Disney's a class act, so what went wrong?

We recently purchased 350 points in Disney Vacation Club, Disney's time-share program. New members of Disney Vacation Club are given help with their first reservation, and salespeople can go into Disney's inventory, if necessary, to get a better selection.

About six weeks ago our salesperson promised to help us with our second reservation as soon as we had our dates decided, because we had booked our first reservation on our own.

When we called, we found out he is on indefinite medical leave and were directed to speak with another salesperson about the reservation. The second salesperson said she couldn't help because Disney offers to help only on the first reservation.

We tried to appeal to a supervisor, but she also refused to help. And her tone on the phone was not what one expects of a Disney representative — very negative and condescending. It is not our fault that our salesperson is on medical leave, and we feel Disney should honor what he told us. The longer they delay, the less chance any villas will be available. Can you help us get that magic that we expected from Disney?

— David Willard, Newtown, Pa.

A: Disney's policy may be to give priority to first-time reservations, but it is not something that is openly promoted, as far as I can tell. Nonetheless, if your time-share salesman promised you could use your first-reservation credit on your second reservation, it's something Disney should make good on.

I've attended the Disney Vacation Club presentation here in Orlando, and it's a pretty impressive program. Disney offers a lot of properties, and the rates were reasonable enough that I even considered buying in. Why didn't I? Like a lot of Americans, I don't have nearly enough vacation time to use it.

The problem with the agreement you had with your first sales representative is that it was verbal. Of course, you had no way of knowing that he would go on indefinite medical leave just when you were trying to make your reservation, but what happened to you underscores the importance of getting absolutely everything in writing.

Even a brief email from Disney, agreeing to help you with the second reservation, would have prevented this from taking away the magic of your vacation. If you didn't have something in writing, you could have started a paper trail — or in your case, an email trail — with your request. Disney would have been compelled to respond to you by email, and it may have answered differently (and almost certainly without the attitude you got from the supervisor).

I think the Vacation Club staff you dealt with could have done better, from finding a new salesperson who had been properly briefed on your needs to ensuring that all of the promises he made to you were being kept, even if the promises weren't necessarily in line with company policy. And, of course, there's no excuse for being unpleasant with a customer — ever.

I contacted Disney Vacation Club on your behalf. A representative called you and helped you make a reservation at the time-share you wanted.

Christopher Elliott is the ombudsman for National Geographic Traveler magazine and a co-founder of the Consumer Travel Alliance, a nonprofit organization that advocates for travelers. Read more tips on his blog, elliott.org, or e-mail him at chris@elliott.org.

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Food, family focus of Sorrento class

We arrive for our cooking class in Sorrento, Italy, on Pasquetta, the Monday after Easter — a national holiday celebrated by families throughout Italy. It seems appropriate that today everyone is focused on food and camaraderie.

When we reach the driveway of Villa Ida, we are greeted by Roberta Cuomo, the first member of the Cuomo clan we meet. We follow her along a short path lined with grape vines and fragrant oranges and lemons. She invites us to drink Neapolitan coffee and plum cake around one of the large, round, painted ceramic tables in a manicured backyard that feels like a family room.

My husband, Jerry, lived and worked in Italy for a year before we met, and now, many years later, we are here to feed my interest in Italian cookery and expand his role in the kitchen beyond frothy cappuccino and carciofi alla giudia (Roman-style fried artichokes).

The Cuomos, once a family of nobles, live in a private villa that houses 20 family members in an ocher-colored stucco enclave subdivided into eight apartments. Angela (Roberta's aunt), the capocuoco (executive chef) of the operation, soon joins us. In her late 50s, she speaks only limited English (Roberta is a proficient speaker), but Angela is adept at communicating with a warm smile and seems to understand every comment we make or question we ask. We roll up our sleeves and take up our places at individual cooking stations set up on both sides of a long table next to the outdoor kitchen.

The menu includes a traditional four-course Neapolitan-style lunch using recipes that Angela and her mother, Ida, inherited. First, we make tomato sauce for a pasta dish that layers ziti from nearby Gragnano with baby eggplants and mozzarella cheese. The approach is hands-on, watching and doing.

Following Angela's lead, we marinate capretto (goat) in garlic, oil, vinegar, rosemary, sage, salt and pepper in preparation for roasting. Next she shows us how to flour and fry veal scaloppine. With our appetites growing, we assemble tiramisu for the dessert. Sophisticated looking but surprisingly simple to make, the finished desserts are placed in the fridge.

After we've finished preparations, Angela's brother-in-law "Charlie" invites us to his man cave, a cantina where he stores the wines he makes from seven grapes, including the distinctively sweet strawberry grapes of the area. "I come here with my problems to solve them," he says philosophically. "But when I enter the cantina, I forget them." It's easy to see why. We taste his white wine, red wine, merlot and a combination of red wine and gassosa soda that Charlie calls "babooza." Like the cooking school, which operates only a day or two a week — by appointment — so as not to interfere with family life, Charlie's winemaking operation is also part-time.

Charlie soon coaxes us out of our cushioned seats in the cave to get back to cooking. Two men in our group help him carry jugs of wine to another long dinner table, which is set under a pergolato (pergola). A cantankerous rooster next door is the only distraction, momentarily interrupting the nostalgic crooning of Stevie Wonder and Frank Sinatra over outdoor speakers.

We finally sit down to lunch surrounded by our cooking school adoptive family. The menu, the flavors, the setting and the warmth of our instructors combine for an unforgettable Easter Monday. A few more family members return to the villa, introducing themselves and filling out our table. Angela brings out two additional holiday desserts: a colomba di Pasqua (a Panetonne-like bread shaped like a dove) and a sweeter cake called pastira.

Every cooking class ends with certificates for the newly anointed chefs. I'm not sure my husband will expand his menu at home, but I know that, like me, he has learned two of the most important cooking lessons: Stick to simple recipes with fresh, high-quality, local ingredients, and share meals with friends and family.

If you go

Cooking classes at Villa Ida in Sorrento, Italy, are generally held between 9:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. or between 4 and 8 p.m. There is a minimum of two people and maximum of 20. The price of $185 per person includes the course and the meal. For booking, email villaida@hotmail.com.

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