BW making me move my reservation to another Resort for 12/1 due to construction delays???

[DebbieB]

I think it was poor planning. They usually block off one floor at a time on one side when doing renovations. Trying to do half the resort at once was too much.

I would keep escalating your complaint. I would not consider either equivalent.

 

[Lewisc]

I’m confused how it’s DVCs fault that the construction didn’t get finished

Didn't authorize overtime. Didn't properly estimate how long construction would take. Should have taken fewer rooms out of service and scheduled more time.

 

[Ronaldo17]

Bad planning and disgraceful customer service.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

DVC is typically so bad at handling this. The only time I can think of that they were relatively decent was with the whole VWL construction zone when they built CCV Cabins and ripped out the VWL amenities. Even then not everyone got the same compensation. This refurb is not like a room taken out for an emergency issue such as plumbing failure etc. It's as if they forget that people have to do a LOT of planning up to 11 months in advance for these rooms and continue on for scheduling the rest of the vacation.

1 - at a minimum they should give you points back OP if you go to the YC room. I cannot see you not getting that if you don't get some sort of equivalent room or upgrade such as concierge.
2 - up to you to continue to push for more.

I had Boardwalk view scheduled for later in Dec but events led to me cancelling. In the back of my mind I also figured it might be eliminating a headache if things weren't done and they wanted to move me.

 

[Nabas]

Disney used to be highly regarded because of their stellar service.

All too often now, they seem to look at their customers as cash machines.

 

[snappy]

I was told all guests with boardwalk view were being called and had to move. I asked several times. I have no idea if I was given the truth or not. If when I get there Friday there are a lot of people on the boardwalk view balconies I will be calling DVC.

 

[skier_pete]

I agree - not unfair for them to have to give you a studio, but totally unfair to not refund the difference between a studio and a 1-bedroom. A studio at YC is NOT equivalent to a 1-bedroom at BW. Good luck!

 

[tmc2469]

I agree - not unfair for them to have to give you a studio, but totally unfair to not refund the difference between a studio and a 1-bedroom. A studio at YC is NOT equivalent to a 1-bedroom at BW. Good luck!

Member services tried to tell me Yacht Club was a better resort. I thinks it’s their logic to not refund the points. I explained that I have been a BW owner since 1997 and in my opinion there is no better resort in WDW. And a 1-bedroom is not the same as a studio.

 

[snappy]

Member services tried to tell me Yacht Club was a better resort. I thinks it’s their logic to not refund the points. I explained that I have been a BW owner since 1997 and in my opinion there is no better resort in WDW. And a 1-bedroom is not the same as a studio.

I hope they finally agreed to give you the points back. The person I spoke to said that if they would have had to give me standard view studio instead of a boardwalk view studio, they would have refunded the difference in points. the difference between a room at the Yacht Club and a 1 bedroom at BWV is very different. I actually think I was downgraded since no longer had a water view. Not the same experience.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Member services tried to tell me Yacht Club was a better resort. I thinks it’s their logic to not refund the points. I explained that I have been a BW owner since 1997 and in my opinion there is no better resort in WDW. And a 1-bedroom is not the same as a studio.

Good grief. It's outside of the DVC system and an exchange requires more points. It's not better because it requires more points.

 

[jo-jo]

OP, please let us know the outcome.

Member services tried to tell me Yacht Club was a better resort. I thinks it’s their logic to not refund the points. I explained that I have been a BW owner since 1997 and in my opinion there is no better resort in WDW. And a 1-bedroom is not the same as a studio.

I don't care which resort it is, a one bedroom with the kitchen and laundry is way different than a big room with two beds.

 

[accm]

Didn't authorize overtime. Didn't properly estimate how long construction would take. Should have taken fewer rooms out of service and scheduled more time.

While I agree that the OP should have points refunded, I do not blame DVC for the delay.

Overtime - when would they be working overtime without disrupting guests? If they authorized overnight work, they’d have guests furious with them.

Estimated time - generally speaking, the contractor would be the one telling DVC how long the work will take. This also does not account for unforeseen circumstances. I would however, hope DVC has a liquidated damages clause written into their contract, with interim dates, to account for the extra costs associated with having to move people around.

Taking fewer rooms out wouldn’t have made a difference. You’d just be impacting fewer guests at a time, since those rooms are likely fully booked for the duration of the renovations.
How much more time do you think they should have scheduled? How do you know they didn’t?

Sorry, I know it sounds like I’m picking on you, which is not my intent. I just don’t think this is Disney’s (who isn’t even involved here) fault.

Working for a GC, I have a hard time faulting DVC for the delays. I do however think the options they gave the OP are unacceptable, and I’d be escalating the issue as much as necessary.

 

[Hoppy-tn]

I am sorry this happened and there is no reason they couldnt refund the point difference. when I arrived I would go to the villa Displays on the boardwalk with my picket signs, go inside and tell the sales guide what happened and that they better get on the phone finding someone you can talk to that can refund your points because if they can’t you will be there during your stay and your wife will be taking the skyliner to Riviera every day with her sign and you will be talking To everyone that is Interested in buying dvc informing them of how dvc treated you And thatyou would not recommend buying into the program. dvc is stealing money from you doing that and it’s just wrong. I hope you can get some rectification out of it.

 

[Lewisc]

Taking fewer rooms out wouldn’t have made a difference. You’d just be impacting fewer guests at a time, since those rooms are likely fully booked for the duration of the renovations.
How much more time do you think they should have scheduled? How do you know they didn’t?

Fewer rooms out at one time makes it less likely rooms won't be back in inventory when projected.

Posters said they are doing half the resort. Work should be able to be done at night without impacting other guests.

 

[MerlinandtheMouse]

Bear with me for this long winded story but it is semi-relevant! Back in May my sister and I booked a last minute 1-bdr Savanna view at Kidani and unfortunately when we arrived the room had a really intense and horrible burnt plastic and bacon smell throughout. We opened both balconies and just sat out there for over an hour hoping the smell would dissipate, but it never did.

It started making me really nauseous and we decided to call down to mousekeeping to see if they could at least come give the space another cleaning, maybe that would help but when we got on the phone the front desk apologized profusely and said they’d call us back with a solution. About 10 mins later a lovely woman who introduced herself as one of the managers at AKL again, apologized and offered to move us to a Jambo studio hotel-side since that was all they had for the night if we didn’t want to stay in that room. There was no argument, no pushback, no “let’s try this first before taking other measures” just a sincere apology and let me fix this the best way I can.

We didn’t really mind since it was only 1 night and just the two of us but I mentioned that our room cost us X pts (I don’t remember how much off the top of my head right now) and if it was possible to get some of our points back since we were technically “downgrading” (although the hotel-side rooms are so much nicer than the current state of the villas I’m not sure if it’s fair to call it a downgrade but I digress!)

She said she’d have to get back to me and again called 10 mins later and said she couldn’t cover the whole value but could offer us 25 points back for the inconvenience, of course we accepted- we were expecting less tbh.

All this to say, they can definitely return points if they down grade you and/or if they put you in a non-DVC hotel/rooms. And further, they absolutely should return your share of points I can’t even believe they’re out right refusing. We got some points back and we weren’t half as inconvenienced as you are currently.

I will say speaking to the manager might have helped. I’m not sure if you’ve been able to speak to one at BW but she had the power to make decisions the regular castmates at the front desk couldn’t. And I know we only had 1 night for them to contend so maybe we got lucky but that shouldn’t matter. Like others have said, keeping calling them and demanding to speak to the higher up’s!

Good luck and I hope you get the best solution for your situation as possible!

 

[MerlinandtheMouse]

Wow I really wrote a lot. Apologies I probably could have condensed that! Hope you made it to the only relevant part at the end

 

[Maistre Gracey]

I’m confused how it’s DVCs fault that the construction didn’t get finished

Catch 22 though because if they had put off the renovations until 2024 people would continue to be upset.

These things happen and while disappointing someone has to be moved, can’t say I agree that DVC can control delays or that they didn’t on purpose.

I am sure I will get criticized but this isn’t Disney…it’s DVC and when things happen to take rooms out of service, it’s on the association to figure it out and that is us as owners.

The only part that isn’t right is not refunding the owner extra points and I bet that was misinformation and that they will indeed get those back.

It’s not their fault, but it is their responsibility.

 

[Best Aunt]

I received a survey from DVC yesterday. It seemed to be mostly geared toward getting my thoughts about whether I would use extra points for Club Level access. However, there were questions about using my points in general and my feelings about Member Services, so I mentioned OP's issue.

Personally, I completely agree that (a) Member Services should have recognized that the recipient of the call is not going to be a happy camper, and (b) they should have offered to return some points as a gesture of good.

But I don't think this is a case of easy and obvious math regarding the number of points which they should have offered to return. You can't just say "return the point difference." It's not like they offered to move OP from a 1-bedroom Boardwalk view to a 1-bedroom studio. The offer was to move OP to a regular hotel room in a non-DVC hotel. They did not offer to move OP to a studio. Yacht Club doesn't have studios. And while it sounds like I am being nit-picky, I think the wording could make a difference when arguing with Member Services. As PPs have said, it is possible to book the Yacht Club with points, but that is not a typical use of points. I think this would be an important argument. Also, a studio offers amenities which are not available for a regular hotel room.

If rooms are booked, they can't make vacancies happen. But they can recognize that a person may be very unhappy with the change.

 

[tmc2469]

Bear with me for this long winded story but it is semi-relevant! Back in May my sister and I booked a last minute 1-bdr Savanna view at Kidani and unfortunately when we arrived the room had a really intense and horrible burnt plastic and bacon smell throughout. We opened both balconies and just sat out there for over an hour hoping the smell would dissipate, but it never did.

It started making me really nauseous and we decided to call down to mousekeeping to see if they could at least come give the space another cleaning, maybe that would help but when we got on the phone the front desk apologized profusely and said they’d call us back with a solution. About 10 mins later a lovely woman who introduced herself as one of the managers at AKL again, apologized and offered to move us to a Jambo studio hotel-side since that was all they had for the night if we didn’t want to stay in that room. There was no argument, no pushback, no “let’s try this first before taking other measures” just a sincere apology and let me fix this the best way I can.

We didn’t really mind since it was only 1 night and just the two of us but I mentioned that our room cost us X pts (I don’t remember how much off the top of my head right now) and if it was possible to get some of our points back since we were technically “downgrading” (although the hotel-side rooms are so much nicer than the current state of the villas I’m not sure if it’s fair to call it a downgrade but I digress!)

She said she’d have to get back to me and again called 10 mins later and said she couldn’t cover the whole value but could offer us 25 points back for the inconvenience, of course we accepted- we were expecting less tbh.

All this to say, they can definitely return points if they down grade you and/or if they put you in a non-DVC hotel/rooms. And further, they absolutely should return your share of points I can’t even believe they’re out right refusing. We got some points back and we weren’t half as inconvenienced as you are currently.

I will say speaking to the manager might have helped. I’m not sure if you’ve been able to speak to one at BW but she had the power to make decisions the regular castmates at the front desk couldn’t. And I know we only had 1 night for them to contend so maybe we got lucky but that shouldn’t matter. Like others have said, keeping calling them and demanding to speak to the higher up’s!

Good luck and I hope you get the best solution for your situation as possible!

I agree. If this was one night I would be less upset. We are staying 3 nights and had planned on using the kitchen as we often do. I understand things can happen to a room and with the resort at full capacity it’s unavoidable. As of today still no resolution on the point issue. All I’m asking is for the difference from a 1 bed to a studio. Not trying to get it for free. I think that’s fair.

 

[kmorlock]

I agree. If this was one night I would be less upset. We are staying 3 nights and had planned on using the kitchen as we often do. I understand things can happen to a room and with the resort at full capacity it’s unavoidable. As of today still no resolution on the point issue. All I’m asking is for the difference from a 1 bed to a studio. Not trying to get it for free. I think that’s fair.

Absolutely fair to reimburse you some of the points if they cannot provide equivalent or better than you had booked. To be fair, you’re still not even getting a studio. You’re going to a standard cash room on non-DVC Yacht club side correct? I know factually that rooms not shown online as available for both DVC & Cash exist. They need to do better and make a fair & equitable gesture for your inconvenience. Escalate thru Member Services as far up the chain as possible! Boardwalk as a general rule is the least accommodating with room requests, transfers, etc.