azcavalier
09-04-2013, 10:34 AM
1. Eating like you're on the DDP...but paying OOP - Wow. We didn't get the dining plan this trip, but decided to eat OOP. We had ADRs for table service restaurants for probably half of our days, which is a departure for us. We usually schedule around the free DDP, but this time we used the Tables in Wonderland card that we had purchased back for our April trip. We always ate breakfast in our rooms, and we had our own bottled water, plus snacks we would take to the park with us. Many times we had our ADRs for lunch, hoping for a cheaper menu. The only table-service dinners that we had were O'hana and Liberty Tree. In the end, even after eating off-property for three meals, we think we spent around $2000. The DDP would have cost us around $1900 for the entire trip, and we would have had more Table Service meals. What we discovered was, for us, since we feel that the restaurants are an integral part of the WDW experience, the DDP is a good deal, made even better when it's free. We save far more on the DDP than getting a room discount.
2. Laundry at the Beach Club - The laundry room by the quiet pool had four washers and eight dryers. When I tried to do laundry, one washer was out of service, and four dryers were out of service. One of the washers I was using broke 2/3rds of the way through. It just froze up at 17 minutes left, and wouldn't start again. I tried everything. Finally, I had to move it to another machine and start over. Then, the first dryer I tried to use wouldn't start. It took my money, and then.....nothing. By the time I finished my three loads of laundry...three hours later...there were only two washers and three dryers working. I complained to management, and of course they refunded my four dollars. Losing money, however, wasn't the point. There is no way that a Deluxe Resort should have that many broken-down machines at once.
2. Laundry at the Beach Club - The laundry room by the quiet pool had four washers and eight dryers. When I tried to do laundry, one washer was out of service, and four dryers were out of service. One of the washers I was using broke 2/3rds of the way through. It just froze up at 17 minutes left, and wouldn't start again. I tried everything. Finally, I had to move it to another machine and start over. Then, the first dryer I tried to use wouldn't start. It took my money, and then.....nothing. By the time I finished my three loads of laundry...three hours later...there were only two washers and three dryers working. I complained to management, and of course they refunded my four dollars. Losing money, however, wasn't the point. There is no way that a Deluxe Resort should have that many broken-down machines at once.