The Dark Side of Disney - Leonard Kinsey [6]
“Obviously this was not what was advertised on their website. We were not happy about it, and tried to take it up with this squirrelly little manager, but he was completely unsympathetic, and pretty much yelled at us for not reading the fine print when we booked our reservations. I was crying, my daughter was crying, and Chris, my husband, was pissed; I thought he was going to punch somebody!
“I was so fed up that I called Disney Reservations, told the Cast Member, Missy, what had happened, and even though they were technically sold out for the week, Missy got us a room at All Stars. Surprisingly, it didn’t really even cost much more than this dirtbag hotel we were staying at. Missy was so nice and understanding, I just couldn’t believe it, and I was so happy and so grateful that we were both crying by the time I got off the phone!
“Chris had been watching me the whole time and thought Disney was being mean to me, too, but I told him how Missy had hooked us up. We had a group hug and Chris told the hotel manager where he could shove it. Then the manager started yelling about how we’d still get billed for the whole week, and how he’d say we destroyed our room and we’d get charged thousands of dollars! Chris was so happy about getting the hell out of there that he just laughed and gave the manager the finger, but then the manager actually charged at Chris right in front of all of these people in the lobby! Luckily a few of the other staff members held him back, but wow! Can you believe the guy actually tried to attack my husband? You wouldn’t see that happen at Disney!
“In the end it all turned out great. We had a wonderful vacation, ended up LOVING All Stars, and came away with a hilarious story to tell. On top of that, our credit card company (American Express – woo!) took care of us and reversed the charges at the shitty hotel.
“Lesson learned, though. Sure, the off-site place was cheap,” admits Michelle, “but from now it’s only Disney Resorts for us. They went out of their way to take care of our terrible situation, the staff was all really friendly, the rooms were clean, the food court was wonderful, and the busses ran every 15 minutes. It was well worth the few extra dollars we spent. And I sent Disney a letter saying how great Missy was to us. I hope she gets a promotion!
“When we got back home we checked the reviews for the shithole place on TripAdvisor.com, which admittedly, we should have done beforehand. Turns out there were a bunch of stories just like ours, most with not so happy endings. We also noticed that a lot of the reviews for other cheapo ‘main gate’ hotels were just as awful. So make sure you tell everyone to stay on Disney property!”
Listen to Michelle!
A Deluxe for Less Than a Value?:
Disney offers many, many discounts throughout the year on rooms, most combined into packages with park tickets, gift cards to be used in the parks, and Free Dining (which will be discussed in the cheap food section). And these are good deals, definitely nothing to scoff at.
But you can find details on those packages anywhere, so there’s no point in wasting space going over them here. What I’d like to do is to fill you in on the secret of how you can get rooms at the Deluxe Resorts for the same price as the Value Resorts: it’s called “Renting Points”. This isn’t something Disney wants you to know about, and to be honest