MickeyFan4Ever
12-17-2008, 07:50 PM
Travel dates: December 11-15, 2008
Travel method: Drove from the Grand Canyon and flew home from LAX
Resort: Disneyland Hotel
Cast of characters: Me (29), DH (30), DD (8 Months)
Disney Resort Experience Represented in Group: My husband and I have traveled to the DLR 4 times in the past 5 years. It was my DD's first trip.
Just a quick trip report to share some of the details of our recent visit to Disneyland.
Of the six visits I have made to Disneyland in the past 9 years, I have always stayed in a good neighbour hotel along S. Harbour Blvd. This time, we decided to splurge and booked ourselves into the Disneyland Hotel. The hotel cost was almost 2.5 times more expensive than what we had paid in the past. Upon checking in (right at 3pm), we were told that they could not provide us with a DTD view, as we had request (we did pay extra to guarantee a resort view). I asked if there is anyway that we could be switched into a room with a view of Disneyland, as we had an infant and wanted to be able to see the fireworks. Eventually, after asking if we could even move rooms in the middle of our stay, we were offered a room in the Wonder Tower (which is the fartherest tower to walk from). We found our room was a large corner room with a huge balcony. Perhaps because we were paying a large sum for our room and we were constantly comparing our current hotel experience with previous experiences, we quickly noticed little things wrong with our room. First, the water glasses were dirty. One had a significant layer of dust in the bottom, like it hadn't been washed for an entire year. Second, our remote control didn't work. And third, our desk chair was missing. Before leaving for the park the next day, we left a tip for housekeeping including a note requesting a desk chair (we had already called about the remote and hand washed the glasses). When we returned to our room at 5:30 pm, our room had been cleaned and the tip was gone, but no chair. We eventually had one delivered to our room.
Because we wanted to make use of early entry to the park on Saturday morning, we decided to head to bed by 10:30pm. Upon turning off the TV and lights, we started to notice how noisy the room next to us was. We could hear every word of the conversations our neighbours were having. We could hear their little baby crying and their two kids getting ready for bed. We realized that the noise was traveling through our adjoining doors. At first, we figured they would be going to bed shortly, so we did our best to fall asleep, but it was impossible. Just their talking was so audible in our room that we were completely unable to ignore it. We learned all about their family and eventually their friend who came by to chat with them. They did not go to bed until 1:45 am, so neither did we. At 12:30am, we were exhausted and very annoyed, so we called the front desk. So one did call their room and ask them to quiet down (we could hear this easily from our room), but the request did little to help us fall asleep until finally they decided to go to bed as well. I am a frequent business traveler (usually staying a mid-range hotels, like Hampton Inns, Marriotts, and Holiday Inns). Never in my entire experience have I had such a problem of noise travel between an adjoining door. In fact, I have never had such an issue with noise in any hotel in my life. It was as if our neighbours were actually in our room.
The next morning, they were up at 6:30am (their baby was crying, the kids were super excited and running around in anticipation of their visit to Disneyland), so needless to say, our night's sleep clocked in at 4.5 hours. We were beyond tired (and we are used to short sleeps, as we have an 8 month old). Anyways, we decided that we needed to speak to a manager about the noise issue in our room, as we couldn't repeat the previous night's experience. We went to Guest Services and ended up speaking to a front desk manager. She first said that in her 11 years of experience, no guest had ever complained about noise between rooms (other than people having loud parties, in which they promptly deal with with security). She didn't seem to believe us how clearly we could hear our neighbours, but she did offer to move us to a new room. Because the hotel was sold out, she was only able to move us to an upgraded room. While it was inconvenient to pack everything up and check out of our first room, we were happy and relieved to move to our new room in the Dreams Tower. Our new room was a two bedroom suite with the second room specially decorated all in Mickey stuff. Very cute for a small child. Too bad DD would have no memory of her very cool hotel room.
Travel method: Drove from the Grand Canyon and flew home from LAX
Resort: Disneyland Hotel
Cast of characters: Me (29), DH (30), DD (8 Months)
Disney Resort Experience Represented in Group: My husband and I have traveled to the DLR 4 times in the past 5 years. It was my DD's first trip.
Just a quick trip report to share some of the details of our recent visit to Disneyland.
Of the six visits I have made to Disneyland in the past 9 years, I have always stayed in a good neighbour hotel along S. Harbour Blvd. This time, we decided to splurge and booked ourselves into the Disneyland Hotel. The hotel cost was almost 2.5 times more expensive than what we had paid in the past. Upon checking in (right at 3pm), we were told that they could not provide us with a DTD view, as we had request (we did pay extra to guarantee a resort view). I asked if there is anyway that we could be switched into a room with a view of Disneyland, as we had an infant and wanted to be able to see the fireworks. Eventually, after asking if we could even move rooms in the middle of our stay, we were offered a room in the Wonder Tower (which is the fartherest tower to walk from). We found our room was a large corner room with a huge balcony. Perhaps because we were paying a large sum for our room and we were constantly comparing our current hotel experience with previous experiences, we quickly noticed little things wrong with our room. First, the water glasses were dirty. One had a significant layer of dust in the bottom, like it hadn't been washed for an entire year. Second, our remote control didn't work. And third, our desk chair was missing. Before leaving for the park the next day, we left a tip for housekeeping including a note requesting a desk chair (we had already called about the remote and hand washed the glasses). When we returned to our room at 5:30 pm, our room had been cleaned and the tip was gone, but no chair. We eventually had one delivered to our room.
Because we wanted to make use of early entry to the park on Saturday morning, we decided to head to bed by 10:30pm. Upon turning off the TV and lights, we started to notice how noisy the room next to us was. We could hear every word of the conversations our neighbours were having. We could hear their little baby crying and their two kids getting ready for bed. We realized that the noise was traveling through our adjoining doors. At first, we figured they would be going to bed shortly, so we did our best to fall asleep, but it was impossible. Just their talking was so audible in our room that we were completely unable to ignore it. We learned all about their family and eventually their friend who came by to chat with them. They did not go to bed until 1:45 am, so neither did we. At 12:30am, we were exhausted and very annoyed, so we called the front desk. So one did call their room and ask them to quiet down (we could hear this easily from our room), but the request did little to help us fall asleep until finally they decided to go to bed as well. I am a frequent business traveler (usually staying a mid-range hotels, like Hampton Inns, Marriotts, and Holiday Inns). Never in my entire experience have I had such a problem of noise travel between an adjoining door. In fact, I have never had such an issue with noise in any hotel in my life. It was as if our neighbours were actually in our room.
The next morning, they were up at 6:30am (their baby was crying, the kids were super excited and running around in anticipation of their visit to Disneyland), so needless to say, our night's sleep clocked in at 4.5 hours. We were beyond tired (and we are used to short sleeps, as we have an 8 month old). Anyways, we decided that we needed to speak to a manager about the noise issue in our room, as we couldn't repeat the previous night's experience. We went to Guest Services and ended up speaking to a front desk manager. She first said that in her 11 years of experience, no guest had ever complained about noise between rooms (other than people having loud parties, in which they promptly deal with with security). She didn't seem to believe us how clearly we could hear our neighbours, but she did offer to move us to a new room. Because the hotel was sold out, she was only able to move us to an upgraded room. While it was inconvenient to pack everything up and check out of our first room, we were happy and relieved to move to our new room in the Dreams Tower. Our new room was a two bedroom suite with the second room specially decorated all in Mickey stuff. Very cute for a small child. Too bad DD would have no memory of her very cool hotel room.