Sara F.
Yelp
Vacationers beware!
My husband and I, along with our 5-year-old daughter, 8-month-old son and my parents, were looking to rent a spacious home near Disney World for the week following Christmas in 2013. We found a home in the Windsor Hills subdivision that was being managed by Global Resort Homes. We were impressed by the pictures and were willing to pay the $3,500 total that it cost for a week's stay.
Long story short - we were wrong and YOU SHOULD NOT STAY HERE (and, honestly, I would be hesitant to stay at any of the properties this company runs).
For nearly $500 per night we expected the luxury experience we were sold. Instead we were treated to incompetence and indifference. The place was a dump and two of the things that we pre-paid for - a crib for our baby and the pool to be heated - took days to be provided. It nearly ruined our trip altogether but my family and I were able to grin and bear it and were just happy to be together.
Again, for over $500 per night (and it was more when you factored in ancillary costs) you shouldn't have to "grin-and-bear-it".
Here's a list of our major issues:
1. The place was filthy. They had one person cleaning the house when we arrived and it wasn't even close. The carpet was stained and had cigarette burns. There were areas that hadn't been dusted in months. The comforters on the beds were stained (we ended up going to the store and buying bedding), as were mats at the door and in the bathroom. There was mold in the showers. The entire place was filmy.
We were told they would send a maid back over and that a manager would be by personally to inspect the place. No manager ever came over. We talked to them about switching homes and they said they would find us another place to stay. They didn't
do that either. We just never heard back from them about it.
2. We paid to have a crib for my 8-month-old son to sleep in. There was no crib when we got to the house. We must've called 10 times, spoken to four different people, and they did absolutely nothing to get us a crib for that first night. People promised to "look into it and call us back" and never did. That night I had to put a mattress on the floor in one of the bedrooms and sleep on the ground next to my son because we didn't have anything to put him in. Needless to say, both of us got about two hours of sleep.
It was not until my husband physically went over to the property manager's office TWICE the next day that we were finally able to track down a crib. It was nearly 3 p.m. the second day that it actually arrived. So we had to waste the better part of two days trying to solve the most basic, simple issue that a property manager could have.
3. We paid to have the pool heated, yet when we got there it was freezing cold. They sent someone out on the second day (after repeated calls by us), but it still took
almost two days to warm up. So by the end of Day 4 of a seven-day trip we had the heated pool that we paid a couple hundred dollars for.
4. The website said "free shuttle to Disney!" and the woman who booked us over the phone also mentioned the shuttle service. But when we asked the property managers they denied it and said there was no shuttle and hadn't been for years. They denied that it mentioned anything about the shuttle on the website, but we physically showed them a screen shot of the site making that claim. They had nothing to say to that.
5. The upstairs and the downstairs thermostats did not work properly. My husband was able to jury-rig the system. But you couldn't just go over to it and turn the heat or air conditioning up and down like you would be able to in your home.
6. The pictures that were on the website were not of the house that we stayed in. The "game room" with a pool table and air hockey table on the website was, in reality, a garage rather than a room in the house (like the photos showed). That this issue is No. 6 on the list should tell you just how sketchy this whole experience was.
7. The home was not equipped with even basic household necessities, requiring us to go out and purchase things that we felt the home should have been equipped with. Garbage bags, coffee filters, dishwasher soap, salt and pepper, and a single sharp knife to cook with are just some of the things that we didn't have access to - at $500 per night.
This place was ridiculous and we will not be staying there again. The location was good. But there are too many other options in the area to settle for this level of service, this shady of a dealing, and this low standard of what is acceptable at this price. Keep looking and stay somewhere else.
