Jim Libasci
Mouseketeer
- Joined
- Mar 5, 2015
Hi All,
First off I want to say that it was a tough choice for us to go the parks on this trip. We are 2 adults that don't have any kids to worry about at home.
My Mom and dad both turned 82 this summer.
We had been taking care of mom a lot up until this trip. My Dad lives in Florida near Disney.
We had planned a 4 day cruise on the Fantasy and then a week in parks this year.
If my Mom had not passed away a few weeks before the trip we would have still gone to the hotel for a week because we really needed the break but limited our activities to no park and only our door stuff.
We could not have afforded to quarantine for 2 weeks without contact with my mom.
Here is a copy of the letter we sent Disney about our trip. There was good and bad like all trips.
Dear Disney,
We returned from our 4-night 5 day stay at Disney’s Beach Club Villas and we would like to let you know how our trip went. We arrived on Labor Day 9/7/2020 and checked out on 9/11/2020.. It is nice to be able to check in from our phone and request an early check in time. We did not get our early check in but we were able to off load our car with bell services and there was a Cast member from the lobby outside to start our check in process and check on our room. We had booked the Boardwalk from this stay. We booked it last year. It was going to be our first stay at a deluxe resort. We were downgraded by Disney to the Vacation Club Villa and we stayed at suite 155 in one of the Deluxe Studio apartment rooms.
The friendship boats were not running during this trip. We probably would have only used them once or twice but it did limit our ability to travel somewhat. Also not having the ability to park hop meant we usually left the park we were at early and did not go anywhere near as much as we normally would.
From the Villas we walked to Trattoria al Forno, for breakfast. Kim had the Open-Faced Omelet with sausages and I had the poached eggs. She had 4 sausages and potatoes with her meal and mine came with Garlic bread triangles and Sunday gravy. There was plenty of food here and it was all good. Our waitress was Alyssa, she was very pleasant and helpful. We talked about other meals we planned from our visit and she recommend that we try to come back from dinner if you really like Calamari, she considered that the best appetizer on the menu. We were able to dine outside and it was a very relaxing way to start our trip. She offered to pack up our leftovers for us. But since we did not know when our room would be ready, we could not do this. From here we traveled by sky liner to Disney’s Hollywood studios.
Our first day we spent at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We had a few issues getting into the park. Even though the bands showed the correct information, they had not been activated. We had to spend about 20 minutes waiting at guest services to get this corrected. When they looked up our reservations, we were asked for the credit card that we had used to make the reservation. What happened here was avoidable and should have handled much better by Disney. What the cast member did when they had my credit card was to charge the full ticket price on my card. We already had the full vacation amount of $2,500 charged to this card. I can’t imagine too many people have enough on their CC to afford 2 Disney vacation to show up on their Credit at the same time. If we had been told that they were doing this I would have asked to speak to someone higher up and have them work out a better solution. It took me a day to see the outstanding charge and it kept us from enjoying the next morning. Our travel agent was looking into what the charge was with us. Between the wait to speak with someone and the wait at the window we spent at least 30 minutes. Also, when they finally activated the bands they did not explain that they required a Pin to use and we had to walk all the way back later in the day to address this.
Once we were in the only real problem, we had with Hollywood Studios was that there are too few rides in this park, and the new rides had very long lines or worse. It felt like we were never offered the chance to ride Rise of the Resistance. We were never offered the chance to join the que. We reserved a late dinner in the park so that we would be there all day. This is the only park that we had planned the whole day for, and Galaxies edge was only a small crowd late in the day after it rained for an hour. Since we have to reserve the park and que separately and 90% of the people that go to that park want to get on the new ride. You should automatically que them on it and then let them opt out. Then only the people with the early que have to make sure they are there early and the people can opt out if they don’t want it. We were stuck waiting for slinky dog dash to be cleaned when the afternoon chance at a que came up. I was disappointed but this is not a once in a lifetime trip and I know we will go again. There are not enough quick service meal options available in any park. Even a few snack stands would be helpful. I had to keep checking the ap and running up and down streets in the rain before I found anything that was open. We try to have new foods while we are there at Disney and the only things I found when I was looking for lunch was hamburgers. We ended up eating a Mickey pretzel and a drink instead. This pretzel was not fresh. It was stale and cold. I don’t plan on buying them anymore unless I ask when it was cooked next time. We did get to walk onto Smuggler Run in the afternoon and that was fun but were so tired from the day that we did not stick around to shop. Our dinner reservation was at 6:30 for 50’s Prime Time Dinner. This is first time we have ever eaten at this location. The reason we don’t go is the menu is all food we normally have at home. I do not know the name of cast member who served us but he went above and beyond to give us everything we asked for make sure we were happy by the time dinner was over We shared the sample dinner. All three items were hot and cooked just they way we like them. Kim usually doesn’t care for pot roast and it was pretty good. The meatloaf is not my favorite and that was also good. We finally decided on the Dad’s Peanut butter chocolate cake with ice cream for dessert. It was a good amount of food and we will go back. Our server really helped turn the day around.
The 2nd Day we spent at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. We were in the first batch of villas and when we could use the path it was helpful. There was construction behind our room all week and the shortcut to the international gateway and Boardwalk was closed most of the time and once we had to walk all the way back to the street and circle back around to get to it. I eat breakfast at the Board walk bakery most morning since I was limited to what was open at the resort. This was our favorite day at the parks. We new before the pandemic that almost ½ the park was closed from rehab. We had hoped the new Ride in the France pavilion would have been open. We are also looking forward to the new crepes spot. We tried the Frozen Smore’s drink, that was very boozy and we had been hoping it would be either like ice cream or a smoothie. It was more like a chocolate milk. Canada continues to have some of our favorites. We also had the Pork Sliders, the Orange Chicken, Gourmet Mac and Cheese, Cannoli, Tortellini, and we tried Cheese Bread for the first time. All of these were excellent quality. We were going to eat at France but the line stopped moving and we gave up. We made purchases at the Twinning shop in the England Pavilion, we are experimenting with tea and it was nice to get an assortment. We would have bought the you pick 10 with the wood tea holder but noticed that there were less choices that the variety box we bought. The Cast members at that store, especial the man who greeted us when we got there at opening were helpful. Gateway store was the only other shop we went to, Kim had lots of question and needed lots of help with sizes and styles. We made our big purchase her. She bought the big Flower and Garden show Dooney and Burke purse. It was a team effort for the CM’s at the location. There should be a central store for all the wines in the park, we would have gotten a few like the pineapple wine.
Our 3rd day we started at Topolino’s character breakfast and then the Magic Kingdom. This morning was 2nd time that we had a poor interaction with Disney directly. We had an 8:50 am reservation for breakfast. I knew that I could just take the sky liner to this meal. That was what I was told when we made the reservation. It turns out that if you have to schedule a breakfast there before 9:15 you would be late. We left our rom at 8:20 to ensure that we had plenty of time to get there. We had had to use a different walkway to get to the gateway again that morning but we arrived at Sky line entrance at 8:35 and found out that it did not open until 9am. Ok that would put us at breakfast 20 minutes late but still do able. I launched that app and tried to modify the reservation. I could not. I then made the mistake of using the chat feature for assistance. There is an automation that you have to go through before it will let you chat with a human. That took time and then the human I got did not have English as a primary language. I had to explain multiple times that I was at the Sky Line entrance waiting to get the Rivera resort and needed to make sure I could still get in. Otherwise I would cancel and just go to the park. I could not get them to understand me. They finally told me to get to the entrance to the resort and find a taxi and then pay to get a ride to the Rivera. I then tried calling the Disney hotline. I was on hold and told that it would be at least 15 minutes to speak to a person. By then we were on the sky liner. When we got the station, I found out that the meal was at the farthest point from where we were left off. I was not in a good mood when we got to the breakfast. We had brought an envelope to mail ourselves the signed card they give out, but we forgot it and had to put the card in our packs. We were about 30 minutes late and had to explain the trip all over again, I wanted them to know that we had many issues with trying to use the App to let someone know our problems. We had the fruit plate and Waffles, Very nice assortment. For $42 dollars I would have wanted a small fruit plate, so we could have tried other entrees and a lot more fruit juice options. Our server disappeared when we were ready to leave. Food and the show were just about perfect though.
We had to take the bus for the first time after breakfast. I was worried but we were the only ones there and there were only a few minutes wait. We spent the day at the Magic Kingdom. The only time we had to go to guest relations was when I lost my ID. After checking lost and found they showed me how to get to the online lost and found form. It was pretty easy to fill out but I am very slow typing on my phone and miss paper forms. This park had the lowest amount of people that we saw all week. Once we got past everyone blocking main street all the rides, we went on were easy with just a short to no wait. Also, there the most Memory maker picture spots here. The big thing I missed was the variety of foods. I could reserve Liberty Tree, but I didn’t want to spend the extra money. I could only find 1 quick service meal that we had not tried before. We had the sweet and spicey chicken waffle sandwich. There was a long wait for the chicken to be cooked. The Chicken was good with the coleslaw but the chips were stale, the waffle was thin without much flavor and it was too spicy for us to buy again. The only other fast option with a variety would have been Cosmic Rays and we always eat there. We ate dinner at the resort at Beaches and Cream. I would not eat a meal there again the food was nothing special. I would make reservations and just have dessert. The Snickers Sunday was one the best deserts we had.
Our last day we ate at Ale and Compass for breakfast and Trattoria al Forno for dinner. We would eat at both places again the next time we reserve a room in walking distance. I would recommend to anyone to eat at these places.
Overall, during a time at the resort there were a few cast members that stand out. We interacted with Todd the most. He in a maintenance person that is normally at Boardwalk, but worked in our resort last week. If he couldn’t get us an answer, he walked us over to someone who could. We spent a lot of time talking with the Cast member at the Concierge desk in the Villa. I did not get either of their names. They checked on a few things like movie night and the hours for a few things for us. The Cast Members working at the Solarium were also very helpful. They showed me all the resort mugs when we got there and explained how they worked with the marketplace closed. When we were ready to buy things like the H2O products they went and got examples for us and called us when they had exactly what we wanted to buy. We had to talk the main Cast Member in the lobby a few times. When we noticed that Disney had changed $690 on our Credit Card with no explanation, we went through our travel agent first and they could not explain what had happened. The front desk was able to explain what happened but could not tell me why it was done or when the charge back would happen. They explained it to me like was a charge which would not go onto my card but it did and Disney did a charge back to the card and they did not cancel the charge like they promised. If we did not have good credit this would have prevented us from paying bills while we were on vacation. It did prevent us from making purchases while we at the resort. I did not feel right buying things while such a large charge that should not have been there pending. We really liked some of the original art and the 3d artwork we saw.
At the resort, we found out that the keyless entry into the rooms are run by 3 AAA batteries. After a long day we were not able to get into our room. It would have been nicer to learn that if I hadn’t spent the day shopping in the rain at Disney Springs and was wet from the rain. Prior to this the cabinet door in the kitchen area was on 1 hinge and had to be reconnected. We called maintenance and they came and fixed it. I did learn that the carpet outside the rooms are soft because I had time to try and nap while we waited for help. I would have liked to have known about when the rooms would or would not be cleaned.
A few days before our vacation started, we received an email with a 35% off discount code. Our travel agent said she was able to apply it to our total and that we would be credited the difference. We have not seen that discount yet. I asked at the front desk Friday morning before checking out and they did not know anything about it and could not get me a name of anyone who would know. We were told to talk to our Travel Agent.
We noticed that all the wait staff seems to disappear at the end of the meal, except at trattoria Al Forno. We had to find them and wave them down to get our bill so we can leave. There is no way to use the resort mug after hours. We feel that for the price the refill mug should be refilled at all the resort restaurants and not just a few of them, it also needs more than just a soda option. Closing the Marketplace meant we were limited to options to get refills. There are no Men’s Wallets in all 3 of the parks, the resort and all the Disney stores in Disney Springs. I had to ask every store and walk the whole mall in the rain. Only 4 stores said yes. Only 3 of them had them in stock and only 1 place had wallets for less than $100.
All in all, I would not recommend anyone travel to Disney right now. We had to be in Florida for other important reasons and already had reservation that we made a year ago. I would have been happy hanging out at the resort. Anyone with children or at-risk conditions should not travel. I am happy that I was able to take a week off and I am thankful that there are cast members all over the place reminding people to wear masks and stay safe. I know these people are just making minimum wage for the most part and I worry for their safety. We did see many rides being cleaned and thankful the workers at the food places had face shields and masks. If I had to use the buses more, I would have cancelled the park days.
Thanks for reading,
First off I want to say that it was a tough choice for us to go the parks on this trip. We are 2 adults that don't have any kids to worry about at home.
My Mom and dad both turned 82 this summer.
We had been taking care of mom a lot up until this trip. My Dad lives in Florida near Disney.
We had planned a 4 day cruise on the Fantasy and then a week in parks this year.
If my Mom had not passed away a few weeks before the trip we would have still gone to the hotel for a week because we really needed the break but limited our activities to no park and only our door stuff.
We could not have afforded to quarantine for 2 weeks without contact with my mom.
Here is a copy of the letter we sent Disney about our trip. There was good and bad like all trips.
Dear Disney,
We returned from our 4-night 5 day stay at Disney’s Beach Club Villas and we would like to let you know how our trip went. We arrived on Labor Day 9/7/2020 and checked out on 9/11/2020.. It is nice to be able to check in from our phone and request an early check in time. We did not get our early check in but we were able to off load our car with bell services and there was a Cast member from the lobby outside to start our check in process and check on our room. We had booked the Boardwalk from this stay. We booked it last year. It was going to be our first stay at a deluxe resort. We were downgraded by Disney to the Vacation Club Villa and we stayed at suite 155 in one of the Deluxe Studio apartment rooms.
The friendship boats were not running during this trip. We probably would have only used them once or twice but it did limit our ability to travel somewhat. Also not having the ability to park hop meant we usually left the park we were at early and did not go anywhere near as much as we normally would.
From the Villas we walked to Trattoria al Forno, for breakfast. Kim had the Open-Faced Omelet with sausages and I had the poached eggs. She had 4 sausages and potatoes with her meal and mine came with Garlic bread triangles and Sunday gravy. There was plenty of food here and it was all good. Our waitress was Alyssa, she was very pleasant and helpful. We talked about other meals we planned from our visit and she recommend that we try to come back from dinner if you really like Calamari, she considered that the best appetizer on the menu. We were able to dine outside and it was a very relaxing way to start our trip. She offered to pack up our leftovers for us. But since we did not know when our room would be ready, we could not do this. From here we traveled by sky liner to Disney’s Hollywood studios.
Our first day we spent at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. We had a few issues getting into the park. Even though the bands showed the correct information, they had not been activated. We had to spend about 20 minutes waiting at guest services to get this corrected. When they looked up our reservations, we were asked for the credit card that we had used to make the reservation. What happened here was avoidable and should have handled much better by Disney. What the cast member did when they had my credit card was to charge the full ticket price on my card. We already had the full vacation amount of $2,500 charged to this card. I can’t imagine too many people have enough on their CC to afford 2 Disney vacation to show up on their Credit at the same time. If we had been told that they were doing this I would have asked to speak to someone higher up and have them work out a better solution. It took me a day to see the outstanding charge and it kept us from enjoying the next morning. Our travel agent was looking into what the charge was with us. Between the wait to speak with someone and the wait at the window we spent at least 30 minutes. Also, when they finally activated the bands they did not explain that they required a Pin to use and we had to walk all the way back later in the day to address this.
Once we were in the only real problem, we had with Hollywood Studios was that there are too few rides in this park, and the new rides had very long lines or worse. It felt like we were never offered the chance to ride Rise of the Resistance. We were never offered the chance to join the que. We reserved a late dinner in the park so that we would be there all day. This is the only park that we had planned the whole day for, and Galaxies edge was only a small crowd late in the day after it rained for an hour. Since we have to reserve the park and que separately and 90% of the people that go to that park want to get on the new ride. You should automatically que them on it and then let them opt out. Then only the people with the early que have to make sure they are there early and the people can opt out if they don’t want it. We were stuck waiting for slinky dog dash to be cleaned when the afternoon chance at a que came up. I was disappointed but this is not a once in a lifetime trip and I know we will go again. There are not enough quick service meal options available in any park. Even a few snack stands would be helpful. I had to keep checking the ap and running up and down streets in the rain before I found anything that was open. We try to have new foods while we are there at Disney and the only things I found when I was looking for lunch was hamburgers. We ended up eating a Mickey pretzel and a drink instead. This pretzel was not fresh. It was stale and cold. I don’t plan on buying them anymore unless I ask when it was cooked next time. We did get to walk onto Smuggler Run in the afternoon and that was fun but were so tired from the day that we did not stick around to shop. Our dinner reservation was at 6:30 for 50’s Prime Time Dinner. This is first time we have ever eaten at this location. The reason we don’t go is the menu is all food we normally have at home. I do not know the name of cast member who served us but he went above and beyond to give us everything we asked for make sure we were happy by the time dinner was over We shared the sample dinner. All three items were hot and cooked just they way we like them. Kim usually doesn’t care for pot roast and it was pretty good. The meatloaf is not my favorite and that was also good. We finally decided on the Dad’s Peanut butter chocolate cake with ice cream for dessert. It was a good amount of food and we will go back. Our server really helped turn the day around.
The 2nd Day we spent at the Epcot Food and Wine Festival. We were in the first batch of villas and when we could use the path it was helpful. There was construction behind our room all week and the shortcut to the international gateway and Boardwalk was closed most of the time and once we had to walk all the way back to the street and circle back around to get to it. I eat breakfast at the Board walk bakery most morning since I was limited to what was open at the resort. This was our favorite day at the parks. We new before the pandemic that almost ½ the park was closed from rehab. We had hoped the new Ride in the France pavilion would have been open. We are also looking forward to the new crepes spot. We tried the Frozen Smore’s drink, that was very boozy and we had been hoping it would be either like ice cream or a smoothie. It was more like a chocolate milk. Canada continues to have some of our favorites. We also had the Pork Sliders, the Orange Chicken, Gourmet Mac and Cheese, Cannoli, Tortellini, and we tried Cheese Bread for the first time. All of these were excellent quality. We were going to eat at France but the line stopped moving and we gave up. We made purchases at the Twinning shop in the England Pavilion, we are experimenting with tea and it was nice to get an assortment. We would have bought the you pick 10 with the wood tea holder but noticed that there were less choices that the variety box we bought. The Cast members at that store, especial the man who greeted us when we got there at opening were helpful. Gateway store was the only other shop we went to, Kim had lots of question and needed lots of help with sizes and styles. We made our big purchase her. She bought the big Flower and Garden show Dooney and Burke purse. It was a team effort for the CM’s at the location. There should be a central store for all the wines in the park, we would have gotten a few like the pineapple wine.
Our 3rd day we started at Topolino’s character breakfast and then the Magic Kingdom. This morning was 2nd time that we had a poor interaction with Disney directly. We had an 8:50 am reservation for breakfast. I knew that I could just take the sky liner to this meal. That was what I was told when we made the reservation. It turns out that if you have to schedule a breakfast there before 9:15 you would be late. We left our rom at 8:20 to ensure that we had plenty of time to get there. We had had to use a different walkway to get to the gateway again that morning but we arrived at Sky line entrance at 8:35 and found out that it did not open until 9am. Ok that would put us at breakfast 20 minutes late but still do able. I launched that app and tried to modify the reservation. I could not. I then made the mistake of using the chat feature for assistance. There is an automation that you have to go through before it will let you chat with a human. That took time and then the human I got did not have English as a primary language. I had to explain multiple times that I was at the Sky Line entrance waiting to get the Rivera resort and needed to make sure I could still get in. Otherwise I would cancel and just go to the park. I could not get them to understand me. They finally told me to get to the entrance to the resort and find a taxi and then pay to get a ride to the Rivera. I then tried calling the Disney hotline. I was on hold and told that it would be at least 15 minutes to speak to a person. By then we were on the sky liner. When we got the station, I found out that the meal was at the farthest point from where we were left off. I was not in a good mood when we got to the breakfast. We had brought an envelope to mail ourselves the signed card they give out, but we forgot it and had to put the card in our packs. We were about 30 minutes late and had to explain the trip all over again, I wanted them to know that we had many issues with trying to use the App to let someone know our problems. We had the fruit plate and Waffles, Very nice assortment. For $42 dollars I would have wanted a small fruit plate, so we could have tried other entrees and a lot more fruit juice options. Our server disappeared when we were ready to leave. Food and the show were just about perfect though.
We had to take the bus for the first time after breakfast. I was worried but we were the only ones there and there were only a few minutes wait. We spent the day at the Magic Kingdom. The only time we had to go to guest relations was when I lost my ID. After checking lost and found they showed me how to get to the online lost and found form. It was pretty easy to fill out but I am very slow typing on my phone and miss paper forms. This park had the lowest amount of people that we saw all week. Once we got past everyone blocking main street all the rides, we went on were easy with just a short to no wait. Also, there the most Memory maker picture spots here. The big thing I missed was the variety of foods. I could reserve Liberty Tree, but I didn’t want to spend the extra money. I could only find 1 quick service meal that we had not tried before. We had the sweet and spicey chicken waffle sandwich. There was a long wait for the chicken to be cooked. The Chicken was good with the coleslaw but the chips were stale, the waffle was thin without much flavor and it was too spicy for us to buy again. The only other fast option with a variety would have been Cosmic Rays and we always eat there. We ate dinner at the resort at Beaches and Cream. I would not eat a meal there again the food was nothing special. I would make reservations and just have dessert. The Snickers Sunday was one the best deserts we had.
Our last day we ate at Ale and Compass for breakfast and Trattoria al Forno for dinner. We would eat at both places again the next time we reserve a room in walking distance. I would recommend to anyone to eat at these places.
Overall, during a time at the resort there were a few cast members that stand out. We interacted with Todd the most. He in a maintenance person that is normally at Boardwalk, but worked in our resort last week. If he couldn’t get us an answer, he walked us over to someone who could. We spent a lot of time talking with the Cast member at the Concierge desk in the Villa. I did not get either of their names. They checked on a few things like movie night and the hours for a few things for us. The Cast Members working at the Solarium were also very helpful. They showed me all the resort mugs when we got there and explained how they worked with the marketplace closed. When we were ready to buy things like the H2O products they went and got examples for us and called us when they had exactly what we wanted to buy. We had to talk the main Cast Member in the lobby a few times. When we noticed that Disney had changed $690 on our Credit Card with no explanation, we went through our travel agent first and they could not explain what had happened. The front desk was able to explain what happened but could not tell me why it was done or when the charge back would happen. They explained it to me like was a charge which would not go onto my card but it did and Disney did a charge back to the card and they did not cancel the charge like they promised. If we did not have good credit this would have prevented us from paying bills while we were on vacation. It did prevent us from making purchases while we at the resort. I did not feel right buying things while such a large charge that should not have been there pending. We really liked some of the original art and the 3d artwork we saw.
At the resort, we found out that the keyless entry into the rooms are run by 3 AAA batteries. After a long day we were not able to get into our room. It would have been nicer to learn that if I hadn’t spent the day shopping in the rain at Disney Springs and was wet from the rain. Prior to this the cabinet door in the kitchen area was on 1 hinge and had to be reconnected. We called maintenance and they came and fixed it. I did learn that the carpet outside the rooms are soft because I had time to try and nap while we waited for help. I would have liked to have known about when the rooms would or would not be cleaned.
A few days before our vacation started, we received an email with a 35% off discount code. Our travel agent said she was able to apply it to our total and that we would be credited the difference. We have not seen that discount yet. I asked at the front desk Friday morning before checking out and they did not know anything about it and could not get me a name of anyone who would know. We were told to talk to our Travel Agent.
We noticed that all the wait staff seems to disappear at the end of the meal, except at trattoria Al Forno. We had to find them and wave them down to get our bill so we can leave. There is no way to use the resort mug after hours. We feel that for the price the refill mug should be refilled at all the resort restaurants and not just a few of them, it also needs more than just a soda option. Closing the Marketplace meant we were limited to options to get refills. There are no Men’s Wallets in all 3 of the parks, the resort and all the Disney stores in Disney Springs. I had to ask every store and walk the whole mall in the rain. Only 4 stores said yes. Only 3 of them had them in stock and only 1 place had wallets for less than $100.
All in all, I would not recommend anyone travel to Disney right now. We had to be in Florida for other important reasons and already had reservation that we made a year ago. I would have been happy hanging out at the resort. Anyone with children or at-risk conditions should not travel. I am happy that I was able to take a week off and I am thankful that there are cast members all over the place reminding people to wear masks and stay safe. I know these people are just making minimum wage for the most part and I worry for their safety. We did see many rides being cleaned and thankful the workers at the food places had face shields and masks. If I had to use the buses more, I would have cancelled the park days.
Thanks for reading,
