Grand Floridian RPC - Horror Story

[WeLoveDisney]

Hi Cali,

When Minnie first posted here, I didnt respond because I felt I didnt have to. Now that you've quoted it, I'd like to know what her definition of a snob is, and do you guys think that is what my family is?

You should really look at the facts. The service we received is not what we paid for - and I'm not talking about service that I wanted or demanded because I thought that was the way it should be. I'm talking about service as defined and set by Disney's own employees, marketing materials, my prior stays there, and also by others experiences on this board.

I saw people from different age groups, ethnicities, and walks of life at the GF. So, before Minnie made a post of rolling her eyes, I'd like to know which ones you think are snobs and what makes someone a "snob"? Is it by income? travel experience? attitude? class?

Minnie, you dont know anything about me or my family, so dont stereotype.

 

[Cmould]

Indigo,
I must say that in the 7 times I have stayed at or had access to the RPC lounge (through the Grand Plan), they have never run out of food. We often caught the service just before it ended and there was always plenty to eat. I hope that this problem is addressed immediately.
Carol

 

[TammiMcMan]

When we stayed at RPC, we saw all kinds of people. Some who wouldn't acknowledge the "hello's" and "good mornings" of staff members and quite frankly treated them as though they were part of the furniture. I was chatting with a member of the lounge staff one morning and she said that not only was I the first person she saw with a smile, but also the first one who had even acknowledged her presence. There were others, like ourselves, who got to know them and found out that they are definite hidden Disney treasures. One morning I watched as a guest came out of her room with a rose. She presented it to the gentleman who had been working in the concierge lounge with us most of the week. He was quite pleased to wear it in his jacket lapel.

I know that we are good people and desperately tried to work out our July 2000 problems with a smile on our face. Welovedisney's family seems like good folks also and it certainly doesn't sound like they were making outrageous requests. I keep thinking back to my trip and maybe my expectations were too high, but was it too much to ask that our room be made up before 3:00 in the afternoon, were we unreasonable in expecting that if lounge service was to last until 7:30pm, that there would still be food available at 7? I could have easily written off the GF, but I voiced my complaints until I was heard and if anyone has read my recent review, we had a magical time there just last month. As with everything else, one former GF staff member claims that the hotel is full of snobs and unreasonable guests, while I spoke to a current staff member who had left the resort for a little while and couldn't wait to "come home" as he put it.

Cali, I'm jealous about the job. I hope it coincides with our next trip to WDW. I know we'd be in good hands.

Tammi

 

[Disney1]

WeLoveDisney

I know exactly how you feel. You can't get it across to some people. You pick any 5 star resort in a great location, that's not run by Disney and you'll pay half as much and be treated like a king. It's that simple. It's not about being a snob. It's the way quality hotel chains run their business.

 

[FunkyLamb]

We had a package for 8 days at OKW for a 1 bedroom. Cost me a ton of money. We get to check-in. The CM was kind of an *** and tells me there are no rooms available. Hello? I booked this thing a year ago. You have my money. He tried to BS me saying that he had a handicapped ready room which was just the same (probably didn't occur to him we knew what the rooms looked like). Because of the confusion of the next 36 hours, we had numerous other problems.

Here is what I recommend to every person out there who has any type of problem remotely similar to this...Contact the General Manager immediately.

I have been in the hospitality industry for over 12 years. The buck stops with GMs. Restaurant, hotels, clubs. You name it.

Arrange a meeting with the GM face to face. In my case I was very calm and cool about it. I sat down in the lobby and in a very business like tone explained my grievences and my expectations.

In my experience, most people usually wait to say anything. Don't wait till your vacation is over and everything is ruined, Track down that GM and talk to them on your terms...and don't settle for an assistant. Treat it like a business meeting and tell them what you think is fair expectations.

So what happened in my case? I was comped the first night, given the obligitory dessert basket in the room and was called personally every day by the GM fro the remainder of the stay. I later told my girlfriend that had I just did some screaming on the phone, none of that would have happened.

I'm so sorry you weren't able to enjoy yourself. I had a flashback the minute I read your story. I hope you can contact the GM and get some resolution to a very un-Disney like stay at the Grand Floridian.

 

[CaliforniaDreaming]

Originally posted by WeLoveDisney
Hi Cali,

When Minnie first posted here, I didnt respond because I felt I didnt have to. Now that you've quoted it, I'd like to know what her definition of a snob is, and do you guys think that is what my family is?

You should really look at the facts. The service we received is not what we paid for - and I'm not talking about service that I wanted or demanded because I thought that was the way it should be. I'm talking about service as defined and set by Disney's own employees, marketing materials, my prior stays there, and also by others experiences on this board.

I saw people from different age groups, ethnicities, and walks of life at the GF. So, before Minnie made a post of rolling her eyes, I'd like to know which ones you think are snobs and what makes someone a "snob"? Is it by income? travel experience? attitude? class?

Minnie, you dont know anything about me or my family, so dont stereotype.

Woah. I'm not trying to say that your family was anything in anyway of being snobs. While I can't speak for minnie, I think you had valid problems that should have been handled.

When I quoted Minnie's post, I did so not to comment on your family, but to comment on an encounter with a RPC guest during my recent stay. Many DIS'ers know the story, and agreed with me that this guy was being a jerk (for those of you that I forgotten, the "Ford Explorer guy"). I was actually reserved in the Royal Palm Club for my last trip, and after months and months and months of reading horrible reviews, we opted for a regular lagoon view room. And, yes, there were problems there. Not with the staff, the staff couldn't have been better to us (with the exception of the people you talk to when you push "housekeeping" on the in-room phone). The problems we encountered were with the room itself. Yep, the a/c, but that wasn't too much of a problem. Clogged bathtub drains, stained bedspreads/bedskirts, broken drapes, TV remotes that didn't work, the list goes on. I tried to work it out with housekeeping, but all they did was tell me they'd be right on it - which was a lie. I got the drain and TV remote taken care of with our maid (she got a nice tip that day), the other stuff (stained bedspreads/bedskirts and broken drapes) weren't anything too important to us, and I reported it to housekeeping, so it's their problem when future guests get upset with the lack of upkeep to the rooms - they were warned. Even though I had those problems, the GF continues to be my favorite resort. It's beautiful, I've been staying there for years, I'll probably never get enough of the place. We'll be staying at the Beach Club next trip, though. After staying at the GF twice this year, we need a change of pace (yes, there were some very minor problems during our January trip, but all it really included were weather [LOL] and slow valet parking).

Anyways (trying to look at humor here), I do think you received the service that you paid for. You stayed in the Royal Palm Club - and you experienced the "royal" service that the "Palm Club" has lately been famous for. No one ever said it was a good service.

I would recommend contacting Mr. Weiss and you'll probably get pretty far with him. You may also receive a post card in the mail from the GF to take an online survey - make sure you take it if you get the post card.

 

[WeLoveDisney]

Thanks, Cali. Sorry for being defensive, just misunderstood why you were quoting Minnie's comments.

I read about the Ford Explorer guy, too and I agree. he acted like a jerk. In fact, my husband and I joked about it when we pulled our car up to the valet at the started cracking up.

I hope you do get to work at the RPC, you could really make a difference!

 

[Poly Pal]

Disneyispi! How awful that somebody was able to get into your room in the middle of the night, especially with you travelling alone!

I can comprehend how keys for two different rooms might accidentally be encoded the same. But how on earth did that "old man with alzheimers" manage to defeat the deadbolt and safety bar? Scary!

 

[minnie56]

Hold on ......I was only repeating what had been said to me not making an observation of my own. Don't shoot the messenger!

Had you looked back, you would have seen an earlier post by me where I relayed my displeasure at Grand Floridian/RPC in 2000. I spent over $6000 in 5 days and left a list of complaints as long as my arm, which by the way, got me nowhere! Not even an admission that maybe 'we didn't do our best' here!!

I merely repeated the comment to show you how we all see things different. I too, was one of those people the Disney employee considered to be a 'snob' and unable to be pleased it seems, when in actual fact, I like most of you, only wanted what I felt I had paid dearly for!

I meant to offend no-one!

 

[WeLoveDisney]

Apologies all the way around, then

Sorry, Minnie

 

[minnie56]

We're all talking about the same thing here really. I think most of us see a change and it's not for the better!
Disney is becoming a bit of a tough sell at my house these days with my husband because he says he comes home feeling "gouged" and that he's not getting value for money anymore.
It is rather disheartening!

 

[A kid at heart]

Check your pms.
did the room have a ceiling fan? wouldn't that be enough to have a motion in the room to keep the ac running? I definitley would have been calling them every 5 min to get it in proper working order. No ac in this heat?

 

[WeLoveDisney]

No, the ceiling fan didnt create enough motion because it was too high. The motion detector is right on the thermostat control. You would walk by it whenever you entered the room or were sitting up on the beds. Like some of the others posted, we tried haning things off the ceiling fan but it didnt work right.

We asked for extra pillows because we threw them up at the control from bed whlie we were trying to sleep. lol. or not lol because it wasnt funny at the time.

And yes, I demanded to speak to every manager and engineer there and did not get them to change it. The display on the control said that it was 78 degrees, so this is really not an issue of me thinking it was too hot when it wasnt.

 

[CaliforniaDreaming]

Did you ever try to tape a piece of paper over the sensor, and then turn the fan on to create some wind to "flicker" the piece of paper around?

 

[WeLoveDisney]

I spoke to Georginna Sussan a few days ago and now have the official scoop on the motion sensors. Each thermostat is supposed to have a "setpoint" at 72. You can set your A/C lower than that, and it will cool to that level if there is motion in the room. With no motion (i.e. at night), the room should not get any warmer than the set 72. Unfortunately, not all of these thermostats are sensitive enough, or get reset by guests playing with the buttons to a higher level. Ours was going up to a high of 78 at night.

 

[jlima]

. . . instruct the housekeepers to re-set it to 72 after a guest checks out!! What else did she tell you . . . I'd love to know!

 

[Sammie]

Originally posted by WeLoveDisney
I spoke to Georginna Sussan a few days ago and now have the official scoop on the motion sensors. Each thermostat is supposed to have a "setpoint" at 72. You can set your A/C lower than that, and it will cool to that level if there is motion in the room. With no motion (i.e. at night), the room should not get any warmer than the set 72. Unfortunately, not all of these thermostats are sensitive enough, or get reset by guests playing with the buttons to a higher level. Ours was going up to a high of 78 at night.

That is great that you were able to talk to the GM, surely you talked about more than the motion sensors.

Did you resolve the conflict?

 

[MJS]

I am glad that you spoke with the elusive GM (I will have to tell my DH that she does exist! )I don't buy the story on the thermostat. We were there for almost two weeks in May, and the thermostat in our room did not work. It was over 90 degrees outside, and our room was above 80 some days. Engineering came at least every other day to mess with the thermostat, and they never got it right.

I invite the GM to spend a few nights in 4422.

 

[Disney Doll]

I have never stayed in the GF, but have been there many times for dinner, sightseeing etc. I have personally never liked the "feel" of the place...it seems "stuffy" to me. I will stick with the YC/BC.

 

[hallie]

Sorry to hear about your troubles, that's not right.

Cons - Transportation - because of the distance there are long bus waits and we usually take our own car (doesnt bother us but it might affect others).

I was surprised to read that because we were at the AKL for 2 weeks this past April. We never waited more then 10 minutes for a bus and I thought the bus system was the best I've ever experienced at WDW. Yes, the hotel is further out but not sharing the busses makes up for the time I think. we took at bus a couple times from the YC and couldn't believe they had to share with the other resorts, once we waited 15 minutes and then said forget it and walked to the monorail instead-lol.

Again I'm sorry to hear about your time at GFRPC, you should recieve something in compensation, atleast a sincere apology or how about a credit towards your next WDW stay?