We just returned from a stay at one of the vacation homes at Reunion. We booked through the resort (versus a 3rd party site) because we thought that would provide better service, especially if there was a problem with the house. We were very wrong.
Check-in was a disaster. We stopped by the front desk and picked up the keys. The staff there was very friendly and provided information about the resort. Then we got to the house and realized the keys wouldn’t work. The ones they gave us were for a ‘no touch’ system’, but the door locks were for a card that you slide in. We called the front desk and they said they would send someone over to take a look. We waited about 20 minutes for a security guard to show up. He looks at the keys and said the lock is for the old system and should have been switched to the new system. He tells us that he isn’t even sure they can give us keys for this system and we might have to have security unlock the door for us every time. This doesn’t sound acceptable, so my husband drives back over to the front desk. During all of this, I’m trying to entertain 2 small kids who are getting restless and we’re not sure if we’ll be able to stay in this house with the lock issues. Of course when my husband gets back to the front desk, there’s a line, so this takes a while. 2 guys from the maintenance department then show up to look at the lock and keys. They say that the front desk will be able to give us the new keys once he gets through the line. He does come back and the keys work.
Ok, finally time to let the kids enjoy the pool before bedtime. We made sure to pay for pool heat for check-in day because we knew they’d want to swim. I check the pool. Cold. Obviously no heat that we paid for. We call the front desk again. They said they’ll send the maintenance guys back out to turn it on. I go to turn on the hot tub to double check that it’s not getting warm. I go back out a bit later while waiting on the maintenance guys and notice the hot tub is now empty! The water had all drained out. When the maintenance guys get there, I show them and they are confused as well. They tell me all they can do is put in a ticket and the pool guy will come out tomorrow to take a look. I do ask the front desk is there’s someone I can talk to about all of these problems. She forwards me to a voicemail box, so I leave a message there.
They do send someone at 8 am the next morning, but now we’ve lost the money for one day of pool heat for a broken pool and an evening of our vacation.
The next day we realize the dishwasher is broken. We call the front desk and they write a ticket for it. No one ever did come during our stay to fix it. They did drop off some extra dish soap because everyone wants to hand wash dishes while on vacation!
I will say that the house was clean, and would have been really nice without these issues. The water park is cute, especially for young children. They talk about the ‘Reunion Difference’ which makes you think there’s a focus on service, but there obviously is not. When we checked out, no one asked how our stay was. No one ever responded to the voicemail I left. There was no acknowledgement that we experienced a higher than usual number of issues. With so many resorts and vacation home areas in Orlando, the next time we’ll stay somewhere else.
