epcotfan
http://youtube.com/wdwchannel1
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2001
Hi,
Just got back from AKL yesterday.
My random thoughts:
Good things:
Mara: Great service, friendly staff
Hotel: Beautiful architecture and design. Pleasant ambience. Smells great. Nice area music.
Bus Service: Excellent. Very efficient.
I would comment on the restaurants but I refuse to eat at buffets and we were always too full in the evening to eat at Jiko. I wish Jiko had been open for lunch. My poor stomach doesn't do well with large meals after 5 or 6.
Animal viewing: excellent at night. Walked the wings at 2am while doing laundry and saw the animals grazing. One evening around 7:30pmish we saw the giraffe on Arusha rock. He/she came very close.
Pool. Not bad. Good for those with small children. I personally prefer pools painted with a blue bottom. I know this is supposed to look exotic with the semi-green/blue bottom but it looked more algae-like to me than refreshing. Not a big thing. Just my weird pool preferences
Some annoyances:
We stayed there for 9 nights. I had faxed ahead of time and all my requests were granted. I had asked for a non smoking room on a higher floor. I also asked for a fridge. We checked in at midnight (after our Tiffany driver was almost an hour late picking us up from MCO-another story
so our room was ready. The girl at the registration desk was polite and efficient. She said she would put in a dispatch for a fridge and that it would be in our room in about 10 minutes. Anyhow we went upstairs to room 4002 (which was convieniently located close to the elevator, pool, Mara and Bus Stop) This room is on Giraffe trail. It was a standard room with a semi-pool view.
We put our bags down and started to get settled. First thing was we couldn't find the remote for the tv. There also wasn't a do not disturb sign for the door. I search everywhere for it. I opened the tv unit and inside the space where the doors are stowed away was several crumpled up pages of newspaper. Inside it was a lovely dust bunny. I threw it away.
At this point an hour had passed and there still was no fridge. We never expected the fridge to be delivered that night so we were quite surprised when the girl at the desk said it would arrive in 10 minutes. My mom called downstairs and asked about the fridge. "Oh no problem it will be up in a few minutes" said another front desk clerk. So we wait. We are starting to get really tired. It is now 3 am and we are still dressed and waiting. I guess we were stupid thinking it would actually arrive after the last phone call. So we finally go to bed.
We decided on room service breakfast since we didn't have dinner the night before (due to the flight time and late arrival) The room service clerk arrived right on time and delivered breakfast. We sat at the table in the room and ate in our jammies. I had bare feet and felt something stick into my foot. Upon closer inspection it was some sort of ring. Looked like it came off a suitcase. I wouldn't have been bothered about it if there wasn't what looked to be pubic hair on it. YUCK.
I really don't thing the room was ever vacuumed. I dropped somthing on the floor and went to retrieve it when I noticed a cap of some sort under the bed.
We picked this hotel because we wanted interior corridors. I detest getting bugs in my room. We also didn't use the balcony because of the love bugs and the mosquitos. We do know the maid was out there because the chairs were rearranged one day. Anyhow one night we hear this sizzling sound. We look to the lamp by the bed and see a 3 inch dragonfly buzzing around. Now it is midnight and we don't want the thing flying around us while we sleep. My mom ends up killing it. (Not that we wanted to because I know they won't harm you but we couldn't figure out how to capture it and release it) It falls behind the night table between the beds. We pull out the table to dispose of it and there are a ton of candy wrappers and some unidentifiable gross looking thing behind there. BLECH. I guess I'm not understanding why when the rooms are made up between guests that they are not vaccuumed? I supposed I should have addressed this when I first checked in with the ring/hair incident but I figured it was just a minor thing. But when we saw all the wrappers/garbage it was close to checking out time
Finally after about 6 days into the trip the maid finally brought a do not disturb sign. We appreciated this.
I understand that the bed spreads aren't cleaned between guests but I thought the beige blankets were. Apparently mine wasn't since there was something smushed onto it. I also found the bed quite uncomfortable. There wasn't anything wrong with it and I'm sure others here will love it.
I'm not one to be too picky over rooms but this is the first time I was a bit dissapointed in a Disney hotel room. The room in itself looked nice but the cleanliness was something to be desired.
Lastly I purchased a Pal Mickey as a souvenir to tour around WDW with. I removed him from the box and kept it in the luggage space between the tv and the wall of the closet. In this space you can also store your suitcase. There was a recycling bin and garbage pail at each end. I kept my shoes there as well. I decided to leave the box near my shoes because I wanted to pack Mickey in it to take it home. I also put the receipt in the box for customs inspection. When I'm packing to leave I start looking for the box and it isn't there. I check the closet and under the bed and it is nowhere to be seen. It dawns on me that the maid has thrown it out. I never put the box in either the recyclying bin or garbage. It was on the floor with my shoes. I guess he/she thought that because it was near the bin it should be disposed of. UGH. The instructions were also inside the box along with the receipt! I've never had Disney housekeeping remove stuff that wasn't in a garbage. Not even half cans of pop. I was quite annoyed with this but it was too late to do anything about it because we had to leave.
Overall the hotel is beautiful and I'm sure many will enjoy the ammenities. Personally I prefer a hotel with a waterview or walkways. I felt a little isolated here (which is good if that is what you want) I also like cheerier colors. I'm glad I got to stay there but I probably won't be returning. There are lots of things to appreciate in the hotel and I hope my report doesn't turn people off entirely.
Just got back from AKL yesterday.
My random thoughts:
Good things:
Mara: Great service, friendly staff
Hotel: Beautiful architecture and design. Pleasant ambience. Smells great. Nice area music.
Bus Service: Excellent. Very efficient.
I would comment on the restaurants but I refuse to eat at buffets and we were always too full in the evening to eat at Jiko. I wish Jiko had been open for lunch. My poor stomach doesn't do well with large meals after 5 or 6.
Animal viewing: excellent at night. Walked the wings at 2am while doing laundry and saw the animals grazing. One evening around 7:30pmish we saw the giraffe on Arusha rock. He/she came very close.
Pool. Not bad. Good for those with small children. I personally prefer pools painted with a blue bottom. I know this is supposed to look exotic with the semi-green/blue bottom but it looked more algae-like to me than refreshing. Not a big thing. Just my weird pool preferences
Some annoyances:
We stayed there for 9 nights. I had faxed ahead of time and all my requests were granted. I had asked for a non smoking room on a higher floor. I also asked for a fridge. We checked in at midnight (after our Tiffany driver was almost an hour late picking us up from MCO-another story
so our room was ready. The girl at the registration desk was polite and efficient. She said she would put in a dispatch for a fridge and that it would be in our room in about 10 minutes. Anyhow we went upstairs to room 4002 (which was convieniently located close to the elevator, pool, Mara and Bus Stop) This room is on Giraffe trail. It was a standard room with a semi-pool view.We put our bags down and started to get settled. First thing was we couldn't find the remote for the tv. There also wasn't a do not disturb sign for the door. I search everywhere for it. I opened the tv unit and inside the space where the doors are stowed away was several crumpled up pages of newspaper. Inside it was a lovely dust bunny. I threw it away.
At this point an hour had passed and there still was no fridge. We never expected the fridge to be delivered that night so we were quite surprised when the girl at the desk said it would arrive in 10 minutes. My mom called downstairs and asked about the fridge. "Oh no problem it will be up in a few minutes" said another front desk clerk. So we wait. We are starting to get really tired. It is now 3 am and we are still dressed and waiting. I guess we were stupid thinking it would actually arrive after the last phone call. So we finally go to bed.
We decided on room service breakfast since we didn't have dinner the night before (due to the flight time and late arrival) The room service clerk arrived right on time and delivered breakfast. We sat at the table in the room and ate in our jammies. I had bare feet and felt something stick into my foot. Upon closer inspection it was some sort of ring. Looked like it came off a suitcase. I wouldn't have been bothered about it if there wasn't what looked to be pubic hair on it. YUCK.
I really don't thing the room was ever vacuumed. I dropped somthing on the floor and went to retrieve it when I noticed a cap of some sort under the bed.
We picked this hotel because we wanted interior corridors. I detest getting bugs in my room. We also didn't use the balcony because of the love bugs and the mosquitos. We do know the maid was out there because the chairs were rearranged one day. Anyhow one night we hear this sizzling sound. We look to the lamp by the bed and see a 3 inch dragonfly buzzing around. Now it is midnight and we don't want the thing flying around us while we sleep. My mom ends up killing it. (Not that we wanted to because I know they won't harm you but we couldn't figure out how to capture it and release it) It falls behind the night table between the beds. We pull out the table to dispose of it and there are a ton of candy wrappers and some unidentifiable gross looking thing behind there. BLECH. I guess I'm not understanding why when the rooms are made up between guests that they are not vaccuumed? I supposed I should have addressed this when I first checked in with the ring/hair incident but I figured it was just a minor thing. But when we saw all the wrappers/garbage it was close to checking out time
Finally after about 6 days into the trip the maid finally brought a do not disturb sign. We appreciated this.
I understand that the bed spreads aren't cleaned between guests but I thought the beige blankets were. Apparently mine wasn't since there was something smushed onto it. I also found the bed quite uncomfortable. There wasn't anything wrong with it and I'm sure others here will love it.
I'm not one to be too picky over rooms but this is the first time I was a bit dissapointed in a Disney hotel room. The room in itself looked nice but the cleanliness was something to be desired.
Lastly I purchased a Pal Mickey as a souvenir to tour around WDW with. I removed him from the box and kept it in the luggage space between the tv and the wall of the closet. In this space you can also store your suitcase. There was a recycling bin and garbage pail at each end. I kept my shoes there as well. I decided to leave the box near my shoes because I wanted to pack Mickey in it to take it home. I also put the receipt in the box for customs inspection. When I'm packing to leave I start looking for the box and it isn't there. I check the closet and under the bed and it is nowhere to be seen. It dawns on me that the maid has thrown it out. I never put the box in either the recyclying bin or garbage. It was on the floor with my shoes. I guess he/she thought that because it was near the bin it should be disposed of. UGH. The instructions were also inside the box along with the receipt! I've never had Disney housekeeping remove stuff that wasn't in a garbage. Not even half cans of pop. I was quite annoyed with this but it was too late to do anything about it because we had to leave.
Overall the hotel is beautiful and I'm sure many will enjoy the ammenities. Personally I prefer a hotel with a waterview or walkways. I felt a little isolated here (which is good if that is what you want) I also like cheerier colors. I'm glad I got to stay there but I probably won't be returning. There are lots of things to appreciate in the hotel and I hope my report doesn't turn people off entirely.
Weird.
) Out of curiosity, what was the airport like so early in the morning? Were there long lines at the ticket counter or security?
Anyway, I didn't have the nerve to call the front desk again and I have wondered ever since if I would have been moved again or maybe reimbursed for the difference in room price. Oh well, I'll never know. We liked the hotel so much we stayed again but we just got a standard room.
