Our Two Hotel Horror Stories at Disney World
We recently wrapped up a whirlwind family vacation to Walt Disney World for Christmas-time, which included two hotel horror stories. In all honesty, one of them was more amusing than it was awful and the other had a happy ending after a comedy of errors, but both started out pretty badly.
You might find both interesting or funny, and although we’ve logged hundreds of hotel stays over the years, we’ve never had anything like either of these experiences before at Walt Disney World–or anywhere else in the world, for that matter. However, we have heard from enough readers over the last ~5 years who have reported similar incidents to both that we felt this might be worth sharing.
Our trip started out at the Grand Floridian mere days before the Birdcage Bar was slated to officially open. We had booked a Royal Palm Club Level stay in the main building for the holiday season, hoping we’d luck into the perfect scenario: Christmas tree up, construction finished, Birdcage Bar open, and no gingerbread house. As it turned out, only the last of those things ended up happening.
Right when the opening date for the Birdcage Bar was announced, I knew we might be in trouble. Just in looking at the work remaining to complete in the lobby, it appeared to be a race against the clock, especially if the actual goal was a soft opening over a lucrative holiday weekend.
To our surprise, work on the Birdcage Bar over the course of mere hours between the time we arrived and the end of our first evening was pretty significant. Maybe it wouldn’t be a race against the clock, after all! After what felt like a glacially slow few months, the construction crew made tremendous strides in only a few hours before heading home for the evening. Or so we thought.
Wanting to take full advantage of the pricey Royal Palm Club, we enjoyed our arrival evening there. It was quiet and peaceful once the construction crew headed home, a real ‘not a creature was stirring’ scenario thanks to the lack of anything drawing guests to the lobby.
That ended as we were leaving the lounge, right as dessert service concluded and Royal Palm Club closed up shop for the night. Around then, we saw and heard hard hat-clad workers returning to the lobby with supplies, but didn’t give much thought about what that meant.
Twenty minutes or so later, within minutes of getting into bed (it was like they were synchronized to our sleep schedule), loud drilling started. No exaggeration, I thought it was in the hallway right outside our door.
Thankfully (I guess?), it was not. One of the ‘dirty little secrets’ about the Grand Floridian is that the walls are practically paper thin (see “Room Raves” in Our Most Embarrassing Experiences at Walt Disney World), so it just sounded like it was right outside our door.
Our daughter was already asleep, and she’s a theme park child through and through, meaning she can sleep through pretty much anything (except me quietly opening a door for a late night snack at home–that’s the one thing that awakens her at high alert). This drilling, loud as it was, did not wake her up.
It did, however, prevent both of us from falling asleep. So Sarah and I played a “game” that we often do in scenarios like this, which is playing best and worst-case scenario to suss out the most likely outcome of proactively talking to a Cast Member. This usually comes up more in the context of “will asking this question yield any real results or information we don’t already know?” Think Ron Swanson in Home Depot.
My perspective was that it was pointless to go to the front desk. That someone high-up, maybe a manager or possibly even a leader above that, had made the calculated decision to conduct construction overnight, long beyond the ‘promised’ hours on the resort page of DisneyWorld.com.
In all likelihood, Walt Disney World leadership had determined that it was more important to have the Birdcage Bar open for the holiday weekend than it was to keep the small number of rooms (which probably weren’t operating at even close to full occupancy) happy. It’s not like construction workers had gone rogue; management wanted this to happen.
Given that likely scenario, we gamed out what would actually happen if we were to the front desk. We’d likely receive an apology and explanation from a frontline Cast Member, an offer to relocate us to another resort, and who knows what other guest recovery.
Frankly, it annoys me that the people who bear the brunt of the backlash in situations like this are frontline Cast Members and construction workers, neither of whom are responsible for what’s happening. If management is comfortable making a dubious decision like this, they should be on hand to own it and deal with guests.
But our toddler was sleeping and it was going on 11 pm, so the last thing we wanted to do was switch resorts (which would have woken her up) and get to bed at 1 am. In the meantime, the construction might’ve wrapped up on its own.
After mulling it over a bit, we decided to just wait things out and hope for the best. Neither of us were confident in this “do nothing” strategy. However, we figured there’s no way work would continue until 1 am, which was the best-case scenario for getting to sleep if we tried to change resorts. So we sat there.
It turned out to be a brilliant strategy, so kudos to us on just lying in bed! No more than 5 minutes after we reached this decision, we heard yelling. A lot of yelling. Yelling from what sound like it was right outside our door in the hallway. In this case, I think it actually might’ve been.
There was also more distant yelling. Thanks to the paper thin walls of the $1,000+ per night flagship resort’s guest rooms, we could hear the details of this yell-fest pretty well. This is a family-friendly blog, so I’ll spare you the specifics of the not-so-friendly conversation.
As it turns out, a guest staying in the main building was shouting at construction workers about it being too late for this type of work. They, in turn, were sharing their perspective on acceptable timing and decibel levels of the project.
This conversation carried on for what felt like 5 minutes. I’m somewhat surprised security wasn’t involved, but it didn’t seem to escalate beyond loud words. And I guess what was security supposed to say, anyway? “Sir, please lower your voice, you’re interrupting the loud construction that’s interrupting your sleep.”
When the conversation finally ended, I did head out in the hallway…along with what seemed like half the guests in the main building, all of whom were looking over the rail trying to figure out what the heck just happened. One thing I can tell you with certainty did happen: the construction stopped!
This was not a coincidence. It’s not like the crew resumed drilling for a few more minutes and just naturally finished whatever they were assembling in the lobby. Once the yelling commenced, the construction concluded.
Sarah and I are aligned on most things, but admittedly, we had different opinions on this. Her immediate reaction was that yelling like that was uncalled for and inappropriate. I know that was her sincerely-held belief, and not just what she was saying for my benefit with a subtext of, “you better never do anything like that.” She really felt that the guest had crossed a line and was deeply in the wrong.
It has been suggested that I not share my actual opinion on this, which is (supposedly) bound to be an unpopular one. First of all, the guest was in the wrong and he did cross a line. Sarah is right about all of that. It’s something that I’d never even consider doing. As it stands, I already bite my tongue in far milder situations due to this blog.
At the same time, drilling at almost 11 pm was also uncalled for. Did the managers or leadership who gave that the green light not themselves game out how guests would react? Disney is the party best positioned to avoid a situation exactly like that, so from my perspective, the onus is on them to not do construction when guests are sleeping.
Moreover, as someone who has been in similar situations before and did game this out, I am pretty confident that the only way that construction was ending when it did was someone causing a scene. Again, Disney made the decision to cause a disruption; it’s not like it would’ve caught the Grand Floridian team by surprise that drilling is loud and guests may not want to hear it through their paper thin walls while sleeping! (Have I mentioned that the Grand Floridian has thin walls?)
The dude was technically in the wrong with how he went about handling the situation, but I’d be willing to bet that handling it any other way wouldn’t have achieved any actual results. Disney was also in the wrong with drilling at 11 pm. Two wrongs don’t make a right and all that, so officially, DTB condemns both.
This reminds me a bit of DAS abuse, eBay pirates, and a number of problems the proximate cause of which is Disney’s own policy decisions. I am a firm believer in personal accountability, so obviously each individual is to blame for their own bad choices.
At the same time, Disney does a lot of things in pursuit of the all-mighty revenue that have clearly foreseeable second-order consequences. Loud construction while guests are sleeping in their flagship hotel to finish a bar ahead of schedule is one of those things. What did they honestly expect to happen?!
After getting to sleep by 11:10 pm, I was back up bright and early and working on my laptop in the lounge. The most amusing part of this entire experience unfolded then, when I overheard the dude talking to Cast Members and other guests on multiple occasions.
He was basically explaining his position, kinda-sorta apologizing (but not completely) for the disturbance. Honestly, I think he just wanted other guests to hear his perspective and realize he wasn’t a madman, because he was speaking just loudly enough for everyone in his general vicinity to overhear the conversations. He was just a big, boisterous New Yorker trying to make clear that he was not the villain in this story.
And honestly, he didn’t sound crazy at all. It might’ve helped that he was a Carousel of Progress fan. (I’m not sure how that was relevant to making his plea, but he made a couple of comments about it, so I feel compelled to share with you in the event that helps you weigh his case before passing judgment.) Some might say he wasn’t the villain at all, but the hero that the Grand Floridian deserved that night.
The Birdcage Bar did not open during our stay at the Grand Floridian, but it did soft open the evening after we checked out. There was no late night construction on subsequent days of our stay.
WDW Hotel Horror Story #2: Yacht Club Evac
For the second leg of our trip, we stayed at the Yacht Club.
On the evening we attended Mickey’s Very Merry Christmas Party, Sarah and Megatron had returned before me and were already asleep when I got back to the resort after 1 am. I’m always wound up after event nights, no matter what time it is, so I didn’t get to sleep until around 2 am.
Honestly, it felt like I was just shutting my eyes when the loudest fire alarm I’ve ever heard went off at 2:30 am. Sarah and I immediately shot up and frantically got dressed. Megatron, on the other hand, continued to sleep. This was a good thing at first, as it gave us an opportunity to locate her noise-muffling earmuffs that she wears during fireworks, parades, and everything else at Walt Disney World that triggers a “loud noise” warning on my Apple Watch.
Like I said, Megatron is a theme park kid through and through, and she was deep asleep. We were finally able to wake her up (not the alarm–us!) and walked out of our door to other confused and disheveled guests.
We were “fortunate” to be at the end of the hallway, but there was a backup of guests at that stairwell. We thought that, in the unlikely event of an actual emergency, we should probably just head the other direction to a different stairwell. So we did.
We got downstairs and outside fairly quickly. The mood was surprisingly light, with guests joking and laughing. There really wasn’t anyone behaving frantically, upset, or outraged. The vibe was basically: “This sucks, but stuff happens. Oh well, it is what it is.” Pretty much the best-case scenario, given the circumstances.
I mention this because one thing we’ve “discovered” is that kids’ reactions largely mirror those of adults around them. Any parent knows how this works, hence the air quotes around discovered. We had hoped that Megatron would see the upbeat and calm demeanor of the adults, and recognize there was no danger.
No such luck. She was terrified. The loud sound was enough to scare her, and by the time we got back up to the room she was literally trembling and wanted to hide under the covers. Neither of those things are normal or even occasional behavior for her. It took a while of comforting her, but she finally fell asleep.
The problem, and I’m not trying to be hyperbolic, is that Sarah and I sort of “absorbed” her fear and it took us a while to wind down after Megatron finally fell asleep. Again, I’d imagine fellow parents know what I mean here. I have no clue what time it finally was when the two of us finally fell asleep, but well after 3 am and probably pretty close to 4 am.
It felt like I had just closed my eyes when the fire alarm went off. Again.
Megatron shot right up this time, and was immediately trembling and terrified. The earmuffs were no match for the shrill sound of the fire alarm. We headed downstairs and outside yet again. The mood was different this time. No one seemed amused.
One thing that felt notable in both situations was zero communications from Walt Disney World. I assume there’s a manager on duty or something, but no one came out to convey to guests what was happening–or why it had occurred twice. Maybe this happened somewhere, but not out where we were standing right outside the main lobby.
After it was all over, we made the long walk back up the stairs and down our hallway and once again took a long time soothing Megatron to sleep. For both Sarah and I, it was one of those situations where we were utterly exhausted but the adrenaline was pumping.
I have absolutely no clue when we finally got to sleep, but I didn’t wake up until 8:30 am, and they were both up after me. Speaking of which, please disregard my previous promise to cover the extra Early Entry at Disney’s Hollywood Studios. Due to, ahem, unforeseen circumstances, that did not happen.
When we finally did get out the door at almost 11 am, everything seemed fine. Megatron was excited to meet Olaf, see Woody in Toy Story Land, etc. And the day was mostly fine, although throwing off her sleep and nap schedule was definitely suboptimal. Nothing we haven’t dealt with before, though, and we just rolled with the punches.
Then we headed back to Yacht Club for dinner. As soon as we walked into the hotel, she was clearly upset, wanted to be held by Sarah, and buried her head in mom’s chest. She repeatedly said that she ‘wanted to go home.’ Do you know how heartbreaking it is to hear your kid say that at Walt Disney World?
Getting her to sleep that night wasn’t easy, to the point that we almost asked to switch resorts. In hindsight, that might’ve been the right decision. She was perfectly fine and excited about everything else we did, but every time we first walked into the Yacht Club, she got quiet and seemed scared.
I’m not trying to sensationalize this. To the contrary, this type of thing makes me a little uncomfortable to share; it just feels a bit too personal. But I’m not suggesting that our vacation was ruined or anything close to that. It wasn’t! We still had great days in the parks, and it was an incredible trip. It was just like flipping a switch when getting back to the hotel from the (and I don’t think this is a hyperbolic word choice) traumatic experience that first night.
There was a lot of confusion and supposition among guests and Cast Members about what caused the fire alarm to go off twice in one night. We also overheard a lot of chatter about this, and it seemed like the prevailing theory was an issue in one of the kitchens. But that’s far from certain–and was just what the dominant gossip suggested.
Not wanting to risk a repeat of that night, Sarah spoke with a Cast Member about what happened. She explained the situation, and why we didn’t want to potentially endure another night of that (not that there were other guests who did, but I assume the adults were only left tired, not traumatized).
The Cast Member proactively offered guest recovery without being asked or prompted. We also could’ve switched resorts if we wanted, but opted against it after receiving a reassurance that the issue had been addressed and it shouldn’t happen again on subsequent nights.
The guest recovery given was fairly modest (far less in value than the cost of even a single night), but that’s beside the point. It was the gesture that mattered to us. We also did not ask for anything more–or anything at all, in the first place. Perhaps we could’ve gotten a better offer by escalating to a manager, but that wasn’t our aim.
The only thing they could’ve offered that would’ve made me “happy” is the ability to time travel to before the fire alarms went off. Hearing our daughter repeatedly say she wanted to go home is one of those bells you can’t unring, and not having that happen would’ve been priceless!
Accordingly, there isn’t really anything that Walt Disney World could’ve offered to “undo” that. What they did offer seemed reasonable and like a good-faith effort to remedy an irremediable situation.
When I remove our emotional response from the equation, the reality is that stuff like this does happen, and it’s not anyone’s fault. Sure, communications could’ve been a bit better, but that was hardly make or break. It was just a bad situation, safety is paramount, yadda yadda yadda. I’m no more upset with Disney about this than I would’ve been if there was a hurricane scare.
In the end, it’s a bit ironic. My perspective is that the incident at the Grand Floridian was indirectly instigated by Walt Disney World and they could’ve (and should’ve) prevented it from escalating. But in the end, that was very amusing. I got a hilarious story out of it that I’ve already told a few times to friends. (If you didn’t think it was funny, that’s probably because I can’t do the voices via text. Maybe I should start a podcast just to tell this story with the voices.)
On the other hand, there was nothing amusing about the Yacht Club horror story and I cringe a bit even at sharing this. I loved writing up the first half of this, but hated the second. It just isn’t the type of thing I like to put out there, so hopefully it’s somehow of some value. Regardless, as unamusing and disheartening as this was, there’s really no one to blame. It’s just something unfortunate that happened–and we’ve never had an experience like this at Walt Disney World.
After that night, we were somewhat reticent to expose Megatron to any loud shows, parades, or fireworks for the duration of the trip after the fire alarm incident. But as luck would have it, we were passing through World Showcase right as Luminous started on our last night. Megatron was briefly amused by it…before falling asleep somewhere between the UK and International Gateway. Kids are resilient!
To end on an unequivocally positive note, the best “guest recovery” of all happened by happy accident as we were leaving the lobby on checkout morning. Megatron was wearing her Daisy Duck outfit, and had stopped at the kids area and started coloring or something. Had she not paused for this, or had we sped out of our room ~10 minutes earlier, we might’ve missed the experience entirely.
A few characters had just arrived via the Character Caravan (which we now love even more), and Daisy Duck made a beeline to Megatron, took her by the hand, and walked her around the lobby for a ‘fashion shoot’ with one of the best PhotoPass photographers we’ve ever encountered.
Our daughter’s face absolutely lit up, as she smiled from ear to ear. It was the highlight of our Walt Disney World trip, and it happened right in the lobby of the Yacht Club. She has repeatedly mentioned walking with Daisy Duck (and wanting to do it again) as her favorite thing about Walt Disney World in the days and weeks since. She has not mentioned the fire alarm since. And it’s this kind of magic that’ll keep us going back again and again.
Planning a Walt Disney World trip? Learn about hotels on our Walt Disney World Hotels Reviews page. For where to eat, read our Walt Disney World Restaurant Reviews. To save money on tickets or determine which type to buy, read our Tips for Saving Money on Walt Disney World Tickets post. Our What to Pack for Disney Trips post takes a unique look at clever items to take. For what to do and when to do it, our Walt Disney World Ride Guides will help. For comprehensive advice, the best place to start is our Walt Disney World Trip Planning Guide for everything you need to know!
YOUR THOUGHTS
Any Walt Disney World hotel horror stories of your own? Or have your stays at WDW resorts been entirely positive? Thoughts on our experiences, or anything else? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing your feedback–even when you disagree with us–is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Normally I love your articles, but this one misses the mark. Sure, those experiences sucked, and sure, you tried to make it general interest, and sure, who doesn’t love an occasional Megatron update? But honestly, this is kind of a personal story that I don’t think meets what this blog is for. But hey, it’s your show, and if you want to change the tone to fit your experiences as a parent, that’s cool!
Keep up the great work!!
I am glad you posted this on your blog. We were at Yacht Club the same night. Tired after the Christmas Party and then 2 false fire alarm. I did not ask any crew members about the incidents hence we did not hear a peep from the resort. It is very disappointing that the manager did not at least send out an apology message. I am still bothered by this almost a month later. We were exhausted the next day and also ended up sleeping in a little. Thanks Tom!
Thanks for the honest feedback.
This blog started out as being mostly trip reports, which were 100% personal stories. It’s since evolved to be more of a planning & news resource, but there’s still a lot of our anecdotal experiences that will only be helpful to others to the extent that there’s just general overlap in the kinds of experiences people can have at Walt Disney World.
With that said, I almost didn’t share this because it felt a bit too personal. At the same time, I know for a fact that construction at off-hours has been a thing throughout Walt Disney World (since we’ve received reader comments about it fairly frequently since ~2021) and also that fire alarms do go off from time to time.
We have had our share of less than delightful deluxe experiences- but nothing beats back in February of 2011 when dozens of live bats descended into the wilderness lodge lobby and hallways for several days. They dive bombed guests while cast members attempted to catch them with nets.
That is insane!!!
We too had bats in the WL lobby. Not a lot, 6 to 10? Came in in the evening. It took them less than two full days but it was fun to watch them try to round them up.
We had one in our house on two separate occasions. I’m not into killing wildlife so I had to throw a bedspread over it.
That’s not as easy as it sounds.
from the perspective of Megatron, that was probably quite literally the scariest thing that has happened to her in her life. So “traumatic” is not an overstatement. Sorry that happened to you, but so glad she got to parade around with Daisy! We had a similar story on or one DCL cruise when my daughter was dressed as Wendy for Pirates night and we ran into Peter Pan on the ship. He sat down on the floor with her and spent a ton of time talking with her – it was a great memory.
We had a fire alarm go off in the middle of the night at All Star Music in April 2024. We experienced the same lack of communication. Guests stood outside for 15-20 minutes and eventually started going back inside on their own. Someone from the fire department finally appeared, admonishing people for returning to their rooms (even though the alarm had been turned off). No cast members ever came out at all during the entire event.
Same thing happened at WL the night of November 11 while we were there. Fire alarm went off after midnight, forcing evacuation of the resort. This seems to be a recent trend based on other comments here…
Happened to us at WL in 2023!!
Born and raised native New Yorker here. That guy was the hero everyone needed that night–for sure. There’s a saying: New Yorkers aren’t nice, but they ARE kind. Your guy took one for the team.
S0 sorry story #2 happened. But kids are resilient! Long story short: my daughter was not fully prepared for Tower of Terror when she first rode the attraction. She was feeling brave (at 5) after riding Big Thunder and Splash the day before. I was sitting next to her, and as you mentioned, “absorbed” all her fear. At 18, she has fully recovered and loves the ride. I still can’t do that attraction without reliving her panic that evening. The ride is no longer enjoyable for me.
Don’t understand why it took so long to build a bird cage bar . I mean you can renovate a full kitchen in 2 months tops . Project was dragged out so long like all the construction at these Disney parks . And probably 3/4 of Disney fans think this bar is really not a great upgrade anyway .
Perhaps there is a glitch in the fire alarm system resort-wide. We stayed at Wilderness Lodge very recently and had the fire alarm go off on two occasions (so far), once a little after 7 am during breakfast rush, also with no communication, after which I asked a cast member what happened and was assured there was nothing to worry about. My worry mainly was it happening again. And then around 3 am the next morning it happened again. Again, no communication from any cast members. Luckily our children were not frightened, but it made for a rough morning trying to do early entry.
We’re staying at Wilderness Lodge right now and were awoken by the fire alarm around 3:15 AM this morning. We abandoned our Early Entry plans at Animal Kingdom entirely in favor of getting more sleep.
We have had a fire alarm event happen at a non-Disney hotel and our kids were not a fan of the incident. We also had a poor Disney decision at a Disney Hotel. We were staying on club level at the Contemporary and our room was near the club lounge. We had been at MVMCP and had gotten back to our room around 1pm and went straight to bed exhausted. About 1:30am mousekeeping was vacuuming and using a loud carpet cleaner machine. This went on for about an hour! Needless to say we didn’t get to sleep until close to 3am. We were not happen since we had morning Breakfast reservations at Chef Mickey so sleeping in later wasn’t an option. I understand that they have to clean when club lounge is not in use but I think it could have occurred before 1:30am. It is expensive staying on club level in December and I do have the expectation that we won’t be disturbed by noise in the middle of the night through Disney’s actions. We didn’t complain because we figured it wouldn’t help. We also didn’t speak to anyone about it the next day but in retrospect maybe we should have. Being sleep deprived made for a rough day at the Parks for the family.
Wow! Why the comments about New Yorkers???? Hum
Exactly! You said it before I did!
Just to be clear, this was not intended as a slight against New Yorkers in any way whatsoever.
New Yorkers are gritty (not to be confused with the mascot from Philly). I was just trying to paint a picture of this dude…who I called a hero in the post. 🙂
As a (transplanted, I admit!) New Yorker I definitely read the first half of this thinking “Yea, I definitely get shouting at 11PM to tell other people to ST…er, zip it.” I wouldn’t do it myself but if I saw him in the hall, I’m probably throwing him a nod.
Heartbreaking second half. Harder to share than to read, I’m sure, but I think other littles will benefit from parents and non-parents reading how a maybe “minor” inconvenience can be anything but for some people.
My 2 cents is that there’s no one to blame when a fire alarm goes off once at 2AM, but there’s almost definitely someone to blame if it goes off twice around that time. Maybe it’s just a line drawing problem as to how many alarms before we start to think someone messed up, but I think even your single data point is compelling enough to put this in the “just can’t happen” category of family hotel operations.
Your closing reminds me of the Orson Welles line, “If you want a happy ending, that depends, of course, on where you stop your story.” There’s a similar idea with “guest recovery” or nighttime spectaculars in the parks. Ending a day / visit / guest interaction on a high note matters, but I’m always torn as to whether that’s the actual Magic of Disney or whether I’m just being played into forgetting how this all went wrong to begin with (guest recovery Lightning Lanes make my head spin).
We are currently at Wilderness lodge in our 1st ever club level room. The fire alarm went off at 3:20 last night. We all orderly climbed down 7 flights of stairs in our disney pjs (some children crying traumatized a bit) and waited outside for about 30 min for all clear. We got back to room and just as settled down again at 4:10 there were work truck outside out magic kingdom facing room loudly “beeeep beeep beeepong”’ the rest of night. Not exactly what I expected. We were excited for som relaxation but got very little sleep.
Thanks for sharing, Tom, and I’m glad your trip ended on such a high note!
We stayed at Animal Kingdom Lodge in March for one night before taking Disney transport to a cruise on the Wish. My husband and I were already having a hard night because something had set off our alarm at home in Indiana and we were trying to troubleshoot from afar. Thankfully, our four-year-old daughter had been asleep for quite some time, and in general, is an excellent sleeper. Until the loudest fire alarm in the world went off around 4:00 a.m. I was so discombobulated that I just grabbed my daughter and carried her outside with no shoes and no phone – thank goodness my husband at least brought his for a key!
We saw Cast Members in the lobby but didn’t receive much news while we waited outside. The mood was fine among guests, and I don’t think we were out there for too long. Our issue was that once our daughter was up, she was up. There was no getting her back to sleep, and with the deadline to have our suitcases ready for cruise pick-up by 7:00 a.m., it seemed pretty pointless for any of us to stress too much about sleep at that point. It definitely made for a hard first day of what was only a three-day cruise.
I was disappointed in the lack of Cast Member response both during the drill and after. There was no guidance throughout the process and no explanation at check out. We didn’t ask for any recovery, nor did we expect any, but some sympathy for guests would have been nice. Eve a free coffee or breakfast voucher would have gone a long way in resetting the tone for that Friday. But, I can also see how that might be hard to do for hundreds of guests.
Glad to hear you still had an amazing trip. My wife and I have both worked in the service industry, and we go out of our way to be kind. Caddying for a couple summers at a very expensive country club was life changing for me, and I make it a point to never treat people the way I was treated carrying golf bags. I like to think I wouldn’t have flown off the handle, but no way I could have tolerated construction after 11 at any Disney Resort (especially the Grand Floridian).
Our first stay at AKL we had a horror story getting our bags to our room. Long story short, after checking in to our room in the morning, doing a full park day (ie staying past fireworks), they still had not delivered our bags when we arrived back at the room. It was the first day, everyone was exhausted, and wanted to just change into pajamas and get to sleep. I ended up being an annoying guest (not my finest moment) and they let me into the back area where I ended up taking the luggage carts myself.
Unfortunately, sometimes I feel like you do have to be a squeaky wheel to resolve service issues when traveling.
Aww, poor Bud!! Glad she was able to end the stay with the character magic in the lobby! Reminds me of when we took our son to Epcot at about two and a half, and I planned the logistics to a T to rope drop Remy’s via the International Gateway. We were some of the first groups on and all was fantastic until our son became utterly terrified by the ride, cried the whole rest of the ride! He still mentions the “pepper” that sprayed him on Remy’s (I think it might’ve been the champagne bottles? Unsure as I remember nothing from that ride as I was trying to console him/cover his eyes the whole time, ha!) at five and a half, and we have yet to ride it again. You’re right though, kids are resilient! He bounced back after a snack from Les Halles and a leisurely walk towards Frozen through a very quiet World Showcase, checking out the trains in Germany.
The first story really needs your performance. Voices, facial expressions and dialogue. Would love to see it.
Once upon a time I was staying at a 5 star hotel in Montreal, Canada where a firemans’ convention was being held.
Fire companies from all over NYC and the state were there.
In other words, thousands of professional drinking men and women.
Not surprisingly a fair amount of alchol was consumed before the real fun started.
It seems that fireman from outside a community like to test the reaction time of the local fire companies.
Someone pulls an alarm, someone else has a stop watch and guests file out into the Canadian streets in their pj’s.
Now a time has been set, the local fire department leaves and not long afterthe visitors will do it again to see if those locals can improve on their record.
This is done over and over into the night as prtice makes perfect.
By the third time the police showed up as well.
Being the first time the police arrived, they found it kind of funny and asked the visitors to stop pulling the fire alarm.
But these are Americans and drunken New Yorkers ontop of that.
Police and firemen have a long tradition of friendly competitive camaraderie but this night by the fourth round of “shenanigans” the cops were really pissed and threatening to arrest the visiting guests.
The local fireman, despite being really truly angry, stepped in to defend their pain in the butt “brothers”.
Every officers worst nightmare is responding to a domestic dispute and this was a beaut.
Scantiluy clad guests in pajamas were backing the police and threats were flowing like beer at a fireman or policeman’s convention.
A half dozen or so of the top ranking officials from the visitors, the local police and firemen, the hotel manager and myself as the guest rep (we had formed our own union during the third false alarm) entered into an agreement.
If another firemen pulled an alarm during the rest of the weekend they’d better also set the hotel on fire or they’d all be going to prison.
BTW No babies were harmed during the 5 false alarms.
Oof. We’ve all been there with a small child struggling to recover from a scary experience that they were too young to understand. It’s rough.
But your experience reminded me of the first time we took our dd to Disney. She was 2.5 and her grandmother had died about three months before our trip. They used to watch Doc McStuffins and Mickey Mouse shows together. Our dd’s main goal at Disney was to see Doc McStuffins as often as humanly possible. And the first meeting was fantastic. But that night she cried at bedtime about her grandmother, and the next morning (when we had a character breakfast with Doc) she started crying again. So here we are, in a crowded restaurant, with a suddenly inconsolable child. I mean, crying like her grandmother died a minute earlier. We were seriously thinking about ditching the breakfast. Disney cast members rushed over and gave her stickers, which calmed her from inconsolable to just deeply sad. We decided to stay, reasoning that food and actually seeing Doc might cheer her up and anyway we needed to feed her.
Suddenly Doc approached – WITH A DOCTOR BAG. A plastic toy bag with about 100 pieces inside. (Seriously!) And she signed it and gave it to our dd. It was amazing. Our dd kept saying, “For me? You’re giving it to me? For keeps?”
And boy oh boy after that she was thrilled. Danced with all the characters. Had a great day. I’m not saying the toy was what cheered her up – we could’ve bought her a toy and it would not have had this effect. It was Doc GIVING her what our dd definitely thought was Doc’s own personal doctor bag.
Our dd is 11 now but she still has that bag…and maybe five of the 100 pieces that were inside it, LOL.
Incredible story. Thanks for sharing.
I’m like you and Sarah, I hardly complain, especially if it’s about food or at a hotel, it’s gotta be a real good reason.
Well, a year or so ago my wife and I were having breakfast on the balcony at Grand Floridian Big Pine Key room and all of a sudden this torrential downpour of water comes crashing down on us from the balcony above, getting our breakfast wet. We looked up and there was no one there, we went upstairs to go knock on the door and the room was vacant, being cleaned. So we called the desk and were basically like “Hey, we were out eating and our food got wet, maybe it was a cast member cleaning, can you just maybe replace our breakfast”?
Well, this started a whole investigation and the Housekeeping manager was at our door right away with brand new breakfasts that he picked up himself and also $100 credit and a bag of Grand Floridian merch, I was like wow ok, that’s very nice, while also internally calculating that someone must have screwed up big time to get this reaction, haha.
Disney is used to people going to 11 and I think they appreciate when people are understanding and more reasoned, and I don’t begrudge the guy for doing that in the middle of the night, construction at that hour in an enclosed building is unacceptable. But also, kindness goes a long way as well.
Thanks for sharing those Tom.
Just promise us that should the Brickers have a second child that the middle name will be Starscream! 🙂
Ugh…very unpleasant situations you guys had to go through! First, sorry Sarah, I dub the man a hero. If I were there I’m sure I would have felt super uncomfortable hearing the argument, and I would have been very upset with the swearing. But! Someone had to be that guy and say something. You all weren’t staying at a $100/night Motel 6. Second, so sorry you went through that with little Megatron, I do believe it was heartbreaking to hear her say she wanted to go home. Best case scenario, that trauma doesn’t set in and she forgets about it and remembers the positive! Fingers crossed!