continued from previous post
That afternoon, the hotel did send up 50 complimentary parking vouchers, and we appreciated the effort to make amends and do right by the promises made to me. But, making good on those promises did not make up for the rudeness and outrageous behavior by the hotel personnel holding themself out as the highest management official on duty.
The next day, to add injury to insult, I suffered a very deep gash in my arm from an extremely dangerous condition in the suite, namely, a razor-sharp, protruding strip of metal running the width of the heating control box in the master bath sauna. This sharp piece of metal protrudes from the unit at about waist height, and the mere inadvertent grazing of my arm against it caused a deep and severe cut which required several staples to close at the local emergency room.
Security and hotel first aid made reports about this incident, which you may consult. I am pursuing an injury claim with Disney Guest Claims and I expect compensation for any medical expenses I have incurred or may continue to incur in connection with this injury. While hotel personnel were kind and professional in their duties following this injury, that such a patently dangerous condition should exist in the hotel suite is nearly unthinkable in this day and age of heightened liability consciousness. It seems everything about the physical condition of the suite was frozen in time several decades ago. But I will return to that subject after a brief discussion of my final disturbing incident with the hotel staff.
On the morning we were to check out of the Marina Suite, July 18, 2010, I telephoned the front desk to request an hour’s late check-out extension. We had quite a bit of material to pack up and remove, including an entire kitchen’s worth of cooking and serving pieces, and a large event’s worth of dishes, glassware, etc. In fact, your crack bell staff (for whom I have nothing but praise), filled 17 carts of materials brought up to the suite, and it took 7 bellmen nearly an hour to accomplish that moving task (far less cumbersome than the packing and moving task facing us the morning of check-out). In any event, the front desk insisted they could grant me only a half-hour extension, representing there was a party checking into the suite that day.
This would have been reasonable and expected if indeed there were another party checking into the suite that day. But as we were still guests of the hotel, staying in a room across the hall from the Marina Suite for one extra day, we observed that the housekeeping staff was still cleaning the suite at 6:00 p.m. I believe if guests were expected to check in that day, the suite would have to have been ready by the 3:00 pm check-in time (and we certainly left it in a condition conducive to meeting that deadline). I’m afraid the suite still being cleaned at 6:00 p.m. left me with the impression that hotel personnel had once again been less than honest with me, and once again had been needlessly stingy in extending barely extraordinary customer service.
As a guest for several days in what I believe to be the hotel’s largest suite, I don’t necessarily expect a level of customer service greater than that provided to any other guest. But I dread to think that any other guests received the disgraceful levels of customer service my party and I were treated to during our stay.
Furthermore, the physical condition of the suite, as I alluded to previously, is deplorable and completely out of line with the rates the suite commands. The furnishings were decades old, threadbare and scuffed up. Frankly, they are the same tired furnishings featured in every standard guest room of the Disneyland Hotel - and I don’t believe my expectation that a suite commanding such prime rates of stay be furnished somewhat more luxuriously is in any way out of line. We actually had to bring in our own video display unit for a presentation we had to make, as there was nothing but decades-old, tiny tube televisions in the suite. Seriously, in 2010, the level of amenities in a suite of this kind was simply unfathomable.
And while it was very nice to have a suite with a full kitchen, which allowed us to host the type of event we had contemplated, the kitchen appliances were woefully outdated and careworn. There was no microwave oven and the dishwasher was barely functional, leaving us to again wonder in which decade the suite had last been updated. If the full kitchen had been stocked with so much a sink stopper, it would have been faster and more effective to wash the large quantities of dishes and glassware by hand. As it was, we brought in a wide variety of kitchen gear, including a microwave oven, but would never have thought to provide our own sink stopper. In addition, the temperature indication numbers were all worn off the oven dials, making it very difficult to properly prepare food for our guests. As I said, it was nice to have a kitchen - but in 2010, we did not expect one circa 1985.
I understand that the tower in which the suite is located is due for an extensive renovation in 2012, and that the suite will be refurbished at that time. But there is no excuse for such a prestigious and frankly expensive suite in 2010 to show signs of neglect and inattention dating back several decades. I believe it is common in the hospitality industry for such prestigious suites to receive tender, loving care on a regular basis, to reflect current standards of technological convenience and amenities, and frankly to express a level of luxury in their furnishings and fixtures above and beyond what might be found in standard guest rooms of the same establishment.
In short, we experienced very high levels of disappointment with the state of our suite and with the nature of guest service extended to us. Every day of our stay was marred by the oft-embarrassing and once-is-enough injuriously dangerous conditions of our suite, and by being treated to stinginess, theft, insult, threats and contempt by members of the staff and management.
I hope serious note will be taken of our complaints, and several issues addressed at the Disneyland Hotel so that other guests need not have as disappointing an experience as we did during our very expensive stay. Crass as it may be to relate my guest satisfaction to money, I nonetheless hardly feel I got my thirteen thousand dollars’ worth.
Though many members of the hotel staff treated us well and did their jobs quite ably and professionally, I must overall give the Disneyland Hotel a rather disgraceful failing grade. This was perhaps my 7th or 8th stay at the Disneyland Hotel, but I cannot imagine I would choose to be a guest of your establishment in the future.
Regretfully,
