Disneys Grand Floridian Beach Resort Hotel

What? Resort review
Where? Grand Floridian - royal palm club
When? September 17th - 22nd 2005
We had been planning our stay at WDW for many months. It was to be our first WDW trip together and a very special one at that as we got engaged whilst there. We’d made a number of PS reservations beforehand, some of which were changed due to extra magic hours. Several emails / phone calls later we had confirmation of what we expected to do.
For our holiday we had planned to stay at the Polynesian followed by the beach club. In July we discovered that we would no longer be staying at the poly as the concierge rooms were due for refurbishment in September. Unfortunately for us, we found out this information not from Disney but from a third party website. We actually contacted Disney to discuss it. We had not heard from them and it was just two months until we were due to arriving. After much discussion on the phone (internationally - at our expense), we were offered a room at the grand Floridian instead. Initially we thought this was fantastic. For most people (including us) staying at the grand Floridian is but a dream - it looks amazing from the pictures and sounds great from the reviews. Did we set our expectations too high? Read on..
Having arrived after a long flight, I was a little upset not to be met / welcomed by anyone at the hotel. Walking through the main doors, the grandness of the lobby and furnishings soon took my mind off this. We walked over to the main check in desk/area (still not welcomed) and explained we were concierge guests. After 5 mins or so of tapping away, the lady at check in confirmed we were concierge and that some one would come over to meet us. Whilst waiting we took in the atmosphere - the main lobby is very grand and has a welcoming feel to it. A concierge staff member came over to show us around the hotel, explain the services and show us to our room. We were asked if we could take our own bags with us!!! No offer for someone to come get them for us. So we trawled our bags around the hotel with us and finally headed up to l3 via the lift. I think the concierge lady was trying to make a good impression because she’d chat to every guest we passed en route.
On l3 we sat down with another concierge staff member who talked us through the various services and what we’d booked. To our surprise, half of our PS reservations were wrong - despite having email confirmation of the various bookings beforehand. We decided to come back and sort this out later as we were quite tired from the flight. At this point we also realised that the Disney computer system does not link bookings - they had no idea we would need transferring to the beach club (BC) in a few days....
Anyway, we were led to our room and shown around - including the super long * :-) * balcony. We were in room 4209. Pretty standard room with an unusually large balcony. No fridge though - which we then asked for. The balcony was dirty - obviously not maintained. I could tell the concierge lady spotted this too, but still left it to me to ask her to get someone to clean it. Looking out over the balcony I could also see the paint coming off in various places. Shortly after she left the room, we started to unpack. Despite the minor issues, we were still overwhelmed to be in the grand Floridian and were keeping a happy face on things.
The next day we asked about getting a fridge and checked that the balcony would be cleaned. We also changed the PS bookings to what we were expecting (using l3 concierge). We returned at the end of the day to find that no fridge had arrived and that the balcony had only been half cleaned (I took a digital photo of what remained for proof). The balcony was still dirty. If we had children, we would not have allowed them out there - serious. In the end we decided to clean it as best we could - so we could at least sit down to enjoy the MK fireworks (of which we had a superb view!).
This was an absolute disgrace in our opinion - remember this is a $700 per night room rate. We were expecting the best of the best, literally. Throughout our stay we found the grand Floridian staff to be the least helpful / pleasant out of all the places we visited or stayed. About 50% of the staff were helpful & willing to speak with us.
The food however was very good - especially between 5 and 7 pm when various buffet style dinner items would be put out. There was also a good selection of drinks, including beers. My only gripe was that we had to keep asking for sodas - there never seemed to be any out when we were in the lounge (BC concierge had plenty out).
The day prior to check out started interestingly - with a magical express letter on the door saying we were leaving the next day and going back to the airport. Be very aware of this if you are staying at more than one hotel. A concierge staff member told us that the reservations/booking system simply couldn’t cope with transfers (a mainframe system), even though we were told it would be ok before arriving. Bit more mess for us to sort out, but we did sort it out.
On the last night in the grand Floridian, we were awoken at 12:40 am to a very loud sound - something that we could both only describe as some kind of power tool. This lasted for a few minutes on and off. We’d had enough and called the front desk at 12:55 am. After being on hold, we were told that someone would investigate and get back to us. Just a minute or two later we heard the sound of tools being dropped / moved from above us (it may sound weird, but we actually heard a screw being dropped and roll on the floor above, so it was very close by). The noise started again shortly after speaking to the front desk, but this time further away. It would seem that they had simply made the decision to continue with works in another location - i.e. further away. It was the only conclusion we could come to. There was no way these noises were natural - we had been doing diy at home before arriving and knew these noises oh too well (drilling / sanding vibrations).
We eventually got to sleep at 3:30 am, deciding it was best to leave it till the morning. We were awoken again at 6:30 am by the same noises - which appeared to be getting closer again. I suspect we were so tired, that we just slept through it for 3 hours. No one from the front desk “got back to us”. After 3 hrs sleep we were not happy and contacted the concierge staff by phone that morning. We were very much awake by this point. They assured us that maintenance work does not occur during the night. We know what we heard and after explaining all to the concierge staff, they said they’d speak to the hotel manager and get back to us. About 30 mins later they called back and again said that no works were going on. However, they offered us a 50% reduction for that night. So despite them saying that nothing was going on, they still offered us a refund....yes. This reinforced to us that something was happening. Another guest we bumped into in the corridor also confirmed hearing those types of noises that night, but they were much further away on the floor and were able to sleep through it (how I wish I’d got their contact details!!!).
We arranged a late check out on this final grand Floridian morning but could get no more sleep as the day had started and works were now going on outside / in other buildings. Plus we still needed to pack in time for check out. We were shattered and annoyed to say the least. By this point, we were so looking forward to getting to the beach club and couldn’t wait to check in. I never thought I’d actually want to get away from the grand Floridian. Our bags went across separately a few hours later via the bell service (very useful - take advantage if transferring).
Our stay at the beach club 5th floor was 10/10. The staff were friendly, helpful and greeted us every time we passed, even if they had a guest with them. Even the bellman took time out to chat for 5 mins when bringing our bags up to the room. Customer service is something the grand Floridian really seemed to lack in our opinion. The lack of sleep really affected our stay at the BC as we had so much planned and just couldn’t do it all. My fiancée (Becky) stopped half way round the world showcase at Epcot and just started crying because she was so tired but wanted to carry on and see it all. We also had to miss our 9.30 pm carriage ride at FW on our last day as we were just too tired to make it. So much planning and expense went into our holiday and we just feel that it was taken away from us - it made it feel pointless. The lack of sleep also made the overnight flight back home an absolute nightmare. We were not prepared to “lose a day” just to catch up on sleep again - our 3 days left were just too precious.
We are not going to stay at the grand Floridian again and are looking forward to a stay at the poly / BC next year. The experience has not put us off Disney - everything else was just amazing. Based on our stay, we’d give the grand Floridian 3 to 4 out of 10. However - please judge for yourselves, this is simply our experience. I know there are many out there that have had a magical stay and many others that will. I would hope that we’re part of the “unlucky” minority. We will be advising Disney of our experience and concerns. Roll on poly next year. BC - can’t wait to get back ;-)