The Pee Pee Bandit – Disney World Should be Ashamed

Florida schools were out for a teacher service day on Friday! Yay! We could get a three-day weekend at Disney if we hurried. It was a cold, mid-January weekend. In January, that also means it is a Marathon Weekend, ugh. Marathons bring in a lot of people. With a lot of people in the area there are less rooms, the parks are filled (kid activities are overrun by adults), and it’s hard to get food. We have a dog so there are only 4 Disney hotel options available: Art of Animation, Port Orleans Riverside, Yacht Club, and Camp Wilderness.  We frequently stay at Port Orleans Riverside because it has a decent combination of price to amenities. They charge you $50 per night for a pet, which is about the same or slightly more than a kennel. The positive thing is your dog gets to be with you and doesn’t have to be caged up all day.

We arrived shortly after check-in around 4PM. We were placed in Alligator Bayou for the first time. The Alligator Bayou is a nice area, but the parking lots are far from the rooms. We entered the room, two queen beds and a 5th sleeper. Perfect for a family of 5. Staying 3 nights, each kid gets to enjoy the comfort of the 5th sleeper for one night. Preston gets to go first. I was the last one to enter the room because I was struggling getting those heavy suitcases up the stairs to the second floor. I didn’t notice an elevator on my journey, but it may have been on the other side of the building.

When I arrived at the room the kids were already spreading out and sitting on the beds. Kellie took down the extra blankets and placed them on the 5th sleeper to give Preston extra blankets. It was surprisingly cold in Florida so those extra sheets and blankets would really help.

I left the room to gather more belongings from the car. I huffed and puffed out of breath as I opened the door to the room, a weird smell smacked me in the nose. The initial smell quickly seemed to dissipate upon combination with the fresh air outside. I didn’t remember this smell from my first time in the room.

I entered the room, and the kids screamed “Daddy, you have to smell this!”

I asked, “what is it?”

They responded, “someone peed the bed.”

Wait! Why would I want to put my face in that like it needed extra investigating. Isabelle pulled back the blankets and POW there the smell was again. 🤢Oof, all of the sheets covering it must have incubated it so it could stick around longer, it smelled awful. I exited the room for fresh air. I walked back in. Yep, undeniable that someone or their dog pissed on the bed and didn’t have the courtesy to ask to have it cleaned.

Could you imagine laying your head down for bed right on someone else’s piss? We couldn’t so Kellie called the front desk and housekeeping.

Their response included a lack of empathy and an overall disinterest in helping with the situation. It appeared to be shift change over time. “Sorry to hear you have an issue with the room, we will look into this” was their response. Umm, how long will it take to bring a new mattress? They weren’t sure and would give us a call. As the urine was exposed to the air, it seemed to create a chemical reaction and allowed the odor to continue to fill the room. I couldn’t take it anymore, so I tossed the little mattress and sheets out of the room. Since we were heading to Epcot, we had to leave Bunny in her cage in case someone entered the room to fix the situation.

Finally, I received a message from the hotel around 5:45PM. “Hello this is Hershey calling with Riverside back office. I’m just giving you a call as Housekeeping did make us aware that you may be having issues with your 5th sleeper. We’re looking at different options so if you could either give us a call or stop by the front desk, we will be able to assist. Thank you and have a magical stay.”

I called back and was able to talk to Hershey. I reinforced the situation that someone has left pee on the bed, and we would like a new mattress. Paraphrase of our conversation below. I elaborated that someone left pee on the bed and the stench was terrible quite a few times.

“Sorry, we don’t have any more mattresses. Here is the option we have. We can switch you to a Princess themed room at no additional cost.”

“Ok, what is the benefit of the princess themed room. Does it have a 5th sleeper. Also, we won’t be back from Epcot until 10PM. That is late to move all our bags.”

“The benefit is it is princess themed. And no, it does not have a 5th sleeper.”

“We would like the 5th sleeper.”

“Ok the other option is you stay there tonight, and we can switch rooms tomorrow.”

“That doesn’t work for us and that seems unfair. Is there anywhere with a 5th sleeper.”

“We can call other hotels for you.”

“We don’t want to move hotels. We have a dog registered with your hotel through your app at check-in. We are paying an extra $50 per night to stay here. And most of the other Disney hotels don’t allow dogs.”

“Ok. Let me look at something. Can you hold on.”

…………………….

“Here’s another option. You can move from building 28 to building 35. It has a 5th sleeper.”

“We are at Epcot and we will not be back until around 10PM.”

“Ok, so you don’t want to move? You can move in the morning.”

“That doesn’t solve the problem for tonight.”

Hershey did not have critical thinking or problem-solving skills. Why didn’t she just move the mattress from building 35 to building 28. That seemed like the easiest solution. Then they would have all night to clean up the urine saturated mattress.

Fifteen minutes later I received a message from Hershey. “Giving you a call back to let you know that I talked to housekeeping, and they should be able to help you tomorrow. By the way we don’t have a paper on file for your furry friend, so you must come to the front desk.” I kid you not. They can’t solve a problem where urine is saturated on a mattress, but they still expect you to come to the front desk to sign a piece of paper since you have a dog. The dog’s already registered on the app and they are charging me $50 per day.

Kellie was just like “ok, I’ll go sign the paper.”

I was fuming. “That’s bullshit! No. Why should we have to do that when they can’t even help us solve this issue.”

Kellie responded, “they asked us to, so I will take care of it.”

We arrived back at the hotel room at 10PM and low and behold the mattress was still on the porch. No success. We tried one more time to call the front desk and the lady on the phone appeared very concerned. She couldn’t believe that nobody was able to help us. Guess what? She couldn’t either! What a disappointment.

Kellie said, “ok, I’m going to head to the front desk to sign the paper for Bunny.”

I responded, “no way!”

Kellie headed to the front desk, signed the piece of paper. Told the lady at the front desk the issue we were having. At 11:30PM they finally sent housekeeping to the room to change the sheets on the mattress.

A few days later I received an email asking for feedback on my experience. I wrote in the comments a summary of the piss on the bed and the lack of help we were able to receive from the hotel.

Ultimately, nobody at Disney is going to care about my comment or feedback. There isn’t anything Disney can do at this point to make the situation right. I doubt there is any training or improvement that could be made. It’s not a case study for a bigger problem. It seems like a one-off incident. Unless there is a housekeeper going around peeing on beds before guests show up. But it was poorly handled and shows a clear lack of empathy and problem-solving skills among several departments. I would not be happy to be a leader in an organization that handles a situation in the way this one was handled.

Have you had a bad experience at a hotel? Comment below.