceeded to tell me we were in Florida and there are roaches in Florida. He apologized and moved us to another room. My email to guest services got us a whopping $150 back. Now look, I certainly wasn't trying to get a full refund of our trip but after spending over $2000 just in room fees and park tickets, $150 almost seemed laughable and I'm not sure I've ever stayed in ANY hotel that would take having roaches as lightly as the manager at Port Orleans did.
Usually, by this time, I'm already rearing to go back but we actually just cancelled our trip for next year and are trying to decide if we really want to go back before 2021. Has anyone else run into this feeling? I don't want to become jaded but I just feel a complete sense of disappointment after this trip.
