Do I Have Worst Boulder Ridge Room?

We got a room at the very end of the Pembe Savannah at Kidani once that I thought must be the worst room ever. It consisted of a chain link fence, dumpsters, and construction workers all day, every day. Out of five days there we saw one warthog. The only other animals were indigenous (rabbits, ducks, and birds). It felt like such a rip-off. Really feeling the magic now baby
 
These are cracking me up! Warthogs, AC units, driveways, roofs and laundry facilities. You can’t make this stuff up. And we paid for it! A lot 🤣
 
We got a room at the very end of the Pembe Savannah at Kidani once that I thought must be the worst room ever. It consisted of a chain link fence, dumpsters, and construction workers all day, every day. Out of five days there we saw one warthog. The only other animals were indigenous (rabbits, ducks, and birds). It felt like such a rip-off. Really feeling the magic now baby
Back in 2011 DVC reclassified a bunch of Kidani Savanna view rooms as Standard due to their small number of animals. To this day the Pembe Savanna is still less popular than Sunset Savanna (which covers the rest of Savanna views at Kidani) because of similar reasons. For example: there are no giraffes at Pembe because their animal barn is not tall enough.
 
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I have had that view, but I might have been one floor up. The positive is that it is a dedicated studio. We were only there for two nights on that trip so we didn't ask to be moved. If I was there for a week, or not going to the parks, I would ask for a better view.
 


OKW is my original HOME resort. Never had a view as bad as I did the last stay.........I have had spectacular views of golf course and sassagoula river canal. I don't think there is any doubt, that not almost all OKW studios have THIS view? Day or night......just couldn't make it even remotely good. Sorry Jackal...have to disagree with ya on this.
Oh wow. That is officially the worst DVC room view Maria. Beats my worst views by a mile and a half!
 
That view is bad for sure. But our worst view as a DVC member was our very first one. We were on the ABD Southern Californian trip that stayed at the Grand Californian. We had two of the most amazing theme park view rooms for the ABD portion of the trip for our family. I stalked and stalked to add on an extra night at the end of that trip through DVC. And I finally got it. We moved from our two beautiful cash rooms with amazing views to ....... a 1 BR handicap accessible room (did NOT ask for that!!) on the first floor with a view of an ugly wall and a very popular sidewalk that had people walking by constantly. We also were not allowed access to the room until around 6:00 due to "maintenance issues" only to find the toilet paper holder laying on the floor when we were allowed to check in. Needless to say, it wasn't the best introduction to DVC.

Of course the product has redeemed itself over and over at WDW and we've added on a lot more points. But yeah, I'm probably just ponying up the cash to stay at VGC in the future. Once burned, twice shy!!
 
I've only ever had one really bad view that I was displeased with and it was my one and only stay at Poly. I was in the Pago Pago building with a view of the parking lot, and with the bus stop right nearby with their extremely loud ECV ramp beeps. It didn't feel very Polynesian to me. Much more like a Motel 6, in fact, lol.

I've stayed at BLT around 5-6 times (my home resort) and only once ever gotten a somewhat bad view there. If you're facing the parking lot, you can almost always also see MK, the monorail, and/or the Contemporary. If you're facing the garden/interior, you can usually see Bay Lake. I just once had an interior facing, lower floor room that was behind some trees so I couldn't see the lake. That was my only undesirable view there, but still not nearly as bad as at Poly.

My three stays at OKW have all had great views (I only do 1 bedrooms, so that must be why I wasn't subject to the A/C units).

BRV wasn't very good, but not too bad either. It was facing the lake, overlooking a CM/utility entrance path, but not high up enough to see the lake. It was also a VERY long walk to get to. Strangely, WL is my 2nd favorite WDW resort, but I didn't really care for BRV. I'll have to try CCV sometime, or maybe the BRV refurb will be more to my liking.

Boardwalk was ok, we were facing the turf courtyard. We felt like royalty looking down on the court. Was nice, but I don't care for the theming of BWV.

SSR we initially got put on the ground floor at a bus stop right on the road, as well as behind some A/C units. We asked if they could move us and they did, so we ended up with a nice view there in the end.

Our AUL ocean view room overlooked the event/luau green, which I thought was going to be undesirable (I kind of wanted to be facing inward toward the water park/garden) but ended up fine. We were high enough to see the ocean, and it was still pleasantly shaded in the morning AND evening. Great trip, actually.

Grand Californian was a phenomenal park view room -- absolutely stunning. I really like VGC, I just don't get over there very often. It makes sense that I like it so much, considering its similarity to WL.

We still need to check off HHI, VB, RIV, VGF, BCV, CCR, and we already have an upcoming reservation for AKL. Where to next? Any recommendations?
 


Oh wow. That is officially the worst DVC room view Maria. Beats my worst views by a mile and a half!
Yes Kathy! I knew the photos would be worth a thousand words when trying to describe it. If you Google, OKW definitely has studios with MUCH better views. I probably have some stored on flash drives somewhere. I was trying to find the SSR studio view too----it's a tiny bit better but not much. We were thinking, "wow did we pull the Member short straw??!!!" LOL
 
Goodness gracious, Maria, was that view looking straight out from your sliding glass doors or a side view?

Whenever I've wanted to relax or read on my balcony/patio but it overlooks that many A/C units, I've found the noise really annoying too.
 
OKW is my original HOME resort. Never had a view as bad as I did the last stay.........I have had spectacular views of golf course and sassagoula river canal. I don't think there is any doubt, that not almost all OKW studios have THIS view? Day or night......just couldn't make it even remotely good. Sorry Jackal...have to disagree with ya on this.

Wow that is bad. That must've been so restful to sit on your patio and hear AC units kicking on and off. All of the buildings at OKW have that bay of AC units, but I've never had them directly adjacent to the patio. Last time we were there they outside bedroom two in front of the unit, but that wasn't so bad.

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I've only ever had one really bad view that I was displeased with and it was my one and only stay at Poly. I was in the Pago Pago building with a view of the parking lot, and with the bus stop right nearby with their extremely loud ECV ramp beeps. It didn't feel very Polynesian to me. Much more like a Motel 6, in fact, lol.
This was my first DVC stay! I was ground floor Pago Pago looking at the parking lot, and the parking lot is surprisingly busy.

I guess that experience colored my view of DVC. I was still glad I wasn't paying $800, and I guess I can live with some tradeoffs like a terrible view.

A duck came by to see our room, our two year old daughter just laughed and laughed at the duck at the window. She thought it was the funniest thing ever, which made the room worth it. But no ducks at dumpster view.
 
We had a terrible GV at Kidani a few years ago. It was a savannah view room with very little view of the savannah. Maybe it was the room mentioned by a previous poster? Anyway, I asked to move and we were moved the next day to a wonderful room! Also, DD15 had left a hoodie in the room and I received a call on my cell phone that it was turned in to lost & found. That was a surprise. She didn't realize she had left it.

So despite the first yucky view, Disney customer service came through in more ways than one.
 
I just got an email from a friend of mine who wrote her family once got the "dumpster room." So I guess that is what it is infamous for.
We had the infamous dumpster room once. Awful view, really diminishes the "magic"

mac_tlc
 
That’s an infamous bad view as you would have gathered by now OP. I expect I’d probably get that one.
I didn’t take a photo but when we stayed at VGC we had a bottom corner unit, right opposite the entrance/ exit into California Adventure. No screening, just tiny conifers. It’s about 20 feet to the entrance. So when you went on the patio (which is dark as it’s in a corner), you immediately face all the security milling about at the entrance, and awkwardly say ‘hello’ as they look at you. We never bothered sitting on that patio.
The good news is if you went out of the back door, the entrance was literally 20 steps away. Therefore I can say we stayed the closest to a Disney park entrance than anyone else in the entire World as I can’t believe there’s another room which is 20 steps to security 😂 That was 1522 I think from memory.
There’s a particularly rotten view at Riviera where you look onto some concrete roofing. That’s a good one.
The OKW AC view is particularly poor as you also have the triple whammy of no light and noise. Better still, some of those are near the roundabouts / junctions so you can throw in a healthy dose of bus noise to finish off the experience.
My favourite room has been the top, very end unit of BWV overlooking the pool, canal etc, that’s a great room, we were lucky and got that one.
 
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We have had the Dumpster room and the room at Kidani- this was OK because it was a standard view. The Dumpster room - I took my parents that trip ad they had a studio across the hall with a decent view. I have not yet had the experience of said other rooms but I am sure we will run across them. Oh also got the famous OKW near hospitality house 2 BR view of the AC units and Bus/cars coming and going TWICE 2 years in a row I should have just left my stuff one year with my wife's parents the next year with my Mother and Mother and Mother in Law. Thinking about the Kidani room I had My parents and Mother in Law. Times we take no one I always get a good view last year had an amazing view of TOT overlooking the main pool that I requested at BW and not a long walk to anything.
 
One of my favourite views is high floor, opposite bus stop, standard view at Boardwalk. For a cheap points standard view, that is brilliant. You can see some fireworks on a night sometimes, there’s a big pond in front, Skyliner and car park in distance. Very quiet. Just a long walk from the lobby which we do not mind. Very quick down the back stairs to the HWS path. Doors on the corridor lead down stairwells also to the pool ( come out near gym) and directly across from bus stop area.
 
I've only ever had one really bad view that I was displeased with and it was my one and only stay at Poly. I was in the Pago Pago building with a view of the parking lot, and with the bus stop right nearby with their extremely loud ECV ramp beeps. It didn't feel very Polynesian to me. Much more like a Motel 6, in fact, lol.
I asked for a parking lot view my last stay there, unfortunately they said they had no rooms available that overlooked the parking lot. However, they said they would still try to accommodate my request to the best of their ability. So they gave me pixie dust in the form of my own viewing area:
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