3rd visit to WDW, 2nd time staying on property, 1st time at a deluxe resort. Stayed at Hong Kong Disneyland Hotel last year and arrived with expectations for a similar experience, boosted by a glowing review on The Points Guy.
It's hard to expect hotels to live up to high expectations, but a few basic shortcomings:
- A hotel's #1 job is to provide a good night's rest, and the Poly sadly failed at that. The power went out in the middle of the night. I suffer from tinnitus and woke up the moment the power went out. It came back on after 12 minutes, but those 12 minutes of discomfort kept me from falling back asleep for the next hour, possibly more. As a result I was late for rope-drop the next day. There was a letter from the manager in the room inviting feedback to an email address, to which I wrote about this incident. I brought it up to the front desk person again at check out. However, I haven't heard back at all. This complete absence of service recovery doesn't seem in line with Disney's values at all.
- Also linked to a good night's rest, the walls were too thin. Kid next door cried in the middle of the night and I actually thought it was my own kid crying.
- Pillowcases didn't completely cover pillows but gaped open. Unless they wash the pillows themselves between guests, this is unhygenic. I could be putting my face on someone else's drool (or worse!).
I liked staying on a ground floor room - we had a nice view of greenery and my kid enjoyed watching the rabbits and ducks that came through the lawn in front of our room. But inside the room was pretty dated and dark.
It seems like housekeeping comes a lot later than what I would expect as industry standard (9AM-1PM). They come mid-late afternoon, by which time we may already have returned from the park and be resting in the room.
I know some people are fans of food at the Poly, but for such a large resort teeming with people it felt like there were too few options. There were overlaps between Kona Cafe, Captain Cook, and room service menus, which were pretty limited to begin with. Breakfast and dinner at Ohana weren't bad, but as it's prix fixe I wouldn't want to repeat a meal there. It was absolutely necessary to venture out to avoid eating the same food twice.
And in terms of venturing out, the best thing that the Poly has going for it is the proximity to Magic Kingdom. We ended up going there 4x over the course of a week, so it was well worth staying there. However, it was quite inconvenient getting to other resorts and Disney Springs. Even when we Ubered, the driver wasn't allowed to drop us off at our building which was the furthest possible distance from the main lobby.