Well, I'll most likely get destroyed for my thoughts on this, but my GF and I just got back from what was supposed to be a 9/3 - 9/9 stay which turned into 9/3-9/12 stay because of the Hurricane, but this trip really had me fall out of love with the Polynesian.
The grounds, still beautiful as always. The location as great as you can get. Though the rooms, and just our overall experience during the hurricane soured us.
Being confined to the room for 2 days straight, really let's you see every flaw in the room, and despite the fact the rooms were gutted and updated a few years ago, they are in major need of some TLC. Tons of awful spotty touch up paint jobs, where you can tell they didn't even use the same color paint to fix something. Parts of the room just falling apart, light fixtures crooked or damaged. Our first room was taking in water in just a normal Floridian thunderstorm two days before the Hurricane got to us. The bathroom was nice, except for the fact the dial for the water temperature in the shower fell off, and instead of fixing it, they just put the dial on top of where it should be. Then we found parts of the towel rod fixture on the ground under the sink. those also came apart and you could just pull the rod off the entire thing.
I know Disney rooms get a lot of use, but for the prices Disney charges, they really need to do a better job of keeping rooms in tip top shape, especially at the hotel that a lot of people claim is the second flagship next to the Floridian.
Though the part that really bothered both myself and my GF the most was how things were handled during the Hurricane. There was no order, no structure. Multiple times we received conflicting information about what would be open in the resort and what wouldn't. Pretty much every other resort on property constructed some sort of times guide for the events they were doing in the lobby. Nope, not at the Poly. Some CMs at the Poly claimed they couldn't do that since there are no rooms in the main building unlike other hotels, but when we told her all the All Stars had things to do, the Pop, and even the Floridian which while it has rooms in the main building, is the only other deluxe on property that has separate buildings to house guests on property.
Our main problem was the fact they knew the track of the storm, knew whom they had working there to ride it out, yet seemed to do things on a whim.
We felt at the price we paid, even with the 40% hurricane discount, it was too much for what was being offered. We were told they didn't want to do things in the Poly lobby because of the immense about of windows, yet that didn't stop the CMs at the Contemporary who had a bevy of events, and had pretty much everything open, including the California Grill located some 15 stories off the ground in a room of wrap around floor to ceiling windows.
Prior to the start of our Polynesian stay we spent 1 night at a refurbed Pop room, and despite it's small size it easily blows the Polynesian rooms out of the water, at nearly 1/5th the price. Yes you are giving up the location, and some 150 square feet, but if they end up redoing all the values to look as nice aesthetically as the refurbed Pop Century rooms, then some of the deluxes are going to have to really up their games, i.e. Poly, Animal Kingdom Lodge.
It's a shame because our stay before the hurricane was great, it's just disappointing that a disaster like Irma really soured us on the Polynesian. What really bothered us was in the days going into the hurricane we went to the front desk, and asked was there anyway to extend our reservation in case of it being impossible to get out of here, and she was very abrupt and curt with us that "It's not Disney's job to find you a place to stay, and I hope that you're not expecting a handout for a free room." It really took us back, we didn't ask for a discount, we didn't even ask to stay at the Polynesian, just would it be possible to secure a room on property for 2-3 days more if needed.
All I can say is that we most likely won't be staying at the Polynesian anytime in the near future, and will most likely stick to our true favorite that being the Wilderness Lodge.
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