Disney Reportedly Keeps In-Room Fridges Too Warm to Store Food - Inside the Magic

Comments for Disney Reportedly Keeps In-Room Fridges Too Warm to Store Food

cars wheel well hotel exterior at disney's art of animation resort

Credit: Disney

22 Comments

  1. Chris

    Unless you are staying in a DVC room or have requested a fridge for medical purposes, the in room “fridges” are actually beverage Coolers and not fridges, they even say so right on the front of them. Why is this even an article?

    1. Amanda

      Everything this site/blog posts is spun like this to make Disney look bad. It’s trash.

  2. Scott

    So what are my parents supposed to do when they start all week with their diabetic medication that needs to be refrigerated below 38°?

    1. Amanda

      Not rely on a drink cooler?

      1. Frank W Kapczynski Jr

        Every Disney resort that offers a Refrigerator lists Refrigerator not drink cooler so that would be false advertising

      2. D

        It’s a problem because they advertise online “refrigerator” and what they provide is not a refrigerator by definition. It’s false advertising and then the hotel staff told us that our food would be fine in it.

        Let’s start the class action lawsuit!!

  3. j powell

    We stayed at AoA in October 2021 in a Nemo room with a “mini-fridge” and had no issues with keeping groceries we ordered or leftovers cold. Some room may have fridges that need to be replaced……but ours worked great.

  4. Tim W.

    Most of these mini refrigerators have a temperature dial inside. My family and I travel to the theme parks a couple of times a year, and it’s been my experience that the temperature settings are always adjusted to the low-mid range. The first thing that I do when we get into the hotel room is open the refrigerator, and turn the dial all the way to the coldest setting. We travel with milk for our youngest child, and can’t recall ever having it go bad. We also keep a small cooler in the room and refresh with ice every day or two to keep drinks super cold. We’ve stayed at Art of Animation, Caribbean Beach Resort, and All-Star Movies multiple times at Disney World, and Cabana Bay and Royal Pacific multiple times at Universal Orlando. This is not saying that the original poster is wrong, but some people may not know about the dial settings.

    1. LF

      Last year when we stayed at Pop Century, there is no longer a dial to adjust on the refrigerator since their remodel. The old rooms, with the older style refrigerators had dials to adjust.

      1. Joan

        I stayed at the New Orleans resort for a week in Feb 2022
        I stored all of my left over food from my meals.at Disney restaurants for that entire week in my resort room refrigerator.Then I took the left overs home &.ate them. I never got sick& the quality og the food remained good. My daughter was surprised I didn’t get food poisoning. But I didn’t thank goodness. I did the same thing when I spent a week in Amsterdam. Once again I didn’t get sick. The room refrigerator in Amsterdam wasn’t as cold ad the one at Disney.

  5. Karen

    Reach in to the unit and change the temperature. Also, if the mini fridge is in a cabinet, pull the unit out of the cabinet as far as you can to give the back of the unit some air so it can work more efficiently. Prop up the front end of the fridge (which would now be tilted) by putting something under it, like a box or a pile of shoes.

  6. SS

    Refrigerators do have a dial inside or on the back. If you call the front desk they will assist in getting one that works.

    We had a similar situation where they came and replaced it. The engineer stated since they are places inside cabinets and there’s no proper ventilation for the heat to escape, so it doesn’t truly cool down all the way to the set temperature. We always leave the cabinet door open to help. It’s a interior design failure when they modeled the rooms.

  7. mike

    Once WDW loses its ” special status” you can call the local Board of Health on them & not just that, all the other food offenses we have all experienced over the years that they ignore!

  8. David

    From a former cast member in reservations when these were added to rooms they are in fact called beverage coolers and of you ask disney reservations they will tell you they are not intended to keep food items. Just drinks

  9. Enron

    Pretty sure most people know these are for beverages only, they are not actual refrigerators

  10. Elayne

    Funny thing, back in spring 2019 (Coronado Springs stay) I Ubered to Walmart and got some breakfast items for the week. Put them in the fridge, went about my day. Next morning, all my stuff was only cool. Had to toss my leftovers from the night before, and all the stuff I got except the soda and carrot sticks. I thought the fridge was broken. Turns out they keep it at the highest temp setting. The staff felt bad for my loss, offered me a giftcard. I declined it, and asked housekeeping to dispose of my questionable items (too big to fit in the small holes on the outside trashcans) Housekeeping said some items may likely be okay (yogurt, hard boiled eggs, cheese) but I asked they toss it because I didn’t just spend all that money on my 7 night trip just to risk getting food poisoning to save spending another $60 ( food, and roundtrip Uber, that sucked). I had half a steak and baked potato from the night before! You know what also sucked, I could tell the staff felt it was a waste of food (totally was), so I told them if they wanted they could take it and enjoy in their break room if they wanted. (Fun fact, former DL CM, during my hotel stint housekeeping were the nicest people you would ever meet. Them and third shift custodial. They will literally offer you some of their lunch if you sit down in the break room without food. And I wasn’t even in their line of business.)
    One of the hotel managers stopped by (I didn’t ask for anyone, former CM, besides if I had noticed the knob inside I would have saved myself trouble, felt a bit foolish), I thanked him for offering another gift card, mentioned my room was already discounted (CM in family got me a discount, so no complaints coming from me) so I figured we were square.
    Nice thing was the Walmart on the 2nd trip had a fanny pack that looked like Minnie’s bow, we had no joke 10+ CMs asking my wife where she got it from. And all the CMs knew precisely which Walmart we were talking about.
    Increasing cost saving measures have been the standard since before I started in 1998, and while I was there I saw them increasingly target the CMs along with the guests. Many don’t know that it isn’t just the guests that get treated this way.

  11. LF

    My family noticed the same issue with the “refrigerator” at Pop Century last year. Before they remodeled the refrigerators were the old style with an adjustable dial. The new refrigerators do not have an accessible dial and are more of a beverage cooler which barely cooled our water and Gatorade. We used a regular cooler with ice to keep other items cold enough. I hope Disney will being back real mini refrigerators for the convenience of it’s guests.

  12. Carol

    Very disappointed that the frig is gone. My husband needs a real frig to store insulin. Now I have to make another phone call with a 1 1/2 hour wait time!
    Not happy to have to do that!o

  13. StevenB

    Yes and No. Was at AoA Little Mermaid side a couple weeks ago, end of April 2022, and frisge was very warm when we got there. I called front desk, told it’s a ‘drink chiller, not a fridge’, but they sent a house keeper down within 30 min. They turned it to cool mode, and that worked great, so great we ended up freezing our strawberries into frozen cubes.

    So in the end, yes fridge starts out set to a low of 41 degrees per the frudge sign, but if you call front desk, it will be turned into a real fridge within 30 min.

  14. Paul Joseph

    Stayed at Pop Century in March. Had the same issue. The fridge/beverage cooler would not even make bottles of water or soda cold enough to enjoy. Had to run back and forth to the ice machines to get cold drinks. There was not a dial to adjust the temperature. Probably some energy conservation thing.

  15. Susan

    I have seen this move to “beverage coolers” vs refrigerators in many places. Went to one hotel (not Disney, but very expensive oceanfront hotel) and was told they could bring a refrigerator up but the one in the little cupboard was just a beverage cooler. But it really didn’t keep beverages cold, either. Ridiculous!

  16. CJ

    Bob Chapek is ready to sell you a $25 small bag of ice in the Hotel Lobby for that small in room fridge (lol!)

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