Reviews of Disney Resort Rooms

[bridgehamptonnc]

After reading the reviews on this board, and reviews online of almost every Disney Resort, are there any Disney Resorts that are clean? I have looked at staying from the Poly, to the Contemporary, to Beach Club, to the Yacht Club, etc... and there are numerous complaints on each of these resort rooms. What gives? Disney Resort rooms can't be that bad can they?

For example, common complaints on this board of Disney Rooms......broken shower heads, outdated rooms, bed bugs, carpet stains, smelly rooms, rooms not cleaned properly by housekeeping during stay, hair found in tubes and sinks upon check in, beds that were uncomfortable, issues with requests for certain types of rooms, thin sheets, thin walls between rooms, etc..

Below were some of the actual reviews of different Disney resorts:

1. Our room had a distinctly foul smell every time we came back. The toilet also overflowed onto the carpet. I requested that the room be de-odorised and the carpet cleaned nothing happen, I then requested a room change and nothing happened. Also had really creaky bed which creaked with every turn. The hotel has a great pool but pretty shabby hotel and with expensive food and unhealthy food. I was surprised that it has received over a 4 rating.

2. Asked for carpet cleaning which was done But this awful humidity smell was still there. We had to sleep with garden door open Nice pool with sand on the bottom and slide.

3. For the exhorbitant cost of the room we expected MUCH more. Room smelled musty, bed uncomfortable. TV tiny and old. Food at all the restaurants the SAME!!! And it was not tasty!!! Stay at the Swan or Dolphin for less than half the price. Oh yes, we had to go to the Dolphin for a decent steak dinner because Yacht clubs steakhouse wouldn't let us dine without a reservation. Very dissappointed!!!!

4. The room was just an average hotel room - nothing special. There was a gross sticky spot on the carpet that should have been taken care of.

5. Old rooms, furnishings need updating, dark head boards, old bathroom fixtures. Old linens and very disappointing comforters!

6. The hotel location can't be beat. The Polynesian theme - amazing. Great pool! However, for the price of the room, you are not getting what you pay for. We had two adjoining rooms. Each room had stains on the carpet, there was at least one broken cabinet door and, to top it all off, I got my bed ready on day one and found a spider sitting on the sheets when I pulled the covers down, alive and crawling. Only happened once - never again - but it certainly made me look much more closely. Honestly, if you're looking for a basic room and place to sleep, this can't be beat based on the location, but I feel the rooms are very overpriced based on my experience.

7. Had multiple issues incl dirty sheets not being changed entry bracelets to room taking four times to get them all working and no fridge after we were told there was one and other issues they gave us some credit back on charges but should have been more. Dissappointing

8. Room smell. Didnt get the room I paid for The worst view of the lake and pool

9. First the walls are super thin. Expect to not only hear every time a door near you closes but you will hear every time your neighbor gets anything out of the closet, goes to the bathroom, uses the phone (I mean you can hear the dial tone, not just the ring), you can hear your neighbors entire conversations and unfortunately if your neighbors have kids that throw temper tantrums every night you hear it like it is in your room. Expect to only be able to sleep when your neighbors sleep (if your neighbors sleep). This is quite unfortunate if you are a couple that ends up next to a room with kids next door. I know disney is a family friendly place but I wish they had an adult only resort. Sleep is important when you are on any vacation, but especially after your exhausting Disney days. The other negative is quite weird and I've never encounter this at a hotel before. But the water does not get hot enough to take a nice hot shower. I had the water on all the way hot for all my showers, and the water was certainly warm (I wasn't taking cold showers), but never got comfortably hot enough for me. Not sure if this was just a problem with our room or if it's with all the rooms. Bottom line, if you are a couple and are hoping for some R & R (or just simply some sleep) I would not recommend staying at this hotel. One screaming kid next door will ruin your vacation at this hotel.

10. My family and I stayed here for 5 nights 27th December to 1st January and to be honest all you are paying for is the view from your balcony(once you have argued your case at the concierge desk that is to get a room that has more than a window box outside) and for its proximity to Epcot. The room was old and everything was badly worn out with stained carpets and furniture and the room smelt of damp it was quite possibly the most depressing hotel room ive ever stayed in.

11. the room was dirty and in need of repair. There was a brown stain on the wallpaper in the bathroom,and the closet door was broken and within a day had fallen completely off. The hallway dark blue carpets had many large bleach stains located below the windows that stretched about 4 or 5 inches from the wall. On the first floor I noticed about five rooms where the number 1 had fallen off the wooden room number plaque on the wall. While the rest of the raised wooden numbers remained on the plaque, the number 1 was written in with a black sharpie marker! I was very disappointed with my experience here especially since I had such nice memories of my visit to the Beach Club so many years before. This was definitely not up to Disney standards particularly when you are paying so much for this hotel.


And so on.......

Are the rooms that bad at Disney?

 

[karenklo]

Most people do not get on the boards and say that my room was clean as it expected. We have never had a dirty room. The only issue we had was at AKL with the Queen bed. It creaked if you moved at all! Next morning I mentioned it and within 2 hours they had replaced the bed. No more creaking!

 

[kaytieeldr]

No. Eleven examples out of 22,000+ rooms times 365/366 nights times how many years old are some of the resorts? They can't renovate every room between each guest. Frankly, some of the posts you copied appear to the result of lack of planning, or overblown expectations.

 

[bridgehamptonnc]

I just posted 11 examples for time sake. I could have posted 100's of bad reviews. That is what I find troubling. And some of the bad reviews have come from members of this board. Was it overblown expectations on the reviewers part to pay $500.00 a night and expect quality?

 

[Mousemommy1]

I do not think it is unreasonable to expect a quality room for $500+ a night. That being said, I think that people forget that you pay the big bucks for a room at Disney for location, versus, amenities. That being said, I have had many on-site stays and other than 1 "issue" (that was relatively minor) I have had nothing but clean, well maintained rooms from value all the way up to deluxe CL rooms.

 

[Dawn68PA]

You definately pay a higher price to stay on property. I don't mind paying as I love being part of the "magic" every minute I'm there.

I've been to WDW 4 times and never had an issue with any room. Stayed at POP, AKL, BC and ASM.

 

[rteetz]

I've never had a bad room and I've always stayed on property. Those reviews are of those people who have had those 1/1000 odds come true. Disney is usually very good about their rooms. A lot of that is also personal opinion and can be some exaggeration.

 

[snorkelyn]

No. Eleven examples out of 22,000+ rooms times 365/366 nights times how many years old are some of the resorts? They can't renovate every room between each guest. Frankly, some of the posts you copied appear to the result of lack of planning, or overblown expectations.

Well said. You can also find negative reviews on just about every non-Disney hotel. We have never had a problem with the cleanliness of a room at Disney.

Once while staying at the Polynesian, our son became sick and vomited all over the headboard and carpet in our room. It was 5am. I called the desk, and within minutes, they had a carpet cleaning machine waiting at our door. The maid cart showed up soon after that. Housekeeping has always done a good job for our family.

 

[kaytieeldr]

I just posted 11 examples for time sake. I could have posted 100's of bad reviews. That is what I find troubling. And some of the bad reviews have come from members of this board. Was it overblown expectations on the reviewers part to pay $500.00 a night and expect quality?

Or the negative segments of good/neutral reviews, or any of the hundreds/thousands of positive TripAdvisor reviews. I didn't find a single WDW resort with an average rating less than 'very good' (four dots or more).

That review 9 actually starts "So this hotel is really nice. And honestly if it weren't for the two negatives I'm going to explain I would give it five stars. But the two negatives are quite big and I subtracted one star for each. First, the pros. Nice, clean rooms with updated and comfortable decor. Super nice, friendly, helpful staff as you would expect. Nice, heavy curtains that block light great and allow the room to be dark at night. Wonderful location as other reviewers have explained. But the negatives."

 

[buzznina]

First WDW resorts take in A LOT more foot traffic then your basic hotels. But with that said the quality of cleaning has declined over the years and not even close to what it was back in the 70's, showing my age.
Out of the 20+ trips in the last 9 years, we had 2 rooms that we requested and were given a different room, because of odor in the room (vomit and the other was sour milk smell). We have had rooms with carpet stains and we try to keep our DD's in socks or slippers because we have had some carpets that got their feet really dirty. I can also see the feelings of folks when paying some of the ridiculously high prices of the high end deluxes, not being happy. But for as much traffic that goes in and out of the rooms and with it being mainly family traffic, all-in-all, Disney still does a pretty good job.

 

[Leveretttltl]

I have stayed on property 5 times and have never had an issue with our room. Its always been clean and comfortable.

 

[jaiminee krikit]

Yesterday I went out for lunch with my husband. We had terrible service. When he got the receipt, I asked him to give a copy to me so I could go online and post a bad review about our server. As he was handing me the receipt, I realized that very VERY rarely do I ask him for the receipt if we have good, even outstanding service. I think this is common. More people want to complain about poor service than praise good service. On my WDW vacations, I try to go on tripadvisor and post reviews that are based on my experiences, good or bad. But in my regular, every day life, I don't do that. I only post about bad experiences. I think a lot of people are more inclined to point out the bad, and that's what you're seeing. Looking at tripadvisor right now, for POR, the number of Excellent reviews is more than DOUBLE the Average, Poor, and Terrible reviews - COMBINED! I think you're focusing too much on the bad. Check out the good, too!

 

[bridgehamptonnc]

So do you think it is just certain rooms in each resort that are worse off than other rooms? The below review was just done by a Disney Vacation Club Member which to me has more weight since they have clearly been to the Disney Resorts several times before.


We are Disney Vacation Club Members so this was our third time staying at this hotel. The outside and the lobby of this hotel are gorgeous. The rooms are a different story. There have been no major updates since the resort opened in 1996. I'm pretty sure the carpet is the original. We stayed in a studio and there were only three accessible electrical outlets. We now bring our own six outlet wall plugin to charge everything. The bathrooms need to be completely remodeled. There are lumps in the bottom of the bathtub from years of people standing in the same place. There is dirt caked on to the ceilings. Its a good thing there isn't likely to be a fire in the bathroom anytime soon because the sprinkler looked to rusted out to actually work. The overall look of the bathroom with its blue tile walls and once white but now beige tile floor is outdated. However, we were very happy that they got new modern looking bedding since we last stayed here. Another problem was the wifi. It rarely worked while were there. When it did work it would only stay connected 5-10 minutes at a time. When we called the IT department she tried to walk me through connecting to a wifi network. Most people ages 5-60 know how to do that so she was no help. When she couldn't come up with any other solution she came to the conclusion that it must be my iPad. I would believe that if we hadn't had the same problem with two androids, a laptop, and Google Nexus. Another problem is the transportation. Luckily the resort is in a great location so you can walk to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. There is boat transportation but you will not get on the first boat that comes at HS or Epcot. It is much faster to walk. Anywhere else be prepared to take an hour on the bus for a fifteen minute drive. To go to Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom you also have to stop at The Swan & Dolphin. Only one bus can stop there at a time so if they have to load or unload a wheelchair you have to wait for them. The bus that goes to Downtown Disney stops at not only Swan & Dolphin but Yacht & Beach Club too BEFORE it gets to the Boardwalk. Once it gets to the Boardwalk it is full. If you bring your own car you will have to park across the street if you are not handicapped or valet for $15 a day. Another thing is dining. There are many restaurants but only one quick service. That one quick service is a bakery so its either a sandwich,a sandwich or a sandwich. There is a food cart that sells burgers, hot dogs, and fries but I wouldn't go there. These places close at 11pm. The General Store is only open until 10. If the parks are going to be open until 3am then there needs to be at least one 24 hour place to get food and other essentials. Overall, I would never pay to stay at this resort.

 

[Mousemommy1]

So do you think it is just certain rooms in each resort that are worse off than other rooms? The below review was just done by a Disney Vacation Club Member which to me has more weight since they have clearly been to the Disney Resorts several times before.


We are Disney Vacation Club Members so this was our third time staying at this hotel. The outside and the lobby of this hotel are gorgeous. The rooms are a different story. There have been no major updates since the resort opened in 1996. I'm pretty sure the carpet is the original. We stayed in a studio and there were only three accessible electrical outlets. We now bring our own six outlet wall plugin to charge everything. The bathrooms need to be completely remodeled. There are lumps in the bottom of the bathtub from years of people standing in the same place. There is dirt caked on to the ceilings. Its a good thing there isn't likely to be a fire in the bathroom anytime soon because the sprinkler looked to rusted out to actually work. The overall look of the bathroom with its blue tile walls and once white but now beige tile floor is outdated. However, we were very happy that they got new modern looking bedding since we last stayed here. Another problem was the wifi. It rarely worked while were there. When it did work it would only stay connected 5-10 minutes at a time. When we called the IT department she tried to walk me through connecting to a wifi network. Most people ages 5-60 know how to do that so she was no help. When she couldn't come up with any other solution she came to the conclusion that it must be my iPad. I would believe that if we hadn't had the same problem with two androids, a laptop, and Google Nexus. Another problem is the transportation. Luckily the resort is in a great location so you can walk to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. There is boat transportation but you will not get on the first boat that comes at HS or Epcot. It is much faster to walk. Anywhere else be prepared to take an hour on the bus for a fifteen minute drive. To go to Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom you also have to stop at The Swan & Dolphin. Only one bus can stop there at a time so if they have to load or unload a wheelchair you have to wait for them. The bus that goes to Downtown Disney stops at not only Swan & Dolphin but Yacht & Beach Club too BEFORE it gets to the Boardwalk. Once it gets to the Boardwalk it is full. If you bring your own car you will have to park across the street if you are not handicapped or valet for $15 a day. Another thing is dining. There are many restaurants but only one quick service. That one quick service is a bakery so its either a sandwich,a sandwich or a sandwich. There is a food cart that sells burgers, hot dogs, and fries but I wouldn't go there. These places close at 11pm. The General Store is only open until 10. If the parks are going to be open until 3am then there needs to be at least one 24 hour place to get food and other essentials. Overall, I would never pay to stay at this resort.

Unless you are planning on staying DVC, I would not give more credence to the review. The DVC villas are very different from the resort rooms. Different decor (that I personally do not like most of) and they are on a different refurb schedule which is more spread out than the regular resort rooms because it's paid with member dues.

I personally have stayed at 8 of the Disney resorts so far and visit at least once a year, so I think I've got a good bunch of experiences to look back on.

 

[bridgehamptonnc]

So do you think it is just certain rooms in each resort that are worse off than other rooms? The first below review was just done by a Disney Vacation Club Member which to me has more weight since they clearly have been to the Disney Resorts several times before their review.


We are Disney Vacation Club Members so this was our third time staying at this hotel. The outside and the lobby of this hotel are gorgeous. The rooms are a different story. There have been no major updates since the resort opened in 1996. I'm pretty sure the carpet is the original. We stayed in a studio and there were only three accessible electrical outlets. We now bring our own six outlet wall plugin to charge everything. The bathrooms need to be completely remodeled. There are lumps in the bottom of the bathtub from years of people standing in the same place. There is dirt caked on to the ceilings. Its a good thing there isn't likely to be a fire in the bathroom anytime soon because the sprinkler looked to rusted out to actually work. The overall look of the bathroom with its blue tile walls and once white but now beige tile floor is outdated. However, we were very happy that they got new modern looking bedding since we last stayed here. Another problem was the wifi. It rarely worked while were there. When it did work it would only stay connected 5-10 minutes at a time. When we called the IT department she tried to walk me through connecting to a wifi network. Most people ages 5-60 know how to do that so she was no help. When she couldn't come up with any other solution she came to the conclusion that it must be my iPad. I would believe that if we hadn't had the same problem with two androids, a laptop, and Google Nexus. Another problem is the transportation. Luckily the resort is in a great location so you can walk to Epcot and Hollywood Studios. There is boat transportation but you will not get on the first boat that comes at HS or Epcot. It is much faster to walk. Anywhere else be prepared to take an hour on the bus for a fifteen minute drive. To go to Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom you also have to stop at The Swan & Dolphin. Only one bus can stop there at a time so if they have to load or unload a wheelchair you have to wait for them. The bus that goes to Downtown Disney stops at not only Swan & Dolphin but Yacht & Beach Club too BEFORE it gets to the Boardwalk. Once it gets to the Boardwalk it is full. If you bring your own car you will have to park across the street if you are not handicapped or valet for $15 a day. Another thing is dining. There are many restaurants but only one quick service. That one quick service is a bakery so its either a sandwich,a sandwich or a sandwich. There is a food cart that sells burgers, hot dogs, and fries but I wouldn't go there. These places close at 11pm. The General Store is only open until 10. If the parks are going to be open until 3am then there needs to be at least one 24 hour place to get food and other essentials. Overall, I would never pay to stay at this resort.



We travel to Disney once per year and usually stay on Disney property. We finally splurged to stay at one of the nicer hotels and that turned out to be waste. WHEN WE ARRIVED, THE FLOOR WAS FILTHY!!!! Our microwave did not work (and it took someone days to get us a replacement), house-keeping was non-existent, the pool slide was out-of-commission (without notice), and my husband was hit in the eye with metal while walking past the pool - yes workers were shaving metal at 10am steps from where we were allowed to swim!!!!! When the bell hop took our luggage to be checked (on the day we were leaving) they lost a piece of luggage as well. When we pulled out the couch-bed for our children, we were unable to locate ANY extra pillows or blankets. While the view and location were great, the room is crammed and the walls are PAPER-THIN - we heard our neighbors all week long! I would have to say, however, the WORST part of our vacation was when my 6-year-old daughter got smacked in the head when the big METAL furnace/AC utility cover fell off the wall (screws were missing) - and when we called to have someone re-attach it, no one EVER showed up!!!!!!


Brace yourself, this is going to be doozy of a review-zy. I was staying at Boardwalk Villas for a conference, but the conference was at another hotel and it was sold out. I arrived to my room just minutes before I had to head out. I walked into what smelled like either a pair of really old kid's soccer shoes or maybe Texas road kill that had been sitting in the sun way too long. I'm not kidding. It was AWFUL!

Since I had to head out the door, when I came back I asked for another room. It was late, and I was willing to compromise. So while the smell was better, it still wasn't a normal smell, it just smelled funky. Not the kind of Orlando musty air conditioner musty smell. It just wasn't at all fresh!

Then I discovered my toilet kept flushing. Since it was midnight, I decided to forget about calling the engineering department. I just didn't sleep all that well with the sound. It's also a little hard to slumber peacefully when you can see visible stains on your pillows and bedspread. Honestly, for almost $300 a night, I expect so much more!

Reading some of the other recent reviews, it's hard to believe we stayed in the same place! Yes, the location is stellar, but I have nothing else positive to say. We had a one bedroom villa. My first impression was that it smelled musty as we entered. And then it all went downhill. The room was extremely dated, but that could be overlooked. What couldn't was the fact that the room was filthy! The couch was terribly stained. There were crumbs on the kitchen counter and toothpaste with hair stuck in it in the bathrooms. When we pulled out the bed in the couch for our daughters, there were pieces of chocolate (I hope) ground into the blanket. Not stained, because they came up when we scratched at them with our nails--they just never changed the bedding. We had to call down for new bedding and 45 minutes later they still weren't there. Our little girls fell asleep on makeshift beds of their own blankets!

The next day we demanded a new room and they did give us half off the first night. BUT, the next room was worse (you'd think if a customer complained of a dirty room, you'd check the next one first)! Stained couch, crumbs and coffee grounds on the counters, food on the floor, and an obviously used sponge for dishes were not the worst of it. The bathrooms were DISGUSTING! Little hairs on the floor and in the tub and DRIED URINE on the toilet seat! No joke! I was beyond shocked and disappointed after having gone on the Disney Dream less than a year before with immaculate conditions and service!

This time we demanded to switch properties. We were moved to Bay Lake Towers which was clean, beautiful, and everything we expected from Disney! I just wish we hadn't missed an entire day of tickets to take of a problem we shouldn't have had in the first place.

Although we were all surprised and disappointned with our welcome, it was very late, so none of us expressed our worries and continued on to our room. When we opened the door, we were even more disappointed. Everything was so old and dirty. The couch reminded me of what you'd find in a college apartment shared by 8 single college guys - I didn't even want to touch it. Then we realized that someone was going to have to use that as a bed, as it was the pull-out couch. My husband immediately went to set it up, as we had to get the kids to bed after flying all day. He stuck his hand in to open it, and immediately cringed and pulled it back out dripping with what appeared to be either coca cola. I investigated further and found animal crackers inside of the bed as well. No one had even oepned it up to change the sheets before it was tuerned over to a new guest (us)! We didn't even want to imagine how unclean the actual bed was! There was no way that I could have let my children sleep in that filth.

 

[ArwenMarie]

I've never had an issue with a dirty room. Now, I have had times when the carpet grossed me out, but that was more because it needed to be replaced.

 

[Hopefully]

If you have this much concern, that you come as a new poster to a Disney fan site, to post such horrible reviews of Disney resorts, I suggest you spend your vacation dollars elsewhere.
Good Luck

 

[kaytieeldr]

So do you think it is just certain rooms in each resort that are worse off than other rooms? The first below review was just done by a Disney Vacation Club Member which to me has more weight since they clearly have been to the Disney Resorts several times before their review.

Yes. I think we still think you're focussing too much on the relatively few negative reviews or parts of reviews.

 

[bridgehamptonnc]

This guy just reviewed the Poly on 2/2/14, and took pictures of the bugs he found in his bed and a picture of the dirty lights which he attached to his review.

We are staying club level,which is normally great at disney. We came in a day early and payed for an extra night.what a mistake. They never could separate the trips,kept getting turned down for everything with the magic band 3 times had to put credit card on file. Also entrance to park was messed up on the bands. There was a bug of some kind in the bed we put it in a glass and brought it to the concierge to find out what it was. The problems were addressed and fixed each time. But you hate spending a quarter of your trip to Disney getting problems solved. Three rides brokedown when we were on them for online for them. The Monorail kept breaking down also. Disney needs to spend a lot more time for maintenance on what they have instead of just building new stuff all time, while the people who pay for it have crappy trips.

Link to his review with his pictures. It will be the first review:

http://hcom.tripadvisor.com/ShowUse..._Resort-Orlando_Florida.html#CHECK_RATES_CONT

 

[patty57]

A number of posters have tried to alleviate your concerns. They have said that they have had clean rooms, or if there were problems, they were fixed. It seems as though you don't want to listen to the posters here, so maybe you would be better off finding an offsite accommodation where you would be happier with the reviews. I'm really not trying to be snarky, but don't know what else you want to hear from the people here.

Also...FWIW, I've never had a problem with a WDW room being dirty, or broken down.