Kidani experience - not good

[Mickeynutty]

First, I apologize for the asterisks. *My iPad puts them in when I post on the DIS.

I just checked in to Kidani and had a BAD experience. *What time is DVC room check - in? *As far as I know it is 4:00. *I got to Kidani at about 3:30. *It took almost 30 mins. to see a CM and check - in. *After he got my MB synced up, he said, "Your room will be ready between 4:00 and 5:00. *HUH???

I asked if he meant 4:00 and he said, "Rooms are ready between 4 and 5.

Sure enough, my room was not ready until 4:30. *I called Member Services and they connected me to a CM at Kidani. *He ALSO told me rooms do not have to be ready by 4:00 because they take longer to clean. *My second HUH???

I asked to speak with his supervisor. *That man called me in my room and FINALLY confirmed that yes, rooms are to be ready for check - in at 4:00. *He said he would speak to the two people who gave me incorrect info.

So far, I am not impressed with Kidani.

 

[disneynutz]

Same at all DVC resorts, check in is after 4:00. In all the years of owning with probably 30 check-ins, our earliest room ready time was 2:30, our latest 8:00 at SSR.

Bill

 

[paults]

check-in is 4 pm, your room does not have to be ready, that is just the check-in time. You can check-in anytime after 6:30 AM I believe and go about your business but your room doesn't need to be ready till 4 PM and after. If you get lucky your room could be ready early. We check=-in at BWV on Sun 4/27/14 at noon when we got there and our room was ready. what luck

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Check in is after 4PM and DVC does not have any room guarantee time. It's not unusual to get your room before 4PM but it's also very possible to get the room after 4PM at any resort. That's not specific to Kidani.

 

[Mickeynutty]

OP here. Well, I guess we have been lucky. For previous trips, our room has always been ready by 4:00. Thank you for clarifying the policy for me!

 

[Belle & Ariel]

I don't understand.....Why would they say 4:00 but the room does not have to be ready they also allow check in at 7a.m.? I have always understood rooms are not guaranteed ready till 4.
I think it is ridiculous for us to accept a room not being ready until the evening but have to check out before 11.
I do not believe mousekeepers are still cleaning rooms at 6 or 7 p.m.--why aren't rooms ready?
We did have a stay at Kidani last September when we checked in and used pool then went to park at 4(room not ready yet) and never got the room ready text. We got back to resort after midnight and thankfully it was ready. All other times we are in by 4 as it should be.

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

I don't understand.....Why would they say 4:00 but the room does not have to be ready they also allow check in at 7a.m.? I have always understood rooms are not guaranteed ready till 4.
I think it is ridiculous for us to accept a room not being ready until the evening but have to check out before 11.
I do not believe mousekeepers are still cleaning rooms at 6 or 7 p.m.--why aren't rooms ready?
We did have a stay at Kidani last September when we checked in and used pool then went to park at 4(room not ready yet) and never got the room ready text. We got back to resort after midnight and thankfully it was ready. All other times we are in by 4 as it should be.

The distinction is they say after 4PM. And even then they don't have a guarantee time. Places that do have a room ready guarantee make a big point of it but they are not the norm in my experience. And in the majority of cases rooms are ready by 4 or close to it. I can only think of one time at WDW that our room hasn't been ready by 4 or even well before that. But several rooms are cleaned by each housekeeper so there will always be that one at the end and if they get hung up with something particularly bad or someone not leaving the room when they should they could get behind.

Personally I wouldn't mind a guarantee time but as others will point out that would probably come with increased cost because of having to have more housekeepers to ensure that guarantee.

 

[DebbieB]

When I stayed at VGC last summer, our room was not ready until about 4:45-5:00. The cm was apologetic, he even went to the room himself to check on it. He ended up giving us each a use anywhere fastpass (except Radiator Springs).

It's possible it was a heavy check-out day, I heard the parks were very crowded last weekend.

 

[Brook1099]

We had such a horrible check in experience there last yr. ( Our second trip here) that we we swore we would never go back..
They finally had to set us up in a temporary room to change so we could make our dinner ressies
they did cover our bill to Boma.. gave us 3 extra fast passes a day and sent a beautiful chocolate spread to our room.. so they certaintly took care of us for a mistake on there part.. so we may stay again someday.. not this YEAR though..lol

 

[Murron]

I seriously...and I mean very seriously .... have to say that I've only had to wait for my room after 3 p.m. about 4 times (most always Beach Club Villas). All other times (trust me it's many, many as we go twice per year) we have arrived at our resort at noon ish from NY and have walked right into our room. So I have to ask why am I so lucky? Can it be because I do on line check in? Or because I am sure they know when I'm arriving? Not sure. Maybe just lucky? Have I just jinxed myself ??? LOL!!!

 

[sssteph]

First, I apologize for the asterisks. *My iPad puts them in when I post on the DIS.

I just checked in to Kidani and had a BAD experience. *What time is DVC room check - in? *As far as I know it is 4:00. *I got to Kidani at about 3:30. *It took almost 30 mins. to see a CM and check - in. *After he got my MB synced up, he said, "Your room will be ready between 4:00 and 5:00. *HUH???

I asked if he meant 4:00 and he said, "Rooms are ready between 4 and 5.

Sure enough, my room was not ready until 4:30. *I called Member Services and they connected me to a CM at Kidani. *He ALSO told me rooms do not have to be ready by 4:00 because they take longer to clean. *My second HUH???

I asked to speak with his supervisor. *That man called me in my room and FINALLY confirmed that yes, rooms are to be ready for check - in at 4:00. *He said he would speak to the two people who gave me incorrect info.

So far, I am not impressed with Kidani.

I actually had this same exact thing told to me by the Grand Cali staff, I challenged them and reported it MS also.

 

[SamSam]

Check-in is after 4pm, luckily it's usually earlier. We've only had one time that our check-in was horribly late (6:30), turned out it was due to a horrible previous guest and they had to shampoo the carpet's, etc. before the room was ready. Not going to get into how we knew this, but things happen.

Most of the time our room is ready by mid afternoon, if it's later we chalk it up to a rude guest that didn't get out by 11am.

 

[tjkraz]

Maybe I'm a "glass is half full" guy but given all of the times we have had access to our room well before 4pm, I don't think I could bring myself to complain too much on the rare occasion when we don't get into the room by 4.

In 10 years of ownership, only time I can think we had problems was a couple years ago at Grand Californian. It was around 4:30 by the time we got into our room.

My own personal rule of thumb is to never, ever, EVER schedule any significant plans on our arrival day. No ADRs. No hard-ticket events. Nothing.

There are simply too many things that can go wrong on arrival day. Planes run late. Luggage gets lost. Rooms aren't ready when anticipated.

IMO, making arrival day plans is just asking for trouble. Some years things will proceed flawlessly but that occasion when it doesn't, it's just more aggravation to deal with.

 

[SpectroMan71]

Wow, I must travel at the absolute most dead times of year because I've never had to wait until 4pm to get into my room. I've gotten in at 7am, even!

 

[DenLo]

We didn't get a studio at BLT until 4:45 one trip. We checked in at 8:30 AM.

Otherwise there has been a three split between getting the room within an hour after check in, three hours after check in and 3:00-3:30 PM. No rhyme or reason involved. We just assume we cannot get into the room before 3:00 anymore. And then when we get the room ready text early we are happy.

 

[Minniesgal]

Rooms are not garenteed at 4pm, 4pm is the earliest that the room will be available. This is part of the DVC deal

That said it have checked in DVC many times and usually we are in by 2:30 pm but we are always aware there will be times when we don't get our room until later than 4pm

 

[MsTessP]

I was reading the posts for the Facebook DVC group a few days ago (when I was actually staying at BWV!), and a poster asked if DVC members were able to request late checkout. Another poster replied that, no, DVC members could not request late checkout and added "we (members) get screwed a lot." At that point, several other posters jumped in to say things like "We always run late - LOL - I just call the front desk and tell them we need an extra hour or so, and they have never charged me", etc.

Of course, I could not let this go, and explained how DVC, like most timeshares, is designed to have 100% occupancy. And that even with 11:00 am checkout, how many of us have to wait until 4 pm and beyond when checking in. And, of course we want our rooms to be cleaned impeccably, and we get understandably annoyed when it looks like mousekeeping has rushed and not done a thorough cleaning.

I also said that I believe Disney tries to be accommodating in an emergency situation, however, chances are that another family is waiting to check in to that same villa that evening, unlike many hotels which know that they will have a few extra rooms so they can be more flexible. I then said the OP that you may feel that you are being "screwed' by not being allowed late checkout. However, I believe that it would be the arriving family who would end up not having their room ready until after 6 or 7 pm who would really be "screwed".

Fortunately, there were many that agreed with me, but I could not believe the entitlement and inconsideration of others that was evident by some of the postings.