[llbarnes]

This is the letter that we wrote to Disney after our December 2003 trip. We did get a phone call from a secretary stating that an executive wanted to talk to us about this and when a good time would be to call. Of course we never heard back from them.

To Whom It May Concern:

I would like to start off by saying that our other visits to Disney Resorts have always been wonderful, and this one, did start out that way. But it went from extremely fantastic to a truly horrible experience in a matter of ONE day!

Our Disney plans included one night at the Wilderness Lodge, which was not only breath taking but also had by far the BEST staff at any of your resorts! The next day at the Magic Kingdom, then the next two nights at All-Star Movies, which we have previously stayed with out any problems!

We checked into the Fort Wilderness Lodge on Friday, December 26th with our party of 14. We had 4 rooms and had a wonderful time there. The lodge is a spectacular place to stay.
We did have one problem that night when I purchased our 2 adult and 2 children's tickets to the Magic Kingdom. I paid the man behind the counter with three 100-dollar bills. He returned to me the incorrect amount of money and I immediately caught this and told him no, that was incorrect and gave him the cash back. He apologized and said that he was new and recounted the money back to me. I asked him who his supervisor was and he pointed towards an older woman who sort of resembled Janet Reno. I asked her to come over and make sure that the amount that he was about to give me was indeed correct. She swiftly came over, counted it out and placed it back on the counter stating that it was correct. I thanked them and left with my tickets and change.

About an hour later, my wife, who was in our room with the boys, sleeping, receives a phone call from this guy that had a problem with counting out my change. He states that he is short $30 on his drawer and that he knows for a fact that I have it and would like to speak with me. Well I am downstairs having a couple of drinks with my in-laws so she calls my cell phone and tells me to go see him. When I get there, he explains to me that he is short and wants to know if I can give him the $30. I am like, "Wait a minute here... Didn't we both have your supervisor come over here and count it out for us?" He agreed. I then asked for her to come over to where we were and asked her the same thing. "Didn't you count this out yourself to make sure it was correct?" She agreed also. So, here I am, showing these people the content of my wallet showing how there is exactly the amount of change received from giving them 3 100 dollar bills for the cost of the 4 tickets and they say, "Well, you do what you have to do..." so now, I am afraid this guy is going to get fired. So I ask for the night manager to come out so I can verify that this guy won't get fired. A young guy comes out, fairly tall and I ask him to make sure this guy is not about to get fired. All I get from him is a lot of smirking and sarcasm that his employee won't get fired, but the smirking and sarcasm does nothing but make me feel like either he will get fired, or that they all think that I am guilty and have the $30. At that point, I give up. It had been such a great day and we were having a great time already, and I didn't want to deal with the "guilt trip" or the fact that somebody might get fired over their own mistake so I give them pretty much all that was in my wallet which was $30 and wish them a Merry Christmas, and return to the bar and my family.

So, we wake up the next day and head over to the Magic Kingdom. As it has always been for the last 33 years of going to Disney at least once a year if not more, we had a great and memorable experience with all 14 of the family members. We wind the day up at about 9pm and say our goodbyes to the other family members and head on over to All-Star resort. We have stayed at the All-Star resorts no less than 3 times and this would have been our fourth.





Earlier in the day, my wife called to All-Star Movies where we had our reservations to make sure that there would be no problem with us coming in super late. They confirmed with us that we did in fact have a room no matter what time we came in, since we had already paid for the first night ahead of time. The room "was ours" and "promised" for us. While I, and the sleeping kids (two boys, one is 3 and the other 5) stay in the van, my wife runs in to get the key. At this time it is about 10:00pm. About 10 minutes later, she comes out with the bad news. There are no rooms available but they can "upgrade" us to the Coronado Springs. Due to the screw up, they also guarantee us a room that is closest to the "heated pool" and a "dig site" for the kids. Well, we really had no choice and since the kids would benefit with the "heated pool" and the "dig site", we took their offer.

We drive to Coronado Springs right up the road and again, wife runs in, takes about 10 minutes and comes out with the bell man who drives us to the room. Wow, this place is huge. Too huge...It took us something like 10 minutes to get to the room driving behind this bellman in a golf cart that barely goes 15 miles per hour. So, we finally get to the building, get our stuff onto the golf cart and the two boys in our arms and he drives us to the room. We get there and he points out that the pool and dig site is "right out there" which was right around the corner. Great, no problem,
The room door is opened up and we walk in about 2 steps, and then back out two steps from the stench of smoke smell from the room. IT'S A SMOKING ROOM!! WE DON'T SMOKE AND MY SON AND I HAVE ASTHSMA! The bellman apologizes profusely and goes into the room to make some calls. Apparently, my wife was never told by the Coronado Springs front desk that it was a smoking room because the All-Star person should have since they were the ones that moved us in the first place.



So, about 10 minutes later, as we were sitting in the cold hallway with two barely awake children in our laps, the bellman comes out and tells us that they did find another room, but it was not near the "heated pool" or the "dig site". We really had no choice as it was getting close to 11pm and really really cold. So we get up to move again. As I get up, I realize that my youngest son has just peed on my lap. He was so exhausted that he didn't even wake up to tell me.

We got back to the van and drove behind the slow golf cart for another 5 minutes to the new room. We get in and the room doesn't smell or anything. By now it is about 5 till 11 pm. The boys were fully awake by this time and we were all starving because we had not eaten dinner yet and originally planned on eating at the All-Star restaurant. So we start calling around and quickly realize that NOTHING IS OPEN. Grills are turned off and they are cleaning up for the night since they CLOSE AT 11PM. Even room service at this "upgrade of a moderate expense resort" is closed. Boy were we disappointed. Even Dominos was a failure since the delivery time was about 45 minutes to an hour. We did finally talk to the front desk person about our nightmare of a night and they did deliver us a pizza that we had to go to the front desk to pickup. No sorry for the inconveniences either. By the way, of course by the time I returned to the room, the boys had fallen asleep out of exhaustion again.

By the time we get to sleep, it's about 1pm and my wife and I fully expected to be able to sleep in from this horrible night we had and start a new day in Kissimmee. Well, I think it was about 5am when the people on the second floor start making a lot of noise. Not sure what was going on, and my wife thinks it may have even been construction on the 2nd floor room, but it sounded like the floor upstairs may have been tile, and a woman was walking around with heels. Clap clap clap clap clap, over and over again, back and forth, across the room. I would have thought that for a moderate expense Disney resort; they would have used more insulation or sound dampening materials. This went on for about 30 minutes and I finally called up to the front desk to have them do something or call these people. Of course the noise continued for another 30 minutes or so.

So we didn't get to sleep in, but we were starving for some breakfast and head to Hwy 192. But as we are getting ready my wife hears another sound, the sound of a “blower” that you use for lawn work. It was being used upstairs above us & was scaring our children. So, it was at that point that my wife decided that we could NO longer stay at this hotel. We had had such an awesome day, 2 days before, that she was in tears, so she made me drive her to the front desk area to speak with the manager of the resort. She went in to talk with the manager, who was very nice, but could not think of a solution for us. Unless we wanted to spend more money & move to another “higher end” resort which we did not want to do. We just wanted to be at The All Star Movies Resort and should never have agreed to go to the Coronado to begin with! The manager said that she would see what she could do for us, so we headed to breakfast.

While we were there, we called back to
Coronado Springs to find out about moving within the resort grounds, just closer to the heated pool or dig site and the terrible insulation between our room and the room upstairs. Well, they seemed to be able to move us a little closer to the "heated pool" and the "dig site" but can't just move our stuff for us. So we do some things around Kissimmee then return to Coronado Springs. When we get to our current room a bellman is just getting there with his orders to move us to the new room. He packs us up onto his golf cart and we all agree to meet at the new room since we had to move our Van. We get to the new room; open it up and I'll be darned if this room wasn't just painted literally a few days earlier. The fumes from the paint were overwhelming. ****, there was still masking tape around the thermostat. My wife and I both looked at each other and frowned and shook our heads. It was our last full day in Orlando so we just agreed to make the best of this room go play in the "heated pool" and dig site then over to International drive that night for some dinner and then hopefully a better insulated room so we can sleep in the next morning.

So we sit here in this room with the door open airing the room out and waiting for the bellman to come with all of our stuff. Five minutes pass... 10...15...20 minutes pass and still no bellman!!! Oh my God we are thinking. What else could possibly happen to us on this little vacation? Did the guy run off with our new portable DVD player, hidden money in the suitcase, all our clothes, etc.?? After almost 30 minutes of waiting for this guy so that we could go play in the "heated pool" and the dig site, I decide to call down to the front desk furiously demanding to know where our bellman was with our stuff. They ask what room we are in and I tell them. The guy on the other side of the phone say's oh no, we were told to take your stuff to a different room number. Yep, another Disney screw up, at our expense. When the guy finally gets to us, with our stuff, he says that he was given the wrong room number and when we did not show up, he decided to just leave it in the room and left.
So, we finally get our stuff in the room and get dressed to go play in the "heated pool" that we were told about. It was a bit chilly, but a heated pool would be a nice release of tension right? NOPE!! Because the "heated pool" is NOT heated and fairly cold!!!!! My wife and I, being totally drained from this so-called "relaxing trip" to Disney opted to just let the boys play in the Jacuzzi and we say having a well needed and deserved drink.

After that, we headed back to the room, got dressed for dinner and headed over to International Drive to the Race Rock Cafe restaurant. We did some other sight seeing and finally had some fun OFF DISNEY PROPERTY. We finally got back to our smelly paint room at about midnight and quickly got the boys down and then finally us at about 1pm. At about 1:30pm is when we realized that this room also had the worst possible sound insulation in the world (as did the other room that we moved from). The people in the room next to us came in from somewhere; possibly Pleasure Island and we could hear each and every word they spoke. Not only were they talking normally, the TV was on at a reasonable volume and they continually played with some sort of "squeaky toy" for a good 10 minutes. I didn't blame them one bit. It's not their fault that the walls of this "moderate expense" resort was PAPER THIN!!!!! They continued on for about 45 minutes to an hour then finally died down. FINALLY I WAS ABOUT TO GET SOME SLEEP! RIGHT? NOPE!! The people on the other side of us come in at about 2:30 am and guess what they start doing???? **** edited by administrator **** The noise from their room turned to snoring which my banging on the walls did not even help. The snoring lasted until at least 4:30am.

As you can see, we are NOT happy one bit with our last trip to Disney. It was certainly a first for us being Florida residents and not being able to count how many times in the past we have been to Disney, let alone stayed on Disney property.

My thoughts have always been that the Disney resorts offer exceptional service and experience vs. staying somewhere NOT on Disney property. So… As you can imagine, the multiple screw-ups came as a complete surprise.

Maybe this is the direction that Disney has gone to?

Maybe Disney is just getting so big that they have slacked on the service and total experience?

Everyone that we have told says that we should write a letter to Disney about our bad experience. They all said that Disney would "make it right" but I am not too sure about that. We are just the little people, and it sounds like the mentality may be that our bad experience is not that big of a loss for Disney. As you can see, I did change my mind about writing a letter. I hope our friends were right.

Take care and thank you for your time,

The Barnes Family; Luke, Sheryl, Collin & Christopher

[crystalrp]

What a shame!
I must say that I find it odd that this is your first post here at DC.
I belong to a Disney Yahoo group too. This week someone else posted a a copy of a letter they are sending disney to complain about their experiences too. Also a first time poster to that group. Seems to be an interesting coincidence.
Sorry your trip was not enjoyable. You should write to Disney. Do let us know if you hear back.

[llbarnes]

Originally posted by crystalrp
What a shame!
I must say that I find it odd that this is your first post here at DC.
I belong to a Disney Yahoo group too. This week someone else posted a a copy of a letter they are sending disney to complain about their experiences too. Also a first time poster to that group. Seems to be an interesting coincidence.
Sorry your trip was not enjoyable. You should write to Disney. Do let us know if you hear back.

Yes, I know what you are insinuating, but I just started on my rant today 3-16-04. Sure it's my first posting. That happens dude. People like me go to Disney for 30 years before having a problem and then get scammed like we did with no apologies. Thanks for the idea on the yahoo groups. I will be sure to search for them and post there too. I am posting my letter wherever I can. Plus I am not hiding my email address to prove that I am not just somebody dissing the resort for fun. It's a truely bad resort and should be consdiered a Value resort not moderate.

Thanks

[polyman65]

First problem there is no fort wilderness lodge,did you mean Wilderness lodge?Second off you should have checked into All stars after checking out of Wilderness.Got your room, checked it out then off on your way to the parks.As for the tickets thing no one had a calculator to figure out the change ?You could have gotten your tickets at checkin to the resort.The registers they use tells them the exact change back.You only bought a one day ticket?Also how was the ticket sales guy able to track you down at your resort?Maybe next trip you should stay off property since you eat off property:hmmm this whole thing seems a little odd to me

[geeman]

An interesting report of the way it's not supposed to happen. I hope you were able to enjoy and salvage at least some of the rest of your stay.
Sad to hear about the poor service. Sounds as if they really were not prepared for the holiday crowds that hit them this year.
Sorry it was so awful, but thanks for sharing.

[llbarnes]

Originally posted by polyman65
First problem there is no fort wilderness lodge,did you mean Wilderness lodge?Second off you should have checked into All stars after checking out of Wilderness.Got your room, checked it out then off on your way to the parks.As for the tickets thing no one had a calculator to figure out the change ?You could have gotten your tickets at checkin to the resort.The registers they use tells them the exact change back.You only bought a one day ticket?Also how was the ticket sales guy able to track you down at your resort?Maybe next trip you should stay off property since you eat off property:hmmm this whole thing seems a little odd to me

Ahhh, yes. We are making it all up. lol..

You are correct. Wilderness Lodge, not Fort Wilderness lodge. As for the ticket, as I said, we called All Stars and they insisted it would be ok for us to come in that late. Plus we were not about to leave the Magic Kingdom and go check in at All Stars. Nobody should have to do that. I bought 3 one day tickets at Wilderness Lodge. As for staying off propertly, we are just fine with All Stars and of course Wilderness lodge. Both are awesome. Coronado Springs however? horrible.

[llbarnes]

Originally posted by geeman
An interesting report of the way it's not supposed to happen. I hope you were able to enjoy and salvage at least some of the rest of your stay.
Sad to hear about the poor service. Sounds as if they really were not prepared for the holiday crowds that hit them this year.
Sorry it was so awful, but thanks for sharing.

Thanks,
I did hear that they had to close the gates on the 26th to Magic Kingdom. As for Coronado Springs, it's their rooms that are the biggest dissapointment. Paper thin. Their Customer Service was not Disney quality either.

Take care.

[crystalrp]

Instead of posting it wherever you can, why don't you WRITE TO DISNEY? We can't make it better..in fact, unfortunately nobody can at this point. Why not give them a chance to at least explain or at best...fix it so this doesn't happen to someone else? How can they "fix" it if they don't know it is "broke"? I am truly sorry this happened to you and your family. I just don't see how trashing Disney wherever you go can help....whereas actually contacting them might. Don't know till you try. Best of luck.


P.S. I'm not a "dude". I'm a "dudette". The name should have given you a hint.

[eraf]

I am a first time poster and i just want to say thanks for the heads up about Coronado. We have not stayed in a WDW property yet so it is nice to get some feedback about which ones are nice and which ones are not. Coronado is on my list of 'not'. We would like to stay at the Wliderness Lodge when we go so it is nice ot hear the good stuff about it. Sorry to hear your trip was so terrilbe. Hopefully it can only get better on your next trip. Don't let this bad experience taint you.
Rene

[llbarnes]

Originally posted by crystalrp
Instead of posting it wherever you can, why don't you WRITE TO DISNEY? We can't make it better..in fact, unfortunately nobody can at this point. Why not give them a chance to at least explain or at best...fix it so this doesn't happen to someone else? How can they "fix" it if they don't know it is "broke"? I am truly sorry this happened to you and your family. I just don't see how trashing Disney wherever you go can help....whereas actually contacting them might. Don't know till you try. Best of luck.


P.S. I'm not a "dude". I'm a "dudette". The name should have given you a hint.

lol, ummmmm. Did you read the right posting? It starts out... This is the letter we wrote to Disney.... It also says that we got a response from a secretary but nobody else called. And I don't consider this trashing Disney. I am informing others of what to expect from Coronado Springs. As for your name, in the tech world, crystalrp sounds like Crystal Reports. Later.

[llbarnes]

Originally posted by eraf
I am a first time poster and i just want to say thanks for the heads up about Coronado. We have not stayed in a WDW property yet so it is nice to get some feedback about which ones are nice and which ones are not. Coronado is on my list of 'not'. We would like to stay at the Wliderness Lodge when we go so it is nice ot hear the good stuff about it. Sorry to hear your trip was so terrilbe. Hopefully it can only get better on your next trip. Don't let this bad experience taint you.
Rene

Yes, Wilderness Lodge has set new HIGH expectations for our future visits to Disney. That place is absolutely amazing and will save the extra money to go there in the future for sure. WOW... As for our incorrect change incident, it was un-fortunate that I got a newbie that night, but pretty sure it was an isolated incident. Unfotunatly I am beginning to think that you really do get what you pay for with Disney resorts now. Value to Moderate, don't expect much. That is a shame since it was people like myself and my dirt poor parents that helped make Disney what it was a few years ago. I remember scraping every penny we could to get there at least once a year and am sure 1000's of other people did the same.

As for future visits? Nothing has been tainted and we have come out of it with a learning experience. Stay away from Coronado Springs. It's nasty.

[MickeyMamma]

Sorry you had a bad experience. Even at Disney, there are big problems once in a while.

You said they closed MK on the 26th? So I take it you were there for Christmas then? Not too surprising that there were some problems that week since it is just about their busiest time of the year.

If you want to hear back from Disney, you may want to tighten up your letter (less words) and take out some of the extra information. I have found that when making a complaint about something, it is best to get to the point. They may take your issues more seriously that way and you may get a response.

Just a suggestion.

[EmpressJenny]

I'm sorry you guys had such a bad time. My husband and I just returned a few days ago from our SECOND WDW vacation in six months (wow you should see my visa bill) and we stayed at Coronado Springs. We were pretty far from the pool, but who can complain? We were at DISNEY for goodness sake! It was a nice resort and I hope you aren't put off from giving it another try in the future.

Additionally, I stayed at the Grand Floridian for my honeymoon six months ago. The walls were VERY thin, and let me tell you how much I listened at the wall to make sure the monstrously loud children next door were out so they couldn't hear us. I'm sorry your neighbors didn't have the courtesy to do the same. I've called Disney to suggest that they reserve one floor in all their resorts for couples only to circumvent this issue, perhaps you should do the same. Hope your next visit is an improvement.

[llbarnes]

Originally posted by EmpressJenny
I'm sorry you guys had such a bad time. My husband and I just returned a few days ago from our SECOND WDW vacation in six months (wow you should see my visa bill) and we stayed at Coronado Springs. We were pretty far from the pool, but who can complain? We were at DISNEY for goodness sake! It was a nice resort and I hope you aren't put off from giving it another try in the future.

Additionally, I stayed at the Grand Floridian for my honeymoon six months ago. The walls were VERY thin, and let me tell you how much I listened at the wall to make sure the monstrously loud children next door were out before we "enjoyed ourselves". I'm sorry your neighbors didn't have the courtesy to do the same. I've called Disney to suggest that they reserve one floor in all their resorts for couples only to circumvent this issue, perhaps you should do the same. Hope your next visit is an improvement.

Thanks for your reply. I think that was the worst of the trip. Not being able to sleep. I can only imaging that the one side neighbors had just come in from Pleasure Island or something since it was so late. We will definetly not be going back to Coronado Springs. Disney in general, well with a 3 and 5 year old, not going back to Disney is out of the question. We will just stick with what we know. All Stars (been there several times) or save a bit more for Wilderness or Animal Kingdom lodge.

Thanks

[llbarnes]

Originally posted by MickeyMamma
Sorry you had a bad experience. Even at Disney, there are big problems once in a while.

You said they closed MK on the 26th? So I take it you were there for Christmas then? Not too surprising that there were some problems that week since it is just about their busiest time of the year.

If you want to hear back from Disney, you may want to tighten up your letter (less words) and take out some of the extra information. I have found that when making a complaint about something, it is best to get to the point. They may take your issues more seriously that way and you may get a response.

Just a suggestion.

Well, like i said, we got a reply right away from somebody claiming to be an executives secretary making sure it would be ok that they call us. That was several weeks ago and I am thinking that the call was just a diversion tactic and that they were hopeing that a call would help us forget about the situation.

As for that time of the year and being busy? IF that is the case then I will never go back during the holidays. That many screw ups it just outragous. Even for the holidays.

Thanks