I have a story about an experience at Disney on which I'd love to hear some feedback. It happened last year, but I still think about it and wonder if everything was handled correctly. I'd love to hear your advice...
In the middle of one trip, we got back to our room at the Polynesian (ground floor in a building fairly close to the GCH) after a fairly late night at a park. Someone from our party was in the shower, the rest of us were collapsed on the beds watching TV. I knew the room door was pulled closed and locked (I did it myself). The safety catch was on as well.
So while we were lounging about, at around 10 I would say, and all of sudden we heard a loud rustling at the door, like someone was fumbling with a key in the lock and trying to get it to open. It was pushed open, still very roughly, and the safety latch caught. I shot up with my father, and he yelled to whoever was outside, "Can I help you?"
Instead of getting an answer, the door was pulled closed again. We walked quickly to the door and opened it. Our room was at one end of the building. The hall was empty except for two cast members (as in they were wearing Polynesian uniforms but had no housekeeping gear) speed-walking down to the other end of the hallway. They were almost to the opposite end of the building.
My father again yelled, something to the effect of, "Excuse me, why did you open our door without knocking and then run off without an explanation?"
Instead of stopping, the two (a young girl and guy, I'd say in their 20s) just laughed to each other and sort of waved dismissively over their shoulders, as though we were interrupting a conversation. My dad asked them again, and the guy turned a little (without stopping) and said, "We were just checking if the locks work." (Keep in mind we had just seen them run down half the hallway without trying to open any other door. And also keep in mind, it was not like our door was propped open and they wanted to be nice and see if we had left it open accidentally. They had fumbled with the lock loudly before shoving it open.)
Of course we were a bit shaken...hearing your door forced open is never a good feeling when you're half asleep in your hotel room.
Immediately we called the front desk to try to validate the story. Does Disney send around people to check if guests close their doors? The person at the front desk told us no. We then relayed the story in its entirety. The person apologized (although didn't really ask for more details) and hung up without any attempt at an explanation whatsoever. We called back and asked for a manager. We told the story again, and they said they had no idea what the people were doing. They didn't ask for a description of them and offered no explanation.
We decided maybe we should go down to the front desk. There we got the same sort of uninterested response. We gave a description of the two castmembers, only to be told that no one like that was on duty.
To say the least, we were super disappointed by the staff's response. Their reaction was not at all "We are so sorry to hear about this and we understand your concern so we will investigate" but more like "Who cares?"
So did we overreact? Did we just encounter two rude castmembers who should have stopped to explain themselves better? Shouldn't a deluxe resort have a better response to a guest's complaint about room safety and the behavior of their employees? Should they have offered us some sort of compensation or called to give us any followup info?
I'd love to hear your opinions. Every year we go back (we are addicted of course, both to Disney and the Polynesian, so this isn't just idle complaining) but we always think about that night--how scary it was to hear your door sounding like it was being forced open and how disappointed we were by Disney's seemingly un-Disney response.
