Coronado Springs - Air Con Room Debacle

[DisneyDose]

Background

As if the run up to our holiday in this day and age wasn't stressful enough, when we arrived yesterday evening at CS, little did we realise the four hour drama that was to follow.

We had booked a standard view room and had requested Casitas 4 or 5 for the bus stop, gym and bridge access. When we arrived at MCO I switched on my phone and saw that we had been allocated Cabanas 8B. Oh well we thought, requests are never guaranteed. When we arrived we thought we would double check with the resort check-in to see if we could find something in Casitas. We were told that the resort was super busy and we'd have to split our stay between two rooms if we wanted a room in Casitas. It all sounded like too much of a hassle, so we thanked them for checking but said we'd keep our room.

Room 1

The room was facing the car park, but this is totally expected for a standard view. However it was very close to the last bus stop in the resort loop. As we opened the door we were met with an awful musty damp smell and a hot room. I recognised the smell as air conditioning odour and thought immediately that the filter needed changing. We checked the thermostat and the room was set at its lowest temperature. As most of the thermostats use motion detection we decided to give the thermostat a chance to do its job. 40 minutes passed and the room was so hot that we used a chair to keep the entrance door open to cool the room. Orlando is currently very cold. So we called the front desk and engineer came to the room, where he proceeded to change the filter and tinker with the thermostat. He left but the air con was still pumping out warm air. Off we trotted to the front desk to get this sorted.

Room 2

The front desk was very apologetic and realised that if an engineer couldn't solve the issue, then it was likely that there was a bigger problem at hand. They then found us a new room close by to move to. Great, we thought. Off we trotted, totally exhausted after the 10 hour flight to check the new room. We had already unpacked, so the situation was hardly ideal and a pain in the a$$. We entered the new room and it was exactly the same scenario. A hot musty and damp smelling room. My partner who's asthmatic starts to have an attack. There's no way they will be able to breath in this environment, so once again I head off to the front desk in search of a manager.

By this time we'd been at this process for a couple of hours and I was OVER IT. Though the resort and refurbished rooms were lovely, I told the manager to move us to another moderate resort.

The manager was initially reluctant, it being at such a late hour, but I advised them that it was non negotiable. 10 minutes later she returned and I was fully expecting to move resort as there was slim pickings for a 14 night availability at CS. She had come up with a plan she thought we would be happy with.

Room 3 - Gran Destino Tower

As these rooms are much more expensive, I never expected to be offered a tower room. However I was super grateful and felt confident that the air con would be fine in this third room. It was and is. We repacked our luggage and headed for the new room on 11th floor. I'm pleased to report that it's a beautiful room and much larger. We have a fireworks view looking over HS and Epcot and we're so relieved that the room debacle is finally over. Now we can relax and enjoy the holiday.

We"ve since learned that 3 entire blocks had experienced failed air conditioning coils during the day, and that every single room in those blocks had malfunctioning air conditioning.

There's also a way to over ride the motion detection settings on Disney's new thermostats. An engineer was kind enough to show us what do to.

[loldis]

Glad you got it sorted in the end, enjoy that tower upgrade!

[goodevans]

All's well that ends well 👍

Glad you got a lovely room in the end ... Not what you need after a long travel day though.

Hope they've got it sorted as we are staying in CSR in May.

Would you consider sharing the tip you got to override the Motion detection on air con?
I hate a hot bedroom at night!

[Gill H]

Phew, glad you got it sorted. That could have been us, as we were due to stay at CS right now but postponed to November!

[akhurstf1]

Glad you managed to get that sorted - we stayed in the tower last November and it was amazing. We had a standard view but were high enough to see Harmonious from our window.

[Mazbar]

Ok tell us how to override the motion sensor, the wife wants to buy a Micky balloon just to trigger the sensor during the night.

[mick]

Crikey that wasn’t a good start to your holiday

Glad you got it sorted sounds like you have a really good room now

Joan

[goodevans]

Originally Posted by Mazbar

Ok tell us how to override the motion sensor, the wife wants to buy a Micky balloon just to trigger the sensor during the night.

See more...

The same idea had crossed my mind !
Even though we are older with no kids in tow... well only our adult ones in their thirties and their partners all in their own rooms!
Don't think DH wants to be seen with me walking around with a Mickey balloon... spoil sport 😂

[DisneyDose]

Originally Posted by Mazbar

Ok tell us how to override the motion sensor, the wife wants to buy a Micky balloon just to trigger the sensor during the night.

See more...

1. Turn the thermostat off
2. When you turn it back on, hold down the power button and the fan button and the arrow-up button ALL AT ONCE.
3. When you release these three buttons, the display will now say 'Len'. This is how you know that you've bypassed both the motion detection settings and also the fixed temperature setting.

After the display shows 'Len' now you can also take the temperature to it's lowest setting. Some units go as low as 60f, others 65f.

The bypass will last 48 hours, after which repeat the process.