eticketride
Earning My Ears
- Joined
- Jan 3, 2011
Edit to add: I just realized this is pretty long. If you make it to the end, thanks for reading!
So we loaded up the family truckster this morning and managed to get to Simba 14 by 8:45. Not as early as I had hoped, but still early enough to get our FP's to PP and make a beeline for ETWB before the hordes showed up.
First sign of trouble was a HUGE line that looked like it was for the monorail, so we say, no problem, we'll take the ferry. Whoops, that line was for the ferry; the monorails were down. The ferry line wound all the way back to past the entrance to the monorail. While standing in line, we see the resort monorail starts running, so we hop out of line, verify with a CM that the monorail is a go and we pat ourselves on the back as we depart over that huge ferry line. It was short-lived.
After we pulled into the Grand Floridian, the doors stayed open for a little while. Then it's about 5 minutes. Then it's about 10 minutes and the people that were in line from the resort all turn around and leave. That's a bad sign. A few minutes later, there is an announcement that there is another monorail on this track that is not running, so we may be delayed awhile longer. There goes the express monorail the other way. Cool, looks like they got that working. Then they make another announcement that extra ferry boats are being diverted to here and they will be traveling directly to the gates. So I get out and ask what's up, the CM tells me that monorail isn't going anywhere for a long time and recommends we take one of the extra express boats that are being diverted to cover for the broken monorail. Ok, sounds great.
So we head down to the ferry landing and find this:
Maybe so they couldn't hear anybody complain, this was running right next to the line. When my wife asked if they could maybe move it or turn it off for awhile, the maintenance guy told her he wasn't sure, there weren't usually that many people standing there. That's helpful.
Here's a picture of the extra boats running express. This was actually not that representive of what was usually happening because you can actually see a resort boat in that picture.
The resort monorail started running again around 10 or so. We debated going back to the monorail several times, but it was a damned if you do, damned if you don't. We didn't want to risk getting out of this line and getting stuck on the monorail again.
Finally at 10:26 we got on the boat. Here we are heading "directly" to the MK gates, just as promised an hour ago.
"Wait," you say. "That looks like the Poly." Well, you would be correct. Our express shuttle went to Poly before going back across the lake. By the time we got off the boat, it was almost 11.
My wife went to guest services (another 20 minutes in line) to see if anyone cared enough to sprinkle some pixie dust our way. Instead, the CM flat out expressed disbelief in the story, never apologized for the inconvenience and failed to understand how missing rope drop could severely cripple a touring plan. (By the time we got off the boat, PP's FP return was already 3.5 hours away). She begrudgingly gave two anytime/anywhere fastpasses for the entire party, with no smile or anything else that would suggest the customer service industry was a good match for her skill set.
While I'm at it, we ran into way more rude CMs than not today. And I really do go out of my way to talk to them and be nice because I think Disney is a fun place to be and I want to think it's a fun place to work. We had a couple positive interactions with CM's, but that unfortunately was ruined by way more that think it is ok to yell as loudly as they can, "DO NOT STOP IN THE LINE. DO NOT STOP IN THE LINE. DO NOT STOP IN THE LINE!" (not directed at us) or "YOU CANNOT STOP HERE, THIS IS NOT A PLACE TO HIDE FROM THE RAIN! KEEP MOVING!!" or my personal favorite way to treat a customer I saw today, take the customer's meal receipt, rip it to show it was correct and then toss it back across the counter to them without saying anything. When that happened to the people behind us, I explained to the confused mom that what that whole thing really means is, "Here, let me check your receipt to make sure I have your correct order. Yes, I see that everything is here. Here you go, I hope you enjoy your meal." Seriously, are there just not enough 20 year olds with people skills out there anymore?
Having complained about all that, I will say that we were able to do almost everything we planned on, we just had to juggle some things. The rain held out for the most part until 4 and we were able to work around the monsoon. The two magic fastpasses allowed us to not waste a 2 hour FP on PP, so that freed us up for other rides, and through all of those trials, the kids still had a great time, we have plenty of pictures with lots of smiles, we stayed dry (until they started puddle hopping in the parking lot), we have a couple of good stories to tell about the time it took two hours to get across the lake. In the end, that's really all that matters.
So we loaded up the family truckster this morning and managed to get to Simba 14 by 8:45. Not as early as I had hoped, but still early enough to get our FP's to PP and make a beeline for ETWB before the hordes showed up.
First sign of trouble was a HUGE line that looked like it was for the monorail, so we say, no problem, we'll take the ferry. Whoops, that line was for the ferry; the monorails were down. The ferry line wound all the way back to past the entrance to the monorail. While standing in line, we see the resort monorail starts running, so we hop out of line, verify with a CM that the monorail is a go and we pat ourselves on the back as we depart over that huge ferry line. It was short-lived.
After we pulled into the Grand Floridian, the doors stayed open for a little while. Then it's about 5 minutes. Then it's about 10 minutes and the people that were in line from the resort all turn around and leave. That's a bad sign. A few minutes later, there is an announcement that there is another monorail on this track that is not running, so we may be delayed awhile longer. There goes the express monorail the other way. Cool, looks like they got that working. Then they make another announcement that extra ferry boats are being diverted to here and they will be traveling directly to the gates. So I get out and ask what's up, the CM tells me that monorail isn't going anywhere for a long time and recommends we take one of the extra express boats that are being diverted to cover for the broken monorail. Ok, sounds great.
So we head down to the ferry landing and find this:
Maybe so they couldn't hear anybody complain, this was running right next to the line. When my wife asked if they could maybe move it or turn it off for awhile, the maintenance guy told her he wasn't sure, there weren't usually that many people standing there. That's helpful.
Here's a picture of the extra boats running express. This was actually not that representive of what was usually happening because you can actually see a resort boat in that picture.
The resort monorail started running again around 10 or so. We debated going back to the monorail several times, but it was a damned if you do, damned if you don't. We didn't want to risk getting out of this line and getting stuck on the monorail again.
Finally at 10:26 we got on the boat. Here we are heading "directly" to the MK gates, just as promised an hour ago.
"Wait," you say. "That looks like the Poly." Well, you would be correct. Our express shuttle went to Poly before going back across the lake. By the time we got off the boat, it was almost 11.
My wife went to guest services (another 20 minutes in line) to see if anyone cared enough to sprinkle some pixie dust our way. Instead, the CM flat out expressed disbelief in the story, never apologized for the inconvenience and failed to understand how missing rope drop could severely cripple a touring plan. (By the time we got off the boat, PP's FP return was already 3.5 hours away). She begrudgingly gave two anytime/anywhere fastpasses for the entire party, with no smile or anything else that would suggest the customer service industry was a good match for her skill set.
While I'm at it, we ran into way more rude CMs than not today. And I really do go out of my way to talk to them and be nice because I think Disney is a fun place to be and I want to think it's a fun place to work. We had a couple positive interactions with CM's, but that unfortunately was ruined by way more that think it is ok to yell as loudly as they can, "DO NOT STOP IN THE LINE. DO NOT STOP IN THE LINE. DO NOT STOP IN THE LINE!" (not directed at us) or "YOU CANNOT STOP HERE, THIS IS NOT A PLACE TO HIDE FROM THE RAIN! KEEP MOVING!!" or my personal favorite way to treat a customer I saw today, take the customer's meal receipt, rip it to show it was correct and then toss it back across the counter to them without saying anything. When that happened to the people behind us, I explained to the confused mom that what that whole thing really means is, "Here, let me check your receipt to make sure I have your correct order. Yes, I see that everything is here. Here you go, I hope you enjoy your meal." Seriously, are there just not enough 20 year olds with people skills out there anymore?
Having complained about all that, I will say that we were able to do almost everything we planned on, we just had to juggle some things. The rain held out for the most part until 4 and we were able to work around the monsoon. The two magic fastpasses allowed us to not waste a 2 hour FP on PP, so that freed us up for other rides, and through all of those trials, the kids still had a great time, we have plenty of pictures with lots of smiles, we stayed dry (until they started puddle hopping in the parking lot), we have a couple of good stories to tell about the time it took two hours to get across the lake. In the end, that's really all that matters.
Some guests can be out of control not ALL. We saw it on our last trip & were appalled of some of the things we saw. I feel for the Cm's nowadays. I believe that you get what you give out to the world. If you give honey you will get honey in return....
They really need to do something about the monorail. I think a two hour wait to get to the Magic Kingdom would have ruined my day.
), and that the CM at guest relations was not much help. I'm glad you were able to keep a positive attitude and salvage the rest of your day!
