Articles | Disneyland | Walt Disney World
Results 1 to 5 of 5

Thread: Caribbean Beach Resort reimagineering

  1. #1
    Registered User Silvercat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Birmingham, UK

    Caribbean Beach Resort reimagineering

    Has anyone seen the news about CBR? The food court, merchandise store, concierge, pool bar, and some walkways are shutting down on 01 May for some months while the new DVC resorts are added. Pop-up food trucks will be added, and new temporary walkways put in, but most people from the UK who are scheduled to stay there this year are currently frantically spending 2-3 hours on the phone to Disney Holidays UK, in order to either get moved to Port Orleans or get a room credit if they decide to stay with CBR.

    We have discussed it extensively at home, and have decided to go with the move, and I'm currently on hold to Disney (1 hour and 8 mins in!) to see what can be done. We have never stayed at CBR before, and were looking forward to seeing it, but then we won't be seeing it at its best if parts are being demolished and rebuilt (it is a 2 year project, apparently), so as we've not stayed at POR before either, I think we'll go for that, if there is availability in October.

    Disney have not handled this particularly well, surprisingly, as they wouldn't confirm details to start with and have only sent us an email telling us the work will be done and they hope it doesn't have too much impact on our vacation! It's not until a lot of us started to complain that they came up with the move or compensation offer, which as the Disney Holidays company is UK registered, they had to offer us by law. But now they seem to have stepped up to the mark and folk are saying they are being offered a move or a reduced cost upgrade to another resort, or the discount to stay put.

    I'm now at 1 hr 14 mins .......

    Silvercat

    (Enjoy reading trip reports? Why not try my books, "Tiggerific Travels" - all 4 books available now as e-books)

  2. # ADS

    Join Date
    Location
    Posts
     

  3. #2

    Oh no!!!!
    I hope you manage to change the reservations. That's terrible.

    It reminds me of when I was getting married on the Queen Mary. They "forgot" to mention they would be doing construction after removing the Spruce Goose and our wedding photos have giant construction cranes where a beautiful ocean view would be.

    I realize these companies want to make money, but doing so at the misery of your customer is a terrible way to go about it.


  4. #3
    Registered User Silvercat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Birmingham, UK

    Oh that's awful, your wedding photos are hardly something you can shoot again!

    Well I finally got through after 2 hrs and 14 mins, and spoke to a very lovely lady. I know they are having a very hard time a the moment, so I started the conversation off with, "I bet you can't guess why I'm calling!" and she laughed. She was really nice, offered me Coronado Springs instead, but I said we would rather go somewhere that had no construction work going on, so she checked and said I could have a king room (which is what I'd booked at CBR) at Port Orleans French Quarter instead, at no extra cost to us (if we'd booked POFQ ourselves it would have been 400 more). We've kept the free QSDP and free Memory Maker, and they are also refunding the account by another 77 as well, for some reason.

    I've already had confirmation of the move, and she said it would take about a week to get onto MDX as they are so busy at the moment.

    Phew! Really didn't fancy staying in a building site, even if it was a Disney one with "Pardon our pixie dust" signs everywhere!

    Silvercat

    (Enjoy reading trip reports? Why not try my books, "Tiggerific Travels" - all 4 books available now as e-books)

  5. #4

    Caribbean Beach Resort reimagineering

    You did the right thing. Having just left Caribbean Beach three hours ago I can tell you there is no way a few food trucks are making up for the mess they are about to make of that resort. You will love POFQ it's very compact and charming. Only one bus stop. And if you want to use POR main and quiet pools and food courts you can. Well done I was wondering how you would manage this issue. The Dib is going collectively berserk about it!!!!!

     

    If no-one out there understands, start your own revolution and cut out the middle man (Billy Bragg)

  6. #5
    Registered User Silvercat's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2007
    Location
    Birmingham, UK

    Thanks, Scoobs. To start with, Disney were refusing point blank to offer free moves or compensation for staying put, but I think the power of the Dibb won out in the end and after a few hours that changed to free moves to one of the Port Orleans resorts, or stay at CBR and be given $75 a night per room credit to be spent at Disney. Anyone who had paid to move to POR (which is a more expensive moderate) had their money refunded. Then they dropped the compensation to be fifty pounds (not dollars) off the cost of the room, which is obviously poorer value than the room credit. By Friday last week the offer had dropped again, to be a $25 gift card per night. People are hopping mad that the compensation keeps changing as this is unfair to anyone who couldn't spend up to 3 hours on the phone waiting for a CM during the week, and the phone lines close at 8 p.m.

    My first instinct was definitely to go for the $75 a night room credit, which we could have spent on lots of stuff, but the more I thought about it, the more unhappy I would have been at staying in a building site. Hysterical laughter ensued in this household last night when Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway announced their big group prize this year was a trip to WDW in 6 weeks, staying at CBR!! I mean we entered the competition anyway, but this just seemed so ironic!

    The Dibb was very entertaining, and rapidly became HUNDREDS of posts from disgruntled Dibbers looking for answers. I felt sorry for some of them, but others were just out for "what they could get" out of Disney. Shame.

    Anyway, I trust you had a good trip? Welcome back!

    Silvercat

    (Enjoy reading trip reports? Why not try my books, "Tiggerific Travels" - all 4 books available now as e-books)

Bookmarks

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •