This is totally random, will probably be long (to explain it), and really has nothing to do with the YC or BC, so feel free to skip it!
I'm only posting this here because I need some advice on what to do and the folks here are by far the most friendly and helpful people on the DIS. DH and I took a 5 day trip and stayed at YC earlier this month and had a fabulous vacation! However, our last family trip (the one we just took was just DH and myself, we left the kids at home), was a horribly awful experience that we never want to repeat. I won't go into specific details, although I have already to some extent in this thread, but we showed up at our resort and they did not have a reservation for us. Things went downhill from there, and nothing on our MagicBands worked for the first half of our trip. We had no tickets, no room access, no meal credits for our meal plan, no ADRs, and no FP+...all had been wiped out even though everything was meticulously planned in advance. To make matters worse, no one could fix it, and every time we tried to enter our room/get into a park/use a meal/anything else at all on property, it would not work and we would have to go to guest services. We spent over 30 hours in lines at guest services, missed the first 3 days of our trip, and were not reimbursed for it, but eventually (after canceling and rebooking our whole reservation...twice!), they were able to make things work and the second half of our trip went well. A lot of things were replaced (most of our FP+) but other things (all of our ADRs) couldn't be recovered and we had to book new ones. It was much worse than that, but that's the Cliff's notes version, and we agreed never to take another family trip to WDW. Oh, and by the way, we had DRIVEN there from Minnesota (30 hour drive) with our kids who were 7, 4, 2, and 4 months at the time. Try keeping 4 little kids busy while spending 30 hours in line at guest services...now try it with no hotel room, no food, no parks, no rides, no pool, and NO DIAPERS!
Okay, so DH and I decided to "take the plunge" and go again this year because it was just the 2 of us, it couldn't be that bad again, and if things went wrong, it was just us and we could deal with that. Nothing went wrong and we had a great time! So, my cocky self decided that maybe we could book another family trip and take the kids again. Maybe the MagicBand kinks were worked out, maybe things would turn out fine, maybe, maybe, maybe....and we were really looking forward to it. We booked a BB offer for December, and although we weren't able to do BC or YC, we booked at POR and figured December was a fine time to book a moderate since we may not be able to swim at SAB, etc. We were excited to book another trip while my oldest was 9 (still a child) and before my youngest was too old to sleep in a Pack n Play so we could still stay in a 5 person room one more time. I booked the BB, spent 45 minutes on the phone confirming the dates, everyone's date of birth, etc. and put down the deposit. I was also REALLY excited because we've never been to WDW at Christmas time and I've always wanted to go. However, since it was still this year (no BB for 2016 yet), we were on a strict budget. We decided we would only go if we could do something under budget, and I came in really close with $40 to spare. We have not booked airfare yet, but I've been watching like a hawk and ready to do it at any moment. So, today I got the confirmation packet in the mail, and now I'm convinced that we are Disney cursed when we try to go as a family!
I opened the packet and started reading. Everything looked great until I got to the dining plan page and noticed they were missing a kid on the total number of meal credits. I thought they must have made an error on the dining plan, so I called them. Well, nope, it was more than that. Although they have the correct date of birth in the system for our 3 year old (12/28/11), she was showing up as a 2 year old. Therefore, she has no park ticket and no meal plan. I explained the situation to 3 different CMs, including one at guest relations, and they are insisting that (now that I've said she's 3...because she is) we will have to pay $850 more than the price they gave us. I'm not trying to get something for nothing, but I correctly gave everyone's DOB and they confirmed them all. I gave them everything, they put it in the system, and their computer system screwed up calculating her age. They will not honor the price they gave us because they hadn't included the 3 year old, and I can't do the new price because our budget is really strict to make this work this time. We can't move the trip to next year because they have to BB offers for next year yet, and we can't move to a value because we have 6 people and would need 2 rooms, which would cost even more. They also won't let us take off the dining plan because it was "part of the quoted offer for the BB." I tried to explain that, since I booked over the phone and confirmed everything, I had no idea that they computed something wrong and this wasn't my fault. The CM said it isn't their fault because when they add another person it increases the price and they can't adjust that. They also say they won't honor the previous price because they can only honor what got sent in the mail (which has us as 2 adults, 2 children, and 2 infants) and now that they know DD isn't an infant they can't honor it anymore. I'm so frustrated! I'm pretty sure we are going to cancel (DH was in the background yelling that we would go to Universal instead), but I didn't do it on the spot because I wanted some input from someone else first.
I'm mad out of principle (it was their error), mad because of our prior history of problems, mad that we just can't seem to take a WDW trip as a family, and upset that we really just can't stretch the budget this time. Any suggestions? Should I cancel? Should I wait and see if any BB offers come up before our payment date and try to push it out? Should I fight this with Disney and try to get them to honor their quote and/or take credit for their error that I had no control over? Should we really just go to Universal? Universal is definitely in budget, and our oldest is a HUGE Harry Potter fan, but we have 2 really little ones. Would they have any fun? Should we just scrap all things Orlando and forget about ever having a family Disney trip again???? I'm open to all suggestions and would love to know what you would do.