Live Trip Report!!!! (UPDATED to add pictures!!!)

[Disney_Jill]

Obviously, totally unacceptable. I have stayed at RPR and HRH and had great service. In fact, HRH credited me half of one night's stay because I was awoken in the middle of the night by drunken crazies.

Portofino is usually the most expensive, so you would expect better than this, wayyy better. Just ridiculous. I hope you get somewhere with Loew's corporate. Sorry you had to deal with this.

 

[fenrir58]

decided to scrap my post getting in a debate with someone else on this thread and offer an apology to the OP that the management should have given her waaaayyyy long ago. That's messed up

 

[MagicStitch]

I am sooooo sorry to hear about all your problems!! That is just completely unacceptable and absolutely ridiculous!! I have never heard of such poor customer service and I have spent over 12 years in the business!! It's just so awful to not only have to deal with bugs in your room, but then to "hear" it has been an ongoing problem and then be ignored by the management! I was so dissapointed to hear this and feel terrible for you and your family!

On another note, I am glad to hear you enjoyed your time at WWoHP!! Thank you for all the updates and information... hey maybe down the road they will build a new hotel (NOT run by Loews) named... hmm.. the Leaky Cauldron?! Hey it's nice to dream right?!

Again I am so sorry to hear about your troubles and I hope that you can get some compensation/resolution from corporate!

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Hey Everyone!!!

We are finally home!!!!

I'm uploading all the pictures now........

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Photos from Day #1 (July 13th) .... before the ant nightmare

After checking in at PBH, we waited for our room to be ready (which by the way we didn't get until 5:30 PM) and we took some pictures and got ice cream at the Gelateria. A beautiful sunny day.

As soon as we got our room we took the kids to TNA wrestling at Universal, with ring side seats!!! Luckily they were being held for us because we were late. The kids were in heaven. They love wrestling more than anything, it is their obsession. They couldn't believe they got VIP access, all thanks to my husband having connections with the public relations department.

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Day #2 (July 14th)

We went to Universal Studios and everything was a walk-on since we had the Express entrance with our room keys. I think everyone was at Harry Potter anyway. After finishing almost everything in the entire park in two hours we headed to IoA next... then to dinner at The Kitchen (inside Hard Rock Hotel). Which sadly wasn't nearly as good as last year. I had the pork tenderloin, it was dry, dh had the seafood paella. Dinner for five was almost $200 and didn't seem worth it. Our server failed to mention they had a kids buffet, which my boys would have LOVED. When we walked past it to the exit I asked the server why he didn't mention it was available he said "oh, its full of all the types of foods parents shouldn't give their children". WHAT??? I couldn't believe he said that. The kids were excited they got to see Scooby and Shrek though, and they loved the little kids lounge area with the TV playing cartoons. After dinner we went back to WWoHP. I had a feeling it would be easier to navigate at that time.

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Day #3 pictures (July 15th)

The kids and I got up super early so we could go to WWoHP... we did Forbidden Journey and Ollivanders before the park opened to the general public. The boys were so thrilled to buy their wands and I won't bore you with the one MILLION pictures I took that day I'm quite the Potter fanatic so I took pics of every store window, sign, book, and trash can. For dinner we went back to the hotel to Trattoria del Porto... they have a really nice pasta buffet where you can design your own. I did chicken, spinach, sun dried tomatoes, in vodka sauce with fettucini. Yum yum The kids LOVED the free face painting and balloon animals. The restaurant wasn't crowded so they both got two balloon animals and two paintings each. Very lucky! After dinner we went back to WWoHP, are you catching on to a theme here??? and all 6 of us rode FJ around 9:00 PM with a fairly short wait.

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Day #4 (Friday July 16th)

Nothing really to share on this day.... I participated in Infinitus 2010, the Harry Potter conference at Royal Pacific.... later that night we went back to WWoHP My husband just LOVES to make fun of my HP obsession Here he is posing for a pic with some of my fellow HP conference peeps.... these girls are great, I remember seeing them in Vegas at Lumos 2006 and in Toronto at Prophecy 2007, they do a great job!

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Day #5 (Saturday July 17th)

Last full day!!!

We spent the day at US. It was sooooo hot, I can't even tell you how hot it was, but we somehow managed to survive it. We did everything in the park I think, except Rip Ride Rockit was down. We went back to the hotel around 4:00 and then back to IoA that night for dinner at the 3 Broomsticks and to ride FJ for the last time. Also we bought a ton of stuff at Honeydukes!


Here is what we ended up with at the end of the trip:

2 brooms (plastic ones, not the real ones) - which by the way they wouldn't let us on the plane with so I had to leave security and go back to the counter to check them as fragile baggage. Luckily they arrived safely
2 wands (one HP wand, the other a birthday wand)
3 t-shirts (I got the WWoHP one, oldest ds got a dragon one, and youngest ds got one with all the magical creatures on it)
2 chocolate frogs
1 box peppermint frogs
chocolate flies
butterbeer and frozen butterbeer
Refillable Hogs Head mug (plastic, but nice)
tooth splintering mints
sneakascope
screaming yo yo
WWoHP coffee mug
stuffed scabbers (really wanted pygmy puffs but they were sold out)
ball full of eyeballs
4 cauldron cakes (my FAVORITE!!!!!!)

I noticed at the airport they have a ton of HP merchandise. Not the wands, brooms, or robes, but they had tshirts of all types, stuffed animals, mugs, toys, etc, so if you didn't find something or you didn't make it to the park I would recommend checking there for stuff.

 

[MinnieGirl33]

Health Dept
Better Business Bureau
FL Div of Hotels & Businesses http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/hr/index.html
Lowes Corporate http://www.loewshotels.com/en/ContactUs/Overview.aspx

If you have photos of the ants... Orlando Sentinel, WESH, WFTV, MyFoxOrlando... anybody you can think of!

So sorry you had to go through this.

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Health Dept
Better Business Bureau
FL Div of Hotels & Businesses http://www.myfloridalicense.com/dbpr/hr/index.html
Lowes Corporate http://www.loewshotels.com/en/ContactUs/Overview.aspx

If you have photos of the ants... Orlando Sentinel, WESH, WFTV, MyFoxOrlando... anybody you can think of!

So sorry you had to go through this.

Thanks, I sent a long email to Lowes as soon as we got home tonight. I documented the dates, names, etc, so I'll let you guys know if I hear anything back from them.

 

[realbutter]

@TigrLvsPooh Your pictures are amazing. I too am a huge HP fan and I am visiting the park next week. I am buying an extra memory card because I have the feeling I will want to take pictures of everything. Your trip looked like loads of fun. Too bad about the ants though.

 

[nmartin]

Enjoyed the pictures. Hope you are able to get a resolution even though it is late!

 

[slalanc01]

Where did you take those Doc Brown pics with DELOREAN car! (IOA, US). All my family are HUGE Back To the Future movies Fans! (Speaking of myself I probably watched those movies around 12-15 times each!)

Great Pics!

 

[justprettynpink]

Where did you take those Doc Brown pics with DELOREAN car! (IOA, US). All my family are HUGE Back To the Future movies Fans! (Speaking of myself I probably watched those movies around 12-15 times each!)

Great Pics!

Doc Brown is at Universal Studios near the Blues Brother Show.

We are going in a couple of weeks...what room do we need to make sure we DON'T get?

Love your report and pics!

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

@TigrLvsPooh Your pictures are amazing. I too am a huge HP fan and I am visiting the park next week. I am buying an extra memory card because I have the feeling I will want to take pictures of everything. Your trip looked like loads of fun. Too bad about the ants though.

Thanks realbutter!! I think I took about 500 pictures of WWoHP. I couldn't keep myself out of that area. It was amazing!!! Have a great time when you go.

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Where did you take those Doc Brown pics with DELOREAN car! (IOA, US). All my family are HUGE Back To the Future movies Fans! (Speaking of myself I probably watched those movies around 12-15 times each!)

Great Pics!

He's on the street corner not far from where the Blues Brothers perform. Where they have all the city fronts and shops that look like NYC. The car is there and also the train from Back to the Future 3. My husband is a HUGE Back to the Future fan... he told Doc he was sad his ride got replaced by the Simpsons and that his was much better. Doc was great!!! One of the highlights of our day!!!!

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Doc Brown is at Universal Studios near the Blues Brother Show.

We are going in a couple of weeks...what room do we need to make sure we DON'T get?

Love your report and pics!

We were in room #1504. Its on the fifth floor in the east wing. It had two queen beds and a pull out sleeper sofa bed. If it wouldn't have been for the ants it was a PERFECT room.

 

[Metro West]

Great pictures! Sorry you had problems with the room.

Hopefully you won't let your bad hotel experience deter you from coming back again.

 

[TigrLvsPooh]

Great pictures! Sorry you had problems with the room.

Hopefully you won't let your bad hotel experience deter you from coming back again.

Already planning another trip back to US/IOA!!!