disney..... used to be magical :(

[moeyak]

i hate how some things change in this world to the worst after some time of ware and tear.... we went to disney this summer "epcot" it was fun and it looked pretty.... but how did the people working there become so mechanical and rude! as if they were a computer responding to you and didnt have but a few words recorded that could answer with?..... why did the staff become like that?
one incident that i need to share with you, when i tried asking an employee at one of the stores, after saying excuse me as he was looking at something, he didnt respond..... so i wated exactly 30 seconds and said again excuse me sir, you know how he asnwered me?...... he gave me this raised hand without looking at me and waved his hand like WAIT! you know what i mean?????...... ...........................

then another things which makes me hate disney now :( "im sad thats how i feel about it" when i returned an item for a credited gift card THAT THEY ASURED ME I CAN USE ONLINE AAAAND IN ANY Disney STORE NATION WIDE...... it doesnt work ANYWHERE BUT DISNEY PARKS .......... ........ now i have a useless disney parks gift card and i am SURE i wont visit again..... EVER !
and thats the manager who told me this............ after calling and complaining and getting several headaches..... they simply say "im sory we cant do anything since this happend at a disney park".......... ..........
thats just a few of the things that AALLLLLLL happend in epcot in ONE day...... the other 3 days of disney traveling i wasnt with my family i went shopping instead.... at least spending my money in a normal store like the KWIK-MART on the highway they still had much much better customer service than disney.........

wasnt disney magical and hospitable at some time in life? i remember it as being the most magical place on earth at least the people who work there should make you feel happy..... now im starting to think the people who are inside the costumes of mickey and pluto are looking at the kids while making fun of them and their parents :(

[moeyak]

i forgot to add, has anyone else complained about the quality of disney toy products? if so let me know i dont want to think im crazy :(
i feel sad about this whole thing and how it made me feel , i love disney and their movies, i had so many toys from disney when they opened a store in our town everything i had was from that store even my school bag! even book covers! and i had toys from my childhood that i passed down to my nephews and the toys are still in good shape! :( now they are mass made in the cheapest quality factories :( " i dont mean china i love the things from china iv been there and they really are hard workers" it the quality management that sucks now :(

[JulieDB]

You and I apparently have vastly different opinions here. I was given a Disneyland vacation for a graduation from high school gift. Now granted this is not a place I *ever* wanted to go but the visit was far worse than I could have ever imagined. Standing in line for hours in the heat for ride after ride that I had no interest in was not a good time by any stretch of the imagination. For me there was nothing magical about it. The only thing I wanted to see was the fireworks and they didn't have those on the night we went.

[434Teresa]

I have been 4 times now and I dont see that it has changed that much. I was not a child any of those times tho. If you went as a child you may have saw it threw different eyes than you did this time. The pices keep going up and now you cant eat at many places unless you have an apt(which I think it crazy for parks to do). The lines where always long and the works have always been kind of rude I guess from being so busy and dealing with sooooo many people in a days time.

[Abbybob]

OP- I've never been to Epcot, but we live about 75 minutes from D-land and before Little Man was born, we had annual passes and went once a month.

I love disneyland, but I've heard Epcot isn't as good. It's bigger and there is less quality control when it comes to hires, etc.

I would contact Disney directly: Contact Us | Walt Disney World Resort There is a choice on the drop down, "My recent Walt Disney World Visit Questions and Comments". If you still have your receipt from your purchases, it will have the cast members name on it.

[Macaela25]

OP, I want to point out that WDW in Orlando has 35,000+ employees....to say that all of those employees are rude, short, etc. is painting with a pretty wide brush. And the characters making fun of parents? To whom? Sorry, I just think that's a little strange and/or paranoid to assume something like that.

I've lived 45 minutes from WDW my entire life and have been to the parks and resorts literally hundreds of times...the most recent being a few days ago. Disney cast members are HUMAN BEINGS. I know...I'm married to one, a sibling to another, and friend to dozens more. They got hot, tired, cranky, aggravated, have bad days, have feet that hurt from standing on them for hours and cheeks that hurt for smiling for hours. Most of the time they can "make magic" through the rough spots, but they also get cursed at, spit on, shoved, puked on, pulled on, grabbed, and run over by countless strollers and ECVs. They have to deal with theives who descend on the shops in mobs and steal thousands of $$s in merchandise in minutes, scammers who think they can trip on a sidewalk and get a huge settlement, and answer "What time is the 3 o'clock parade?" 596,2456,213,259 times a day. Through all this they have to smile, laugh, and be magical for on average $7.50 an hour.

And why are they so "mechanical" with canned replies? Because Disney is so rigid and obsessed with guest satisfaction that there are literally hundreds of rules governing exactly what a cast member can and cannot say or do. You can be fired for saying "I'm sorry", or "No". You can be fired for looking directly at a guest, but yet also fired for NOT looking directly a guest, depending on the situation. You can be required to refer to a child as "prince" or "princess", but can also be fired for getting it wrong and calling a boy with long hair "princess".

I don't mean to berate you personally OP, but you really hit a raw nerve. 95% of the people who work in the parks and resorts work very hard for very little money, and for the most part do it because they love what they do. Once in a while someone, somewhere is going to have a bad day. My family and I stayed in a cabin in Ft. Wilderness this past weekend, and all the cast members we came into contact with (several dozen at least) were wonderful, friendly, and helpful...except one. The older lady in charge of the pony stables who coordinated the rides was a bit thorny and brusque. Maybe it was her personality, maybe it was the responsibility of taking care of tourists and small children around animals that can bite, kick, and step on you...I dunno. It doesn't matter...my kids had a great time and I smiled and thanked her for her help...maybe that helped her day go a little better. I know the last thing I want to do on a Saturday morning is convince yet another British tourist that baby Darling is obviously nowhere near two years old and not big enough to ride the pony, and that big brother Bruiser is way over 150 lbs and is going to break the poor pony's back.

LOL...I guess I've ranted enough for awhile. The gift card thing is aggravating OP, but call and try to straighten it out with the info on your receipt. And as for cast members....cut them some slack.

[Macaela25]

I love disneyland, but I've heard Epcot isn't as good. It's bigger and there is less quality control when it comes to hires, etc.

I'd like to clarify something here....people aren't hired by each individual park or resort. All cast members are hired through one central "casting" (HR) office and then assigned to a park, resort, backstage, etc. Cast members are extremely versatile and often work in several different parks, resorts, or positions within a given time....characters especially.

[cupunlvr]

I have a completely different opinion. I LOVE Disney World! We live about 2 hours away and have seasonal passes. We try to take a weekend get-away every few months. Maybe you are focusing on the negative so much you can't see the positive? No vacation or theme park is going to be absolutely perfect every minute all day, it just isn't reasonable but Disney gets it pretty darn close most of the time!

[momof2inohio]

We have gone to Disney World almost every year since my kids were born. We love it. We usually go in January and February. It is way less crowded so the lines aren't too bad. Plus now that they have the fast passes for most of the popular rides, it makes it even better!

We didn't make reservations for any of the restaurants when we went. It was off season so we didn't have to wait long. You take your chances going in Jan/Feb. A couple of years it rained a couple of days but we still had fun. One year we had to buy coats and hats because it got really cold. But most of the times we went during that time the weather was fine.

Oh and we love Epcot! It is not really for the little kids since there is not as much to do to entertain the little ones but my kids are 9 and 12 and they love going to all the different countries and eating at the different restaurants.

[joshmamabear]

I, too, love WDW; have loved it since I was a teen and I'm old now

We take every chance to visit when schedules permit. I'm more dazzled than my kids each time we visit I love all 4 parks and we take 2 days on each when we visit. We have never shopped @ any of the concessionaire stores and I'm glad my kids understand why we don't need all those souvenirs to take home and gather dust; for souvenir shirts, we're satisfied with the ones we buy @ Target.

I guess it depends on how one looks @ it, the magic of WDW is in the eye of the beholder and I hope I continue to feel/see/touch the magic each time we visit