Old Key West

[Friend of a Fiend ... Pam 8]

We were lucky enough to spend last week visiting and stayed at Old Key West. It was our first visit to this resort. We chose it due to the availability of rooms with two queen beds, the amount of square footage in the room, and our preference for at least a kitchenette in the room. 

The grounds were beautiful and the front desk staff were welcoming and friendly. We checked in online where we were able to make two preference selections. We chose to be close to transportation with a water view.

As you can see, we were right across the street from our bus stop ...

 we had a lovely water view...

enjoyed the location of Old Key West as everything was a short ride away. We waited less than five minutes for any bus both at the resort bus stop and at the bus stops at the parks. The only exception to this was the Epcot bus, but we thought those buses may have been off track due to the Food and Wine festival. 

We took advantage of the counter service at Good's Food to Go twice and enjoyed our meal both times. We didn't try Olivia's until our last day. We were surprised to find that the food there was pretty amazing. My husband had the Crab Cake Eggs Benedict. It was amazing! I would highly recommend it. My daughter had the Banana Bread French Toast. She said that it was so good that she wanted to lick the plate. I had scrambled eggs and toast and enjoyed it.

The boat from Old Key West to Disney Springs is a nice ride and something I would definitely do again.

BUT ... despite all these positive attributes, I doubt that I will choose to stay at Old Key West again. I read a few reviews prior to our trip that mentioned that things were a little worn out at Old Key West. I very much agree with this assessment. The furniture looks very used and worn. Our mattress was so worn that its springs sometimes poked us and made noise whenever I turned over in my sleep. Something was going on with the plumbing in the shower so that it was difficult to shut the water off once we used the shower. As you can see in the photo below, things looked a bit unusual. 

is just not what I expect from a Disney resort. Usually the resorts feel much more special and there are little touches here and there that add that little bit of magic. It may be a trivial thing, but there wasn't even the little towel sculpture that usually can be found on the bed on the check in day. All in all Old Key West was not magical. 

And one other thing ... this has never happened to us before and we have stayed at other DVC resorts before this visit. I was AMAZED at this ...

Not once, but TWICE we were encouraged to forego an hour of our vacation to do a DVC timeshare tour! I don't go on vacation to be harassed about buying a timeshare! Maybe I'm overreacting, but for me, this took the cake. 

Well ... that and the bus driver who decided to share his political opinions about Trump vs Clinton while we waited on the bus leaving Epcot one afternoon, but I think I'll save that for a trip report.

[Beckers 1,136]

  i  would have made a call down to the front desk about the mattress and the shower. I would assume both could have been fixed? The mattress would have drive me nuts, a little noise is one thing but the springs poking you is unacceptable. 

How did they  approach you about doing the tour? 

[Friend of a Fiend ... Pam 8]

We did call about the shower. An employee came to the room and twisted the handle harder to reduce it to a slow drip - that was the fix. The next time I took a shower, my husband had to come into the room to turn the handle for me. 

The springs only poked if I laid near the edge of the mattress and we didn't want to take the time to explain it and wait around for another employee to come to the room. Since there were three of us, we just switched beds. My daughter was fine with everything since she laid in the middle of her bed.

Regarding the tour, we returned to the room on our second night to find an envelope on the bed. It was a letter asking us to join a tour the next day in exchange for a gift card. The following day, we received a phone call during the afternoon while resting. My husband politely declined the request.

In the past we have always stayed at Animal Kingdom - Kidani Village and have always been impressed.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

Very interesting about how worn out Old Key West looks.

One of my daughters and some of her CM friends spent the weekend recently at the DVC Vero Beach resort, and she reported the same thing- the rooms are very worn looking.  They were renovating some of the common areas there, but the actual rooms need a lot of TLC too.

If I was a DVC owner of points at one of these resorts, I'd be hot.  How are the maintenance fees being spent?  Being a DVC owner ain't cheap, and it's not very smart of Disney to allow this to happen when they are still cranking out DVC rooms and trying to sell DVC memberships.  It's almost comical that they wanted to give you a sales pitch when you were staying in worn out room with an old mattress and faulty plumbing.

TCD

[Beckers 1,136]

It would have been fun to go and cal them out on the problems and watch them squirm, or spin tales of magical terms leading you to believe they care.

[Tri-Circle-D 2,059]

3 minutes ago, Beckers said:

It would have been fun to go and cal them out on the problems and watch them squirm, or spin tales of magical terms leading you to believe they care.

Yeah, but who wants to spend vacation time on that?

I went to a DVC presentation on one of our DCL cruises because they always have a drawing for a $200 on board credit, and I have uncommonly good luck at winning things like that.  Oh boy, did I hear some truth stretching at that presentation.  And I think the drawing was rigged.  So, no DVC for me.

TCD 

[Friend of a Fiend ... Pam 8]

Exactly TCD! They did offer a $100 gift card for our time, but it's just not something we are interested in doing. Whenever I do the math, it just doesn't compute. My husband was tempted to do exactly as you suggest, but I wouldn't let him. I was afraid our names would go on some list. Hahaha!

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[GaDawgFan.....Kelly 799]

I've heard good things about Olivia's. I'd be interested to hear what Disney would say if you wrote them about this. The faucet is unacceptable for any resort- especially deluxe. 

[caveat lector 181]

It makes me sad to see those pics. We were members there for quite awhile before the camping bug hit. Those Grand villas and 2 bedroom suites really made it fun to get friends and families together.