livinginthecornfield
Boo!
- Joined
- Sep 17, 2013
I just returned from an 8 day stay at Jambo House -- this was our fourth Disney vacation -- prior, we have stayed off-property, POFQ and Polynesian. I honestly have to say that I wasn't crazy about this resort. Yes, it's beautiful but there were a bunch of little things that were wrong and it just put a damper on things. It started off when my magic band fell into the toilet....it got caught on my pocket and fell in.... that cursed everything....
1. The transportation -- you are stuck on busses all the time. It's the only resort without its own unique mode of getting to its home park. The bus to/from MK was hit and miss -- one night it took us 90 minutes to get back from MK. This was right after fireworks, when the park closed... there were no busses running. Another night, we missed our BOG dinner reservation because the MK bus never came..... yes, front desk gave us a taxi voucher, but the bus was still unreliable.
2. Guest relations - if you ask the same question to 5 people, you get 5 different answers. Why would I ask 5 people the same question? Because I was sent on a wild goose chase to get a picture from photopass printed. I asked the gift shop who sent me to the front desk who sent me to the non-existent photo pass booth, back into the gift shop then out to valet. I wound up bussing it to AK on a day off (I had to go to guest relations and they told me to buy a ticket into the park -- uhh no) then told to go Disney springs for this service. I came back and talked to a manager and he apologized and said that they could've gotten a runner to do it. Ugggh.
3. Club level - a very cool perk with some great food. And everyone else thinks so too, so appetizer time and breakfast time, it looks like the line downstairs at the Mara (single line snaking throughout the restaurant and through the door). The club level concierges didn't seem to know that much about the park or even Disney at all. One guy had no clue who Merida is (we were trying to figure out her meet & greet time) nor did he knew that theKilimijaro Safari ran at night.
4. Mosquitoes!!!! Currently my legs have about 100 bites all over them. We sat out on our balcony at night, so I'm assuming that's where I got them all... is it because of it being an African Safari?, the type of plants on property? I never got bitten this much on my past trips.... but they have plenty of signs posted in the parks about having a rugged and comprehensive mosquito prevention program.
5. If you go and voice your concerns to guest relations, all they do is throw fast passes at you and assume you are happy. Kind of like giving a lollipop to a crying kid. Some people save a lot of money for vacations and with Disney, you assume that there is a level of excellent customer service. This is what made me come back over and over again..... Polynesian and POFQ were all amazing. The excuse was that Pandora just opened and they were working out the bugs...... you would think that they would've had anticipated these bugs and addressed them long before park opening. It doesn't seem up to Walt Disney standard compared to the other deluxe resorts. I'm not asking for the red carpet to be rolled out, but with a Deluxe resort at club level, I was expecting a bit less construction dust and more pixie dust.
So to me, I would not stay at AKL again. The monorail and/or ferry boats will be a priority in our future plans.
1. The transportation -- you are stuck on busses all the time. It's the only resort without its own unique mode of getting to its home park. The bus to/from MK was hit and miss -- one night it took us 90 minutes to get back from MK. This was right after fireworks, when the park closed... there were no busses running. Another night, we missed our BOG dinner reservation because the MK bus never came..... yes, front desk gave us a taxi voucher, but the bus was still unreliable.
2. Guest relations - if you ask the same question to 5 people, you get 5 different answers. Why would I ask 5 people the same question? Because I was sent on a wild goose chase to get a picture from photopass printed. I asked the gift shop who sent me to the front desk who sent me to the non-existent photo pass booth, back into the gift shop then out to valet. I wound up bussing it to AK on a day off (I had to go to guest relations and they told me to buy a ticket into the park -- uhh no) then told to go Disney springs for this service. I came back and talked to a manager and he apologized and said that they could've gotten a runner to do it. Ugggh.
3. Club level - a very cool perk with some great food. And everyone else thinks so too, so appetizer time and breakfast time, it looks like the line downstairs at the Mara (single line snaking throughout the restaurant and through the door). The club level concierges didn't seem to know that much about the park or even Disney at all. One guy had no clue who Merida is (we were trying to figure out her meet & greet time) nor did he knew that theKilimijaro Safari ran at night.
4. Mosquitoes!!!! Currently my legs have about 100 bites all over them. We sat out on our balcony at night, so I'm assuming that's where I got them all... is it because of it being an African Safari?, the type of plants on property? I never got bitten this much on my past trips.... but they have plenty of signs posted in the parks about having a rugged and comprehensive mosquito prevention program.
5. If you go and voice your concerns to guest relations, all they do is throw fast passes at you and assume you are happy. Kind of like giving a lollipop to a crying kid. Some people save a lot of money for vacations and with Disney, you assume that there is a level of excellent customer service. This is what made me come back over and over again..... Polynesian and POFQ were all amazing. The excuse was that Pandora just opened and they were working out the bugs...... you would think that they would've had anticipated these bugs and addressed them long before park opening. It doesn't seem up to Walt Disney standard compared to the other deluxe resorts. I'm not asking for the red carpet to be rolled out, but with a Deluxe resort at club level, I was expecting a bit less construction dust and more pixie dust.
So to me, I would not stay at AKL again. The monorail and/or ferry boats will be a priority in our future plans.