Disney Deluxe Villa Check in Headache!

kverdon

Mouseketeer
Joined
Jul 21, 2006
We switched resorts to another Deluxe Vila today and check-in was a major headache. Texted at 3:45 our room was ready. Looked up the room number and found it to be in a sub-optimal location. Called the Front Desk and requested a change. Received a call from a CM at 4:04 that had he found us a room that was exactly what we wanted 1 building over 3rd Floor. Room was cleaned awaiting final inspection and would be read in 10 min. Great!! Or so we thought...He said that if we did not get new room text in ~15min we should check at the front desk for the room that he had assigned us. 30 min later and no text we went to the front desk to inquire about the room. The gentleman at the front desk looked at our room assignment, seemed confused, made a hushed phone call and then said our room would be ready by 5pm. 5 came and went and we finally received a new room text at 5:40 for a room 1 building over on the second floor. Well we thought that was fine until we open the room with my Magic Band and stepped in. My wife commented on the fact that the room smelled funny. I I put our bags of groceries on the counter while my wife fumbled with the light switch. When the lights came on the source of the smell was apparent. The room was filthy! Garbage was overflowing, empty pizza boxes stacked on the counter, bathroom uncleaned and beds unmade. We beat a fast retreat and went back to the front desk to chat with the manager.

Unfortunately, the room we had been promised was somehow no longer available nor were any rooms that fit our category. The best they could do was put us in a temporary room for the night (discounted) and move us tomorrow. I tell you, if they put us in another uncleaned room, I will definitely be over on the “Dark Side” with the manager.
 
Sorry that it went so poorly today. What DVC Resort was this at?

Just a side note, Holiday weekends are not good times to switch rooms / resorts due to high occupancy and short staffing since it is a holiday. There is very little room for flexibility or guest recovery.

Dave
 
True, but It was not the category room we booked (they admitted that) and this IS a scaled down holiday weekend and they said they had a room available that would be perfect for us to to move to.
Since they are giving us a discount off the room, I don’t want to name them since they are, after failing rather badly, trying to make it right a bit.

I should add that this is strike 2 at this resort. We stayed here back in Feb and when we checked into our room the light fixture in the entry was hanging loosely from the ceiling by the wiring and there was not a drop of Shampoo, Conditioner or soap anywhere in the room and that one reeeked of fresh paint enough to give us both a headache the brief time we were in it.

The worst of it was going into a dirty room, that’s bad in normal times, it’s REALLY bad in current times.
 
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We switched resorts to another Deluxe Vila today and check-in was a major headache. Texted at 3:45 our room was ready. Looked up the room number and found it to be in a sub-optimal location. Called the Front Desk and requested a change. Received a call from a CM at 4:04 that had he found us a room that was exactly what we wanted 1 building over 3rd Floor. Room was cleaned awaiting final inspection and would be read in 10 min. Great!! Or so we thought...He said that if we did not get new room text in ~15min we should check at the front desk for the room that he had assigned us. 30 min later and no text we went to the front desk to inquire about the room. The gentleman at the front desk looked at our room assignment, seemed confused, made a hushed phone call and then said our room would be ready by 5pm. 5 came and went and we finally received a new room text at 5:40 for a room 1 building over on the second floor. Well we thought that was fine until we open the room with my Magic Band and stepped in. My wife commented on the fact that the room smelled funny. I I put our bags of groceries on the counter while my wife fumbled with the light switch. When the lights came on the source of the smell was apparent. The room was filthy! Garbage was overflowing, empty pizza boxes stacked on the counter, bathroom uncleaned and beds unmade. We beat a fast retreat and went back to the front desk to chat with the manager.

Unfortunately, the room we had been promised was somehow no longer available nor were any rooms that fit our category. The best they could do was put us in a temporary room for the night (discounted) and move us tomorrow. I tell you, if they put us in another uncleaned room, I will definitely be over on the “Dark Side” with the manager.
Not trying to be rude but...
You created the issue by deciding you didn’t like room you were originally given without even seeing it. Requests are only requests and never guaranteed.
 


Guessing based on the multi-building and multi-floor, this was either Saratoga or OKW, and OP wanted to be as close to HH as possible in Standard, or as close to the DS walkway as possible in Standard.

Just guessing here. Poly is also multi building/floor but the "one building over" would be an unusual construct when talking Poly.
 
But yeah, as others have stated, always better to go to the front desk. When you call you get the call center in either Celebration or Tampa, not the resort front desk. For that matter, when you’re in your room and push the front desk button on the in room phone, you get one of those call centers also.
 
Guessing based on the multi-building and multi-floor, this was either Saratoga or OKW, and OP wanted to be as close to HH as possible in Standard, or as close to the DS walkway as possible in Standard.

Just guessing here. Poly is also multi building/floor but the "one building over" would be an unusual construct when talking Poly.

Searching and reading OP's other posts it looks like they are at Saratoga Springs...
 
As it will be apparent from my other thread on the bogus parking fees this is SSR. For the record we called AND went to the front desk who only picked up the phone and called the same “back room” we did. We had actually paid for a preferred view room and requested a room in Congress park, non first floor, which we actually did eventually get. Our original room was first floor with a non preferred view (the front desk admitted that part when she said “that is not the room you paid for...”) Our new room however is cursed. 1rst the door lock failed and we were locked out in 55 degree weather while they found someone with a physical key to get us in. A hour’s worth of time with engineering determined that a bad wiring harness installation had eventually caused a short and fried the entire door lock mechanism that had to be replaced. This was accomplished and we thought all was well until it was time to go to bed and we discovered that the bedroom Ceiling fan had died......
 
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As it will be apparent from my other thread on the bogus parking fees this is SSR. For the record we called AND went to the front desk who only picked up the phone and called the same “back room” we did. We had actually requested a preferred view room in Congress park, non first floor, which we actually did eventually get. Our original room was first flThe room however is cursed. 1rst the door lock failed and we were locked out in 55 degree weather while they found someone with a physical key to get us in. A hour’s worth of time with engineering determined that a bad wiring harness installation had caused a short and fried the entire door lock mechanism that had to be replace. This was accomplished and Ed thought all was well until it was time to go to bed and we discovered that the bedroom Ceiling fan had died......
Actually not the same ”back room”. The call centers have a specific set of CMs that handle the calls from resort front desk staff to the call center. It’s an offset of the IT department. They have access to more in depth computer systems than the average phone center CM that we can get into contact with.
 
Not trying to be rude but...
You created the issue by deciding you didn’t like room you were originally given without even seeing it. Requests are only requests and never guaranteed.
Please check my reply below, not only was the room we were originally given not one we had requested (yes we k ow a request is not a guarantee) but as the front desk person admitted with the phrase “that is not the room you paid for...”, one in the wrong category.

we actually did “See” the room. I went to the touring plans website and not only located the room on the map but pulled up the views from the room. This was enough to nudge us to request a change. Given that it did not appear to fit the category we had booked, we did not want to enter the room ourselves as we knew if we did that it would force a total re-cleaning of the room.
 
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Actually not the same ”back room”. The call centers have a specific set of CMs that handle the calls from resort front desk staff to the call center. It’s an offset of the IT department. They have access to more in depth computer systems than the average phone center CM that we can get into contact with.
I’m just going on what the “manager” said. When I showed him the phone number of the person who had called me about changing rooms he said ”Oh, yeah, that is my back room number, let me fix it...”
 
Please check my reply below, not only was the room we were originally given not one we had requested (yes we k ow a request is not a guarantee) but as the front desk person admitted with the phrase “that is not the room you paid for...”, one in the wrong category.
Just so you know, the preferred term at SSR, does not refer to the view, but to the location of the room. You can be in a preferred room and still have an awful view out of the windows. Preferred refers to the location, either nearby to the walkway to DS or nearby to the lobby and dining. As long as the room was in Congress Park or Springs, it was a preferred room.
 
I’m just going on what the “manager” said. When I showed him the phone number of the person who had called me about changing rooms he said ”Oh, yeah, that is my back room number, let me fix it...”
That’s understandable, just giving you some inside info into how the call centers are set up. There are a subset of call center CMs that ONLY speak to other CMs from the front desk and don’t assist guests. They’ll only hop on the phone queues for things like AP questions if those queues are backed up.
 
That’s understandable, just giving you some inside info into how the call centers are set up. There are a subset of call center CMs that ONLY speak to other CMs from the front desk and don’t assist guests. They’ll only hop on the phone queues for things like AP questions if those queues are backed up.
Actually this makes a lot of sense on how things worked out. Since we wound up working with 2 sets of people, it is understandable that group “B” did not know about the room “Group “A” had tried to assign us.

Thanks for the clarification on room categories, we were just going on the reaction of the front desk person. It is good info but after this trip, combined with our last trip. We won’t be coming back to SSR anytime soon
 
At SSR there are 2 booking categories standard and preferred. Preferred rooms are every room in Congress Park and The Springs. The location is preferred not the view. Standard is the Paddock, Grandstand and Carousel. You can request a specific room or building or floor. If you get it or close to it great. If you don’t get it you were never guaranteed to get it. Yes the odor of fresh paint can be strong, SSR is under construction and newly renovated rooms are continuously being added to inventory. They will smell like fresh paint. There is no way for them not to, unless they opened the windows for a month and left it empty. I will agree with you that you should not have been assigned a uncleaned room, but if you were originally assigned a room in with the Springs or Congress Park, it was your choice not to accept the room. At BRV they have rooms the balcony looks at dumpsters, guess what, someone has to stay in those rooms. Normally DVC runs near 100% occupancy all year long at most resorts. SSR has 3 or 4 buildings from what I have heard blocked off for refurbishment. This greatly affects their ability to meet requests for people. We recently stayed at OKW. We were assigned to building 22. It is probably the worst building location at OKW. Last building on the road, 4th bus stop, next to a major road. We did not let it affect our trip. The room was very nice. There were some other minor issues, but these are different times we are going through. We were just grateful to be at WDW for a long needed vacation.
 
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I appreciate the room category clarification, it is not extremely straight forward and even the resort Cm’s appear to not all have it sorted.

As to the last trip, the fresh paint smell was extremely strong, given my experience, the room was likely painted within 24 hours and then there was the issue of the the light fixture dangling from the ceiling with loose wires. Whatever. Those may not even have been Disney’s fault given the ongoing lawsuit between them and the construction company about the work done. We have the right to request a different room if we are not happy with the one we are assigned. There is no harm in asking, they have plenty of rooms that turn over all the time and if one is available, fine, if not, we would take the one assigned. Had I called and asked for a room change and none were available then we would have taken the one we were assigned or looked to change at a later date. As we get older, the room stay has become a more important part of our trip.
 
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We were checking in to GFV on Saturday. Around 2ish and there was a couple at the desk throwing a fit about the location of their room because...and this is good....they wanted room number such and such because that is the room they bought with their DVC. And they got that room their prior 2 stays. The DH actually walked over with a CM to see the room location and came back exclaiming it was the WORST room (location) in the resort and if they didn't get their room they were selling their share (he called it a share). They took up the entire desk staff for a good but of time. We just stood there waiting.

I know that is not same as OP. But just wanted to share the story. I was gobsmacked listening to the couple. Even while the DH was running th CM around, the DW was complaining to the other CM that they were going to miss their reservation at cyndi's castle. So she needed them to take care of that.
 

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