iTunes match won't sync playlists

Why won't my manual playlist show up on all devices? I recently joined iTunes match and immediately synced all devices. But, my iphone doesn't show the manual playlists, however, the iPad does. Went to the apple store and they said to turn off iCloud, sync each device manually, then turn iCloud back on. They also said, that anytime I want to sync manually (such as movies, etc) that I have go thru this process again. Sounded great in the store...So I started the process of turning iCloud off on the computer and its telling me all my calendar & reminders will be erased...That doesn't sound right to me. So if anyone has solutions, please help.